Recently I was surfing around the Internet and came across a link shared by Survival For Blondes that was about using stuff around the house to make fire starters. It lead me to the instructions on making what you see above and I turned to the mister and said, “Hey, we actually have all the stuff to do this. You want to try it?” He agreed and we were off to making our first homemade firestarters!
All in all, it was extremely easy to make and took less time than writing this article. Egg carton, dryer lint, wood shavings, melted wax. Pretty easy! We used soy wax chips that I bought from Amazon to make emergency candles with so I already had a the pot to melt wax in. We didn’t follow the instructions in the article exactly. How boring would that be!? What we decided to do was test different combinations of the materials to see what would work the best. We tried layering the dryer lint and putting wood shavings on top, we tried mixing them up really well, and then I wanted to try one that was straight lint. We poured wax over all of them as you can see in the title picture.
About a week later we were heading outside to test our Kelly Kettle (watch a great review video here) in adverse weather conditions with less than bone dry fuel. I grabbed one of each type of fire starter we made, too. They were easily torn off from the rest of the egg carton and put into a pocket. By the way, the Kelly Kettle performed very well with wetter materials though it did take some extra work to foster the coals. Back to the fire starters, here are the results:
Layered lint and wood shavings – This combination fired up pretty well but needed some extra protection from the breezes and had to be closely tended. There was more wax in these ones than the other two. Once the lint started catching though, the flame was steady and easier to work with.- Mixed lint and wood shavings – This combination caught fire right away and spread nicely across the top of the ‘cake.’ We ended up taking a stick and breaking it up a bit to help it along (should have done that with the first one too).
- Lint and wax – No doubt about it, this was the best combination of the three we tried. While all 3 lit and burned, this one was superior. Not only did it burn, it burned hot! So hot that it dried out the red cedar we were feeding around it fast enough to catch within minutes and soon we had a very nice little fire going.
The lint/wax starter turned the wood into a nice set of coals relatively quickly which is a plus. The downside? It stinks. Literally, stinks when burning. Not so pleasant but it doesn’t last long and if you look at what it takes to make these and the ease of carrying, lighting, and using them for cooking or getting warm – I think it is safe to say the smell is worth it.
***UPDATE JANUARY 2016**
After using these several times, I’m hooked! These fire starters work really, really well. They burn very hot and once going, burn for a fair amount of time. This is important because you do not have to worry about the fire going out while you are preparing more tinder/kindling or gathering more sticks and twigs to build the fire up. Plus, we live in a coastal area which means that 90% of the time, there is at least some kind of breeze which has resulted in a fragile flame being snuffed out more times than I care to count.
The more we have used them, the less the initial smell bothered me and now I don’t notice at all. Really great DIY project that has real value! We have two of these in every single BOB and EDC bag we carry as well as in the vehicle bag, in various supply caches that are stashed here and there on the island and I will continue to use homemade firestarters as long as I am able to make them!
See the original article here.
Sounds simple enough. Perhaps even I could do it 🙂
Thank you for linking to my post
Thank YOU for the great information. Your blog is great!
Thank you for testing these different ways……I have a million pine cones around and dry them and then wax…..I will try the lint!
I didn’t even think about pine cones! Yes, a little lint tucked in then dipped in wax, brilliance!
If you are anything like me, there’s dog hair and human hair mixed in the lint which probably causes the icky smell. I’ve started just saving the lint from our towels, which seems ‘cleaner’ to me…
Likely true, and I also have long hair. Great idea about the towel lint, I will have to try that myself! Thanks for the comment!
One of the best fire starters I have used is a cotton ball dipped or saturated in Vaseline petroleum jelly. Lights instantly with ferro rod, flint and steel, or a lighter. No smell and one burns for 5-10 minutes. I make up a bunch, and keep them in a ziplock bag. They can be mashed flat for easy storage.
the best fire starter out there is cotton balls and vasoline, period….. no stink, very hot burning and will burn in wet weather.
You made it harder then it really is.
It is one of thousands of ways to make them. It’s also a way to reuse and recycle garbage into something useable. Perhaps it is ‘harder’ than your method but not everyone wants to deal with the vasoline mess and plastic bags. These are dry and easily packed with no worry about getting vasoline all over the place.
If you use fabric softener in your dryer that would also stink, IMO.
The lint alone stinks but who cares if you need to a fire? It doesn’t last long and 99% of the time, you build a fire outside anyway. I’ll happily deal with a little stink in exchange for something that will start a fire and get me warm and dry. Smells better than dumping fuel or oil!
Many years ago Boy Scouts were fought to make fire starters using cardboard, cotton string and paraffin. Cut cardboard into 1″ wide strips by 3-4″ lengths. Place a 2″ cotton string in the middle of a strip. Roll up tightly and secure with a wire bag tie. Dip the roll into the melted paraffin allow it (and string) to soak up the wax. Remove and cool. Makes a great fire starter or emergency cooking source.