Primitive Fire lighting Flint & Steel & Fire-Bow Now Promoted By Barnes & Noble.

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Fire Lighting Problem-Not Enough Tinder.

One of the problems I have noticed of late is people having trouble making fire with flint and steel. Either the kindling is damp, or hard to take fire. In either case the problem has been a lack of enough tinder.
Instead of blowing and blowing until all the tinder is spent, add more tinder to your smouldering tinder. This tinder does not have to be prepared, you can just add a plant tinder as is and it will char when in contact with the smoulding tinder you are already using. This will add heat, it will also last longer until the kindling has caught fire.

Uncharred Bracket Fungus added to my tinderbox.

Uncharred Punk Wood added to my tinderbox.

Kelly Briggs. 20 May 18:03 Keith H. Burgess the Primitive Fire Lighting book I bought from you is amazing. http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=Primitive+Fire+Lighting&categoryId=100501

More on Punk Wood.

I am getting a lot of requests of late to explain in detail what punk wood is and what it looks like and feels like.
Punk Wood from all species of trees should work fine as a tinder once charred. Punk Wood is usually of a whitish colouring but it can also be other colours. Punk Wood in trees is Dry Rot and is caused by Serpula lacrymans, which is a wood-destroying fungus. Punk Wood that is completely formed, is light in weight, soft to the touch, and spongy. That is it can be squeezed a little between your fingers.

My wife found this large piece of Punk Wood in the base of a fallen willow tree.

You can spot the white Punk Wood from a distance, this Punk Wood is in the base of a Mountain Gum.

Here is a closer look at the Mountain Gum Punk Wood.

At the back of this tinderbox you can see charred Bracket Fungus. At the front is charred pieces of Punk Wood.

This shows the other side of some Punk Wood pieces that are not charred all over. You only need to char one side in the fire, then smother it in your tinderbox.

 

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Family Fire Bags/Tinder Pouches & Contents.

A Group Member's Video.

My thanks to my good Friend Mopoke for this video, I love it. This is what I did with my own boys all those years ago. What better video to promote 18th century Living History and show what we are about.

Reading Glass Fire Lighting & The Hudson Bay Tobacco Tin.

Making fire with a burning glass or reading glass is easy when using tinder. Plant tinders don't even have to be charred first. But using the Hudson Bay tobacco tin as a tinderbox because it has a burning glass in the lid is not recommended, not by me anyway.
The tinderbox is used to prepare plant tinders. Tinder material is charred directly in the fire & then placed in the tinderbox to smother it. When you want to make fire you simply strike sparks into the tinderbox, hold some dry grass kindling against the smouldering tinder & blow into flame.
If you do this with the Hudson Bay tobacco tin, you will smoke up the burning glass in the lid, & in winter it may crack from the heat of the smouldering tinder. Better I think to carry a seperate reading glass or use specticles if you wear them.

 The Hudson Bay Tobacco Tin.

 Author's reading glass and case.

Author's tinderbox with tinder and a musket flint.

Reading Glass Fire Lighting Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvveEG5yDXc



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You and your readers can save just by adding an item to your cart, between now and Friday, April 6th. Use this opportunity to promote your book or buy more copies for yourself. The cost of this promotion is on us, but only for a limited time, so hurry for your chance to save big! Just add an item to your Lulu shopping cart to see your savings.

Honour & The Sword, & the author's quote on me.

Honour and the Sword
http://www.honourandthesword.com/pages/background/queries.htm
Quote:
One of the foremost specialists in historical fire-making is re-enactment and Living History expert Keith Burgess, whose little book on the subject I have found most enlightening. Keith’s blog can be found here.

Primitive Fire Lighting-Flint & Steel & Fire-Bow. 30% OFF!

Primitive Firelighting
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“Primitive Fire Lighting”, is a hands on guide to how to make fire with flint and steel and fire bow. This includes some history, a variety of methods, tinder plants identification, and tinder production, tips on fire place construction and use, how to prepare and lay a fire, wet weather fire lighting and magnifying glass fire lighting. The skills and methods in this book will be of interest to a wider range of readers including survivalists, historical re-enactors, bush-walkers and campers, historical–trekkers and even historical novel writers. Although the plant identifications list is mainly Australian it also has some information for England, Europe and America.                                          

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Friction Fire. The Fire-Bow. Slightly Different Approach.

For a long time I did not bother to make a video on fire-bow fire lighting, & that was because it has already been done so many times. However, I have noticed how some people have difficulty getting the smouldering ember to ignite the kindling grass (or whatever they use).
I add one other stage to using the fire-bow, that of adding extra tinder. So if you do use the fire-bow, or are learning this method, my video may still be worth watching.

Fire-Bow Fire Lighting.

People have been requesting that I make this video for a long time now, well finally I have got it done. I made this before my hip replacement surgery, and at that time had difficulty getting down on the ground to use the fire-bow. I improvised to make this video by making a platform out of tomahawk target blocks.
The leather thong on the bow which I have been using to instruct others for the past 20 years or so finally broke, and the new thong I used for this video stretched during the making of this video. I decided not to stop, because these things can happen to anyone and I wanted to show that it can still work. I tightened the leather thong by gathering the slack in with my fingers and completed the fire making process. So here it is.
Please note that my method differs slightly from other peoples methods by the fact that I use an extra piece of plant tinder to transfere the ember in the tinder dust to the kindling.

This is just one of the videos available on my latest DVD, Primitive Skills 2.

Flint, Steel, and Tinderbox Fire Lighting. My First you tube Skills Video.

Many times over the past few years I have been asked to produce some skills videos. Well now I actually have a video camera, so here is my first skills video.
Not only is the tinderbox used for making fire, but it is also used for preparing charred tinder. The tinder is simply charred directly in the fire; I stuck a piece of punk wood on the end of a two tine fork and held it in the fire until the surface was charred. I used this same piece of charred punk wood in the following fire lighting demonstration. After the tinder is charred, simply place it in the tinderbox and close the lid. This will smother the smouldering embers.

Laetiporus Portentosus

I have been studying photographs of various Australian fungi, and have come to the conclusion that the type I mostly find in the forest here is Laetiporus Portentosus.

Laetiporus Portentosus

This fungus makes an excellent tinder once charred. But the dust produced by the beetle that eats this fungus will catch a spark as is without charring.

Other types of similar fungi in Australia are: Ryvardenia Cretacea, and Piptoporus Australiensis.

Tinder Fungi.

I have always said that the name of something is not important, what is important is that you recognise something when you see it. I have been researching plant tinders for a long time now, and the more research I do on tinder fungi, the more confused I get. So here are some images of fungi that can be used as tinder, whether they are the same fungus or not I can no longer tell, but so long as they all work I don't see that learnoing the Latin names is going to help. Ryvardenia Cretaceus or Piptoporus Cretacious or Laetiporus Portentosus or whatever! 

The same fungus after the beetles have eaten into it. The dust produced by these beetles will catch a spark without the need for charring.

If there is anyone that can tell one from the other, please feel free to enlighten me!

18th Century Multi-Purpose Equipment. Making Fire.

The lock on my flintlock fusil can be used to make fire, by placing tinder in the pan instead of gunpowder and going through the procedure for firing the gun. Sparks shower on to the tinder, and the smouldering tinder is tipped into a dry grass kindling nest and blown into flame.

Also gunpowder (black powder) can be used to make fire by rubbing a little into some unprepared tinder or even your handkerchief or neckerchief, you can then strike sparks onto this to make fire.

Unprepared tinder stored in a powder wallet/bag will absorb gunpowder dust, and this too can be used to make fire.

My greased leather gunpowder wallet.

18th century Wilderness Survival. Then and Now. Making Fire.

I am constantly seeing video clips of people making fire with what they call "flint and steel", but in fact they are not flint and steel, they are using a "ferral rod" (my term!). I also note that they are using such things as vasaline impregnated cotton wool, and strips of innertube rubber!!!
It is not so much that these methods do not work, they do, but what happens when the cotton wool and rubber strips run out?
The reason I advise using the real flint and steel, is because in learning this method you will learn a lot more about plant tinders, wet weather fire lighting, and fire lighting in general. The knowledge you gain from using flint, steel and tinderbox will enable you to be better at survival fire lighting even when using matches of a lighter or even the "ferral rod"!

Author's brass tinderbox and early 18th century steel.

The open tinderbox with charred tinder, uncharred tinder and a musket flint.

The author's greased fire-bag, containing tinderbox, and a little kindling such as dried grass and twigs.

The author's belt pouch in which he carries his fire-bag, steel, a beeswax candle stubb for lighting and placing under damp kindling, and fishing tackle. The steel is tied to the buckle of the pouch, you can just see the leather thong in this image. The steel is permanently tied to this belt pouch so it will not get lost. When sparks are caught on the tinder in the tinderbox, the steel can be just dropped without fear of losing it and the kindling grass can be held to the smouldering tinder and blown into flame.

The author's gunpowder wallet or bag. These are used for carrying extra gunpowder in the knapsack, but when empty they can also be used for storing spare tinder.

“ takes fire readily from the spark of a steel: but it is much improved by being kept dry in a bag that has contained gunpowder.”

Samuel Hearne, Northern Canada, 1772