Bushcraft skills and tips

[Blood Trail]

Bushcraft has been a major interest to me since my days as a Marine. It’s fun to get out in the woods from time to time and put them skills to use. You find what works and what don’t. Even in my failures (fish traps, snares, etc), I still learn valuable lessons.

Anyway, here’s some fire starters I’ve been making for a while. I always keep a tin of these in my backpack. A dime sized piece burns for a couple of minutes and all it takes is a spark to light it.

1. Go to the store and pick up a pack of these cotton, round makeup disks yer wives and girlfriends uses:




2. Take two jars with Vaseline in one and crayons on the other. Place them in a pot with a couple inches of water to create a double boiler to slowly melt the crayons and Vaseline.




3. With a long pair of tweezers, dip a cotton disk in the Vaseline first. Make sure it’s good and saturated. Then, dip it in the melted crayons. The Vaseline acts as a fuel and the cotton is the wick, allowing it burn longer like a candle. The wax coating waterproofs your fire starter/tender. Once done, put them on some wax paper and let the cool.



4. Once they’re cooled, I store them in empty snuff cans. They’ll keep forever and there’s no expiration date.


Give it a try. Works great!

Y’all got any bushcraft tips to share?


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[White Falcon]

Great.

[Texas Grown]

Interesting. First time I've seen that one.

The fish are biting, and there's hogs to be kill-t. Gotta go!

[Chew]

You're not a true Marine....or you would have eaten the crayons first.

Nice job Leon. I dabble in this stuff myself. Use dryer lint as a base.

Also made a friction fire with bow and drill (my Esee knife has a divot to use for the drill).

[Blood Trail]

You're not a true Marine....or you would have eaten the crayons first.

Nice job Leon. I dabble in this stuff myself. Use dryer lint as a base.

Also made a friction fire with bow and drill (my Esee knife has a divot to use for the drill).

It was a 200 pack. [emoji16]

Between the fire saw and bow drill, those are what I’m best at when making fires.


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[Charrison]

Good stuff.
I always carry a package of Fritos. They are awesome fire starters, burn slow and even and double as a snack.

[El General]

Good thread.

[Brute Killer]

Great idea!
I like the 'Survival Russia' channel on YouTube.
A Danish army vet that lives in Siberia, in tha taiga (huge forest).
Check him out.
Be aware that he has a lot of 'homestead' content, as well.

[Brute Killer]

Question.
Do you just throw sparks on the disc as is, or do you have to break up the wax first?

[sharpshooter1]

I use dryer lint and Vaseline in an old .22 bullet box. The plastic ones that slide open.

[Prairieboy]

Candles wax and saw dust or wood shavings make pretty good fire starters( used mini muffin tins to make them). Not really Bush craft but growing up we carried large pill bottles filled with fat pine shavings and some strike anywhere matches in our hunting and hiking packs.

[Katch66]

I've done something similar. Soaked cotton balls in petroleum jelly and stuff them in a medicine bottle. Pull one out, light it and it burns for a good while.