Making kindling

Use an inner tube and a froe. Watch the video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZPvLpexXFw about 2 minutes in.

-- Brandy

This post made me think of a story. Don't know if it's true or a myth, but here goes...

Some Peace Corps-type volunteers were trying to educate a tribal people in the tropics about the dangers of overpopulation and the role that condoms could play.

Not knowing the language, they demonstrated how they work by putting them on blunt sticks.

Imagine their surprise when they later returned to the village to find blunt sticks stuck in the ground in front of every hut in the village with rubbers unrolled on many of them.

When I am splitting real small stuff that wont stay up on its own, like 2x4s for kindling, I just lay it down on its side. You dont have to split straight grained wood from the top down. It splits just fine hitting it on its side. You just have to hit a little harder and have good aim.

LOL I guess I spoke of the Devil.

A few months after posting that, I was making kin'lin and don't know why I wasn't wearing my leather gloves, but put a nasty cut on my index finger.

Small fast kindling starters - visit construction sites where homes are being 'stick built'.
There are usually piles of dimension lumber ends 4-6 inches long laying around that they
pay to dispose of. Ask first, though. Once I asked and they said the homeowner needed
to approve if I could have the ends. Next day, they were burning them up in a pile to
be rid of 'em.
Split 'em with a hatchet - holding them with a channel locks pliers: save your fingers.
Get tiny dry match-stick pieces that way. They burn like nuclear fission. Start anything.

+1

I usually try to score scrap dimensional lumber. Making kindling has fell onto the shoulders of my 8 year old boy (by his choice).

So since I am the loving a compassionate father I am and don't want him to lose a finger......................... and he must not falter in his production neery the least, lest he be severely punished

I have rigged him a holding device. I used a scrap piece of plywood and screwed scrap 2x4's to it that are laying on thier sides. This forms a small rectangle that is 2 inches wide, by about 14 inches long.

This way he can put 3 or so scrap 2x4's in the jig and wack the heck out of them with the hatchet, all the while keeping both hands (and all ten fingers) on the handle.



HE LOVES IT!

I would provide rudimentary pictures, but have none at the moment.

This is my kindling.
http://www.amazon.com/Bernzomatic-19425-JT850-Self-Igniting-Outdoor/dp/B00008ZA0F

I can almost always find a piece of wood small enough to put near the front of the stove to get it lit. Inch or 2 thick and you are good to go in 2 minutes or less. In the morning I usually don't have to mess with it cause I have some red coals left from the night before but if not, I use the poker to pull black charcoal to the front in a pile, and then put a small split or to right on that charcoal, then load the stove above and behind those small splits. Then fire up the torch and in a minuted or two I have enough glowing charcoal or a small flame that I can go make my coffee. By the time my coffee is done I have a good fire going.

In the evening if I come home to a cold stove my procedure is something like this.

pull charcoal to front
load stove
put coaster on mantle
Set my beer down on the coaster
light the torch
drink beer

I have timed it and I can often get the fire going in 1 minute but 2 is more common. When I'm standing there with a beer I don't really care. The secret is to keep the torch on the same spot and not try to spread it all around....same spot gets things not only burning but heats up the wood enough that it catches. This procedure also heats up the inside of the stove enough that I never have a draft problem when starting the stove so I almost never get smoke in the house. Small propane cylinders are available from walmart in the sporting good section in 2paks for less than 6 bucks. I might go thru 2 2paks a year. I also use it to burn off weeds that poke up thru my sidewalk.

I put some straight grained spruce splits, in the tire & use the maul.

The big stuff that some folk call kindling I just call splits.

Now this is what I call kin'lin. About as thick as my thumb on average.

I work as a surveyor so I'm always on construction sites and pick up quite a bit of scrap lumber. I normally hold the wood in place with the axe and tap the back of the axe with a little 2lb sledge. I like my fingers too much to take a chance on losing one making kindling.

Here is the pic I earlier mentioned