The Utah Preppers blog had a post yesterday on making fire starter candles. As I already had melted wax on the stove for making candles, I gave fire starters a try. Here is how it turned out, along with a field test video.
Fill the base of an empty cardboard egg carton with dryer lint
Melt some old candles
Pour the hot wax into the egg carton
Let cool
Cut into separate fire starters
A Field Test
Having never used a homemade fire starter before, it was time for a field test. We lit the fire starter and placed twigs on the flames. We had a couple of false starts when the wind blew out the match. After demonstrating that the fire starter does work, we cleared away the burning wood and examined the fire starter. It was still giving out plenty of flame.
Testing a fire starter
The fire starter successfully gets the fire started
After several minutes, we clear the wood and the fire starter is still burning
Field Test Video
Finally, Be Careful
Ten red starters sitting in the camp,
Ten red starters sitting in the camp,
And if one red starter should accidentally glow,
There’ll be no happy campers sitting in the camp.
Oh man, I just threw away an egg carton and a bunch of lint. Looks like I should start saving them!
There’s plenty more lint where that came from. By the way, that’s a great gravatar you have.
If you embedded a strike-anywhere match head first in the wax then it could be a self-contained unit.
That is a good idea, I will try that next time. I put six of the fire starters I made in a small metal tin with a box of matches.
Those look great. We used to make them and take them winter camping. They sure make starting a fire with wet wood a lot easier. Great for camping and emergencies. Thanks for sending some home with Sarah.
Nice Job! I really like Janseph’s idea, I’m going to have to experiment with that one a bit! I’ve got a few more posts going up on UtahPreppers that shows some other fire starters you can make with paraffin wax.
Maybe embed the match at an angle rather that vertically so that it is easier to pull out.