Thursday, April 7, 2011

Zippo Emergency Fire Starter


OK, I will be honest here. I bought this little baby more for the cool factor than anything else. When my wife and I visited the Zippo/Case factory and museum in Bradford, PA. This was my souvenir. The Zippo Fire Starter.
I really thought that this would be nothing more than a cute toy, something that I would put in a case with my zippo lighters and forget about. But...
I started playing with it and have decided that I love this little thing. I am sure most of you are familiar with the Spark-Lite fire starter, it has been a standard of the military and survival folks for one hand fire starters since the 80`s. Well, the Zippo Fire Starter owes homage there. Instead of the familiar plastic box with several tinder-quick tabs and a separate one handed sparker you get a piece of solid zippo construction that begs to find a home in you pocket.


Encased in the body of a Zippo Blue lighter is a great one hand sparker and 4 easy light waxed tinder strips that are are very reminiscent of Tinder-Quick tabs but are longer and narrower.
I have found that these can be used almost like a match. Start them burning, get your tinder pile going then put out the tinder strip. Cut off the burnt end and you can easily reuse the remainder.
All this in a nice little package that was made for pocket carry. Its size and feel make it a natural to drop into your pocket when ever you head into the field.
Just to make it even sweeter you get that awesome and unmistakable zippo " click!" when you open it:)

Friday, April 1, 2011

Tinder Box

I have been thinking about Tinder Boxes lately.It seems that when ever you read a story, fiction or non-fiction, that takes place in a nonindustrial age the one prime piece of kit that seems important to everyone is a Tinder Box.
Whether its the angst ridden protagonist searching for treasure in a fantasy novel or Lewis and Clark searching for the northwest passage a tinder box is the one thing they either steal or buy before heading out on their adventure.
From what I can gather this tinder box usually contains; flint, steel, charred cloth, and maybe other natural fiber tinder
Pretty simple really but when out in the wild its probably the single most important piece of kit, well except maybe a knife and neither of the the a fore mentioned folks would leave the house with out a blade right?
These days the tinder box has been replaced with matches or a lighter, not bad really but I think its shortsighted. What if the lighter fails? the matches are wet or you just use them up too fast?  Having dry tinder and maybe something to generate a spark to hand  is not a bad thing.
I decided to put together my modern take on a tinder box. Its a mix of old technology and new but I can start a fire with it as long as I can fine wood to burn.

Thoughts and suggestions any one?

My Modern Tinder Box
  1. Small Otter Box
  2. Some fat wood
  3. Steel Wool
  4. Cotton wadding
  5. Spark Lite tinder
  6. Several feet of juts cord
  7. Patch of leather to stop rattling and to move a coal from one place to another
  8. Very small fire steel*
  9. Very small knife*
* These are not my primary ignition source. I carry them in this box strictly for emergency use. My primary ignition source is a Swedish fire steel that lives in my pocket and my knife.