Primitive Fire Lighting Book. 20% OFF !

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18th Century Fire Lighting. Tinder Too High?! Look On The Ground.

I take regular walks to build up the muscle in my right hip after replacement. This morning I went for a walk up Butterfly Valley. Nothing terribly exciting happened, found fresh wild boar diggings and some bracket fungus tinder.

Way up high on a Mountai Gum, I spy bracket fungus tinder. Too high to try bringing it down. But I look on the ground and find what has already fallen.

These three pieces lay close-by. I took these images without moving from where I stood, so I am guessing they all fell from the same spot.

Enough to keep lighting fires for a long time.

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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.

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

Primitive Firelighting
Purchase Primitive Firelighting or any other title with 30% off with coupon code FEBRUARYCART305GBP.
Lulu incurs the cost of this discount, so it does not impact the Author's proceeds of the book.
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As you can see this does not cost me anything, not that I make much anyway, but I certainly would not want to lose 30% off what I get! So if you think this book could be useful, now is the time to buy. I think the Aussie dollar is pretty high too at this time.

“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.                                          

Tardy of Late! New Images, New Book.

Researching is a lengthy process and never ending. Thinking is like that too for me! I have not had time to post recently because I have been busy photographing equipment and accoutrements for my new book, The New World Woodsman 1700-1760. His clothing, arms and equipment.
Then, as I have aquired more information on period fire lighting we decided to revise my book Primitive Fire Lighting. Flint and Steel and Fire-Bow, and make it a part of the new book. This has meant a lot of extra work, taking photos and transfering photos from files to files! Anyway, here is a peek preview of some of the new images.

A 19th century tobacco box with a burning glass in the lid. I must caution that this item is best not used for preparing charred tinder, or used for making fire in the tin itself, as this is likely to damage the burning glass. This item is often touted to be a Hudson Bay tinderbox, which it is not.



This is my personal fire steel that I carry with me. This is a copy of an original 18th century English steel, made by Mr Glen Mitchell of Pioneer Forge Victoria.

My Spanisg Escopeta flint lock with gold inlay. Note that the main spring is on the outside of the lock. The hammer face is screwed on so it can be replaced.

A tea bag  in my cup!

Plant Tinders.

These videos are also included as part of my Primitive Skills 2 DVD available from me at:
historicaltrekker@gmail.com

Daniel Defoe and Jonathon Swift.

For I had about me my flint, steel, match, and burning glass.



Gulliver’s travels, 1726.

Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745 

Provided with candles and a tinderbox, which I had made of the lock of one of the muskets, with some wildfire in the pan.

Robinson Crusoe. 1719.   


Daniel Defoe.

One of my favourites, a classic adventure story. Robinson Crusoe.

More On Flint & Steel Firelighting.

I have decided to write a little more on flint and steel fire lighting. I just watched a video that showed a chap using flint and steel. I am not going to say that he was doing it wrong, but in my opinion he could have been better prepared and there is a better way of doing it. I will not post this on that site, because in that way lies grief! Instead I will simply post here how I suggest it can be done with better results.

Firstly I strike the steel with the flint, I do not strike the flint with the steel holding a piece of tinder with the flint. The latter method does work & may well have been one of the traditional ways of making fire, but personally I prefer to use a tinderbox.

If you keep your tinder in a tinderbox and the tinderbox is itself kept dry inside a fire-bag, then you can strike the sparks directly into the tinderbox. You can then either take the tinder out of the box and place it in a dried grass kindling nest, or do what I do and simply put the kindling grass to the tinder in the box and blow it into fire. Then you close the lid of the tinderbox and snuff out the glowing tinder.

This is my greased leather fire-bag. This keeps my tinderbox dry, it also contains a beeswax candle stub, and a small amount of kindling.

The tinderbox has another function. If you want to make a lot of charred cloth for tinder then you can use a tin with a lid with a hole in it and use it as a small oven. You place the cloth in the tin, put on the lid with a hole in it, and put the tin on the fire. This is not how it was done originally in the 18th century or earlier, but it does work. When the smoke or flames stop pouring from the hole in the lid, you remove the tin from the fire and plug the hole in the lid with a twig/stick.

Wait until cool and remove the charred cloth.

But when you are using plant tinders in the field, the easiest way is to char the tinder directly in the fire, then place it in your tinderbox and close the lid. Job done. You can even add some uncharred tinder in the tinderbox as it will slowly get charred with use when you strike sparks into the tinderbox and make fire from the tinderbox.