Middle Earth Ranger Forum

...Didn't go so well, haha. But hey, I tried, and I wanted to share the results here.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been hitting my project list hard in an effort to get my kit as 100% complete as possible before this summer's camping season. So far it's been trucking along great - I've done a ton of work on my various "kits-n-bits," if you will, and once I start bringing each one to total completion, I will be posting them here. While attempting to put together my fire-starting kit a little better, I decided (somewhat on a whim) that I finally wanted to try making some char cloth. I had sort of been avoiding the stuff for various reasons, but after seeing Greg demonstrate it for me in person, I couldn't deny its usefulness, so I thought, what the heck?

Unfortunately, my first attempt wasn't amazing, but I'm glad I gave it a shot. Below, I have posted pictures showing what I did, and the results.

I didn't really want to use an Altoids tin or some other obviously-modern container, so I searched around for bloody hours yesterday to find somewhere local that sold plain tin containers, but to no avail. I knew I could just order them online, but I was being impatient, so I finally bought a tiiiiiiiny little "Altoids Smalls" tin, just to experiment with. However, when I was at the local grocery store, I also found a tin containing an interesting looking salve, so I decided to purchase that, then transfer the contents into a new container and use the tin for making more char cloth, once I had gotten the hang of it with the smaller tin.

I now realize that the experiment would have worked a lot better if I had been able to use a better heating element. Something like a gas stovetop burner (I only have an electric stove), a charcoal grill, or even just an open campfire would have likely yielded far better results. Alas, all I had at my disposal was a single candle flame. As you can see, this clearly did not heat the tin container evenly enough, so the resulting char cloth was... dubious at best (useless at worst). Anyway, I did the best I could with what I had (I used a few small scraps of plain, 100% linen I had lying around), but it didn't turn out quite like I had hoped. Here's hoping next time I have a better heat source to work with.

Thanks for sharing! Sometimes I feel like the... less successful experiments can be the most informative.

I've only made charcloth once, because I just keep it as a backup for charred punkwood, but I used the campfire method. The nice thing about using a campfire is that the tin will tell you when the charcloth is done. In a fire, the volatile compounds escaping the tin through the hinge holes (if you use a mint tin) will ignite. When the charcloth is done, it stops releasing the volatile compounds and the little jets of fire go out.

Your charcloth looks like it needed more time, in addition to more even heating. I've never tried using candles, but maybe you could try an array of tea-lights instead of just one wick?

Ha! I recognize that kind of salve formula now!

Anyhow... Yes, what Taurinor said.
Do they take a spark? The darker spots at lleast?

For what its worth, I once had a miserable failure of charcloth that friends finally traced back to fire retardant in the linen.

Next time you're at Lowe's or Home Depot, pick up an empty quart paint can and lid. Put a hole in each end and loosely pack it with your cloth. I use cheese cloth, which works great. Burn it in a fire until there is no longer smoke coming out of the holes. Take it off and plug the holes with a couple of wigs until cool.

Thanks for the feedback, folks!

Yeah, the general consensus seems to be that a single candle flame is simply not enough to accomplish what I was trying to do. I left the tin over that flame for a looooooooooooong time, and flipped it over once or twice, but it just wasn't enough. And that's fine, it's just all I had at my disposal at the moment. Next time I will definitely use a better heat source.

Taurinor, that's an interesting note. I had read that you should see smoke coming out of the vent, and when the smoke stops, the cloth should be ready, but I hadn't heard anything about the little jets of flame you mention. Makes sense tough. I wish I owned some kind of above-ground fire pit or something.

And Elleth, yes, I tested it, and the parts of the linen that actually blackened completely do indeed take and hold a spark extremely well, so that's good. In that regard, the experiment did at least yield *some* useful char cloth, just not much. Also, interesting note about the fire-retardant in the fabric. I'll have to watch out for that. When I get this working a little better I'm going to experiment with different natural fiber contents and densities (for instance, I read somewhere that heavy cotton canvas works pretty well, and will hold a spark longer than something more loosely woven).

And yeah, the salve was a happy accident really. It's not totally "Middle-Earth-appropriate" but it's natural, and it looks like it will be useful on the trail. I certainly could've used it on my trip last July after I scraped my forehead pretty good on a low-hanging branch (luckily my only injury that weekend). I just bought a couple of small round wooden containers from a reenactment shop on Etsy, and I will be transferring the stuff into one of those and using the tin for char cloth once the new containers arrive.

Excellent experiment, brother! (It's an experiment rather than a failure if you learned something, yeah?)

I wonder if the half-baked charcloth you made might still be good? Have you tried it?

One bit of caveat here: the paint on the outside of any of these tins is who-knows-what kind of chemical, and it might be better to let it burn off outside, away from sensitive lungs.

Still, kudos! Looking forward to your next experiment.

Manveruon wrote:...Didn't go so well, haha. But hey, I tried, and I wanted to share the results here.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been hitting my project list hard in an effort to get my kit as 100% complete as possible before this summer's camping season. So far it's been trucking along great - I've done a ton of work on my various "kits-n-bits," if you will, and once I start bringing each one to total completion, I will be posting them here. While attempting to put together my fire-starting kit a little better, I decided (somewhat on a whim) that I finally wanted to try making some char cloth. I had sort of been avoiding the stuff for various reasons, but after seeing Greg demonstrate it for me in person, I couldn't deny its usefulness, so I thought, what the heck?

Unfortunately, my first attempt wasn't amazing, but I'm glad I gave it a shot. Below, I have posted pictures showing what I did, and the results.

I didn't really want to use an Altoids tin or some other obviously-modern container, so I searched around for bloody hours yesterday to find somewhere local that sold plain tin containers, but to no avail. I knew I could just order them online, but I was being impatient, so I finally bought a tiiiiiiiny little "Altoids Smalls" tin, just to experiment with. However, when I was at the local grocery store, I also found a tin containing an interesting looking salve, so I decided to purchase that, then transfer the contents into a new container and use the tin for making more char cloth, once I had gotten the hang of it with the smaller tin.

I now realize that the experiment would have worked a lot better if I had been able to use a better heating element. Something like a gas stovetop burner (I only have an electric stove), a charcoal grill, or even just an open campfire would have likely yielded far better results. Alas, all I had at my disposal was a single candle flame. As you can see, this clearly did not heat the tin container evenly enough, so the resulting char cloth was... dubious at best (useless at worst). Anyway, I did the best I could with what I had (I used a few small scraps of plain, 100% linen I had lying around), but it didn't turn out quite like I had hoped. Here's hoping next time I have a better heat source to work with.

This is NOT how tinder was processed Manveruon. Plant tinders that required charring, including linen cloth, were charred directly in the fire, then extinguished in the tinderbox. Tow rag was charred in some homes, but in the poorer homes & in the woods & wilderness it is more likely that they still used plant tinders.
Keith.
http://woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com.a ... inder.html





http://woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com.a ... e+lighting

Fire was made in two ways. The most common way was to strike sparks directly onto the tinder in the tinderbox, then add kindling to make fire, or use a spunk (sulphur splint/match). The other way was to hold the tinder against the flint & strike the flint with the steel, then add the smouldering tinder to the kindling.


Detail of 15th century alter piece of Joseph using flint & steel.

Interesting info, thanks!

I was just following various tutorials I had found online for the creation of fairly generic char cloth. In the end, I visited my friend Bryan's house and used his propane grill. This time around I used the larger tin, and It worked quite well. I ended up with a nice little stack of completely charred cloth. Now getting a spark to fall onto it and actually ignite while in the field, however, is a different sort of challenge altogether, haha.

Spend a bit of time just practicing getting a spark on the cloth. Charcloth is cheap. As in super-cheap. You have enough linen scraps lying around to supply yourself for years...strike until you get a spark on one, then set it aside to burn out and go to another!

I've found the best way with charcloth is to place it on top of the flint, under my thumb, and fold the top back over my thumb so the sparks are thrown at it.

This is the trick: Once you get good at this, and understand how flint throws sparks, in what directions, you'll be able to throw a spark onto just about anything, from any angle (including charred tinder in an open tinder box on the ground, by striking the steel with the flint floating over the box).

At that point, using charred punk wood or fungus gets a whole lot easier. Until then, while this is new, make a big fat batch of the stuff, and spark away on the couch to a good movie. If you destroy your chunk of flint, I'll send you a replacement.

http://woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com.a ... itive.html

You may find this ebook of some help & interest.
Keith.