Great fire starters what do ya’ll thank

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cornbread

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Nov 16, 2006
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Great fire starters what do ya’ll thank


This sound like it would work what do ya’ll thank?

Take lava rocks, out of the grill, and put them in a bucket with lamp oil.

Then each morning, take one of the lava rocks out lamp oil Placing it in the wood stove with other starting material (wood), it should work like a charm, And when the fire went out take a pair of thongs, and hoist the lava rock out, let it cool off, then put it back in the oil lamp bucket, ready for the next day.
 
Could work, give us a report after you have a few test runs!
 
Essentially that is a Cape Cod Firestarter. Ought to work. Has been for a couple of hundred years. Genuine Cape Cod starters have a container that holds the pumice and oil and you can pluck it out after the fire gets going.

Of course I have always found that a piece of paper and a handul of kindling gets'er done just fine.
 
cornbread said:
Great fire starters what do ya’ll thank


This sound like it would work what do ya’ll thank?

Take lava rocks, out of the grill, and put them in a bucket with lamp oil.

Then each morning, take one of the lava rocks out lamp oil Placing it in the wood stove with other starting material (wood), it should work like a charm, And when the fire went out take a pair of thongs, and hoist the lava rock out, let it cool off, then put it back in the oil lamp bucket, ready for the next day.

Aren't thongs combustible? :red: I'd think a pair of BVD's might give more protection from the heat, or possibly even a stove mit! :lol:

More seriously, it might work, but I should point out that most (all?) stove makers advise against using flammable liquids to get a stove started, while your idea isn't quite that, I'm not sure the results are worth the potential fire risk. Paper and kindling have always worked well enough for me that it doesn't sound tempting at any rate.

Gooserider
 
BrotherBart said:
Essentially that is a Cape Cod Firestarter. Ought to work. Has been for a couple of hundred years. Genuine Cape Cod starters have a container that holds the pumice and oil and you can pluck it out after the fire gets going.

Now all ya need to make it authentic is some whale oil.
 
I like a hot Thong.
 
Cool idea, but can you imagine dripping oil on the rug/carpet/brick in front of the stove? Ugh...

Its pine cones for, they work the best to restart after a nights burn.. Nothing I've found is cheaper, more available less messy or more effective..
 
When I was in the Boy Scouts we came up with all different types of fire starters. In a stove I don't really see the need for one. It has a draft to help get things going and your wood is dry. When we were camping, it was open fires and whatever wood we could scrounge. The easiest and best fire starter I ever used was very simple to make.

Take some corrugated carboard. Cut it into 2" by 8" or so strips. Roll it up and tie it with a string. Make about 20 of them and then dip them in wax. Works like a charm. The one I always carried with me was similar. I took an old dog food can, one of the small ones, about the size of a tuna fish can. I then rolled up a piece of cardboard that was almost as tall as the can and put it in the can. Then I filled it with wax. I used the dog food can because you can get lids for them. Lighting it was like lighting a hundred candles. The whole thing put out a flame that wouldn't blow out. After I got the fire started I smothered the can, let it cool and put the lid back on it for the next time.

Another really good idea I came up with a few years ago involves trick candles. You know the ones you put on birthday cakes and they keep relighting? I have citronela candles on the hot tub and occaisionally a strong breeze would blow them out. I drilled a little hole in the candle and put one of the trick candles in it. Now when the breeze blows it out it relights on its own.
 
Another surprisingly effective improvised light source, good when you want a campfire effect and they won't let you have one, is a "sand candle".

Get an empty beer can or other similar sized can and cut one end out Fill it about 3/4 full of the driest sand you can find. Dump about 1/2 a can worth of gasoline into the sand, the idea is that the sand should be fairly well soaked, but there should be NO liquid gas visible in the can.

Light, preferably with a match that you can drop in the can or other method that keeps your hand out of the way.

Unlike burning straight gas, this is reasonably safe - the sand acts to keep the fuel cool so that only a small amount vaporizes at a time and controls the air so that only the fumes at the surface of the sand layer can burn. With good sand, you can get about an hour's burn time...

Gooserider
 
Quite a few bbq cooks start their chimney starters (a container with air holes and filled with charcoal) with newspaper and cooking oil sprinkled over the paper. The oil makes the paper burn a lot longer and is a pretty "Green" idea. Give it a try.

Stickburner
 
save your chainsaw sawdust , mix it with a little veggie oil or similar and spoon it into a small square of wax paper tie with thread, works just fine , and gives you a use for the mound of chainsaw spoil after cutting lengths to size. you can leave these in the fire as well so it saves burning up the underwear drawer ;)
 
I was wondering about this (and this from a guy who has never lit a stove fire) if you could take one of those sawdust firelogs and slice them into round pieces if that would be a good way to start a stove fire. this is similar to the cardboard and wax dipping? or will the logs just crumble.
 
stoveguy2esw said:
save your chainsaw sawdust , mix it with a little veggie oil or similar and spoon it into a small square of wax paper tie with thread, works just fine , and gives you a use for the mound of chainsaw spoil after cutting lengths to size. you can leave these in the fire as well so it saves burning up the underwear drawer ;)

"or similar" = Used motor oil? THAT's how he knows! ;-)
 
Blkbeard said:
I was wondering about this (and this from a guy who has never lit a stove fire) if you could take one of those sawdust firelogs and slice them into round pieces if that would be a good way to start a stove fire. this is similar to the cardboard and wax dipping? or will the logs just crumble.

That's what I do. works great
 
waxed cardboard works great. I get it from the vegatable store.
 
i take those compressed firestarting sticks (like a mini version the fire log mentioned above) and break each one into about three pieces. just a tiny piece plus kindling works great. i suggest breaking them up in advance when its warm and they are soft. never fails, i store them in the garage where its 10 degrees and breaking them up as needed is a bigger pain. maybe this year i'll bang out a winters worth in advance nice and neat with a band saw or something.
 
I got tired of emptying my shredder into the garbage so I now use the shredded paper as fire-starter material. I grab four large fist fulls of the confetti-like shredded paper from the shredder basket, throw it onto the ashes, pile some smaller wood peices on top of it and then more wood on top of that and then light it off.........works well and does two things: 1) gets rid of the paper and 2) saves landfill space........
 
When I was a kid we used to use spent birthday cake candles in a brown paper bag. I'm the youngest of 15 kids so there were always plenty of spent birthday candles around.

We rarely had to relight during the winter though...the two stoves were a major suppliment to the gas furnace and they would run around the clock about a month at a time...although we could not do this with the old Franklin stove.

Right now I just use newspaper and kindling. It occurs to me that a bag full of matchlight charcoal briquets would probably get you through the winter just fine.

I like the chansaw dust idea...sounds suspicously like homemade nepalm though.
 
Fifteen kids? I bet your folks didn't bother buying a wood splitter. I'm the youngest of six and I know all about child labor.
 
castiron said:
I got tired of emptying my shredder into the garbage so I now use the shredded paper as fire-starter material. I grab four large fist fulls of the confetti-like shredded paper from the shredder basket, throw it onto the ashes, pile some smaller wood peices on top of it and then more wood on top of that and then light it off.........works well and does two things: 1) gets rid of the paper and 2) saves landfill space........

I knew sooner or later Cast and I would have something in common.. lol

I use the shred to light the wood fired boiler, best way I've found yet.
 
What do you do with the shredded paper in the summer? Is there no paper recycling in MA or Ohio?
 
castiron said:
I got tired of emptying my shredder into the garbage so I now use the shredded paper as fire-starter material. I grab four large fist fulls of the confetti-like shredded paper from the shredder basket, throw it onto the ashes, pile some smaller wood peices on top of it and then more wood on top of that and then light it off.........works well and does two things: 1) gets rid of the paper and 2) saves landfill space........

Not a bad idea, except that I run the occasional plastic item through my shredder - such as expired credit cards. Would that small an amount of plastic be OK to burn?

Gooserider
 
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