Cotton Wool/Vaseline Firestarters

[Paul Doran]

Been making these today and mine are burning a lot longer than they are supposed to. I was genuinly amazed.

I melted 1 teaspoon per cotton wool bit and it burned a solid flame for 11 minutes in my bushbuddy!!!! I thought it was only supposed to burn for2-3 minutes. Are you all putting less in?

One relevant bit of information might be that this was sitting on a large bed of dry ash, therefore there was potentially less air coming up making it burn less intensly and therefore more slowly? However even this was mitigated by the strongish wind (didnt have windsheild up).

Thoughts?

[Keith Selbo]

Paul,

I think you answered your own question. If your "tinder" burned for 11 minutes, a teaspoon is too much.

I don't use Vaseline. I use charcoal lighter, and I find about 1/8 teaspoon (ten drops) applied to a small roll of fiberglass in the bottom of my stove reliably starts dry 1/8" diameter twigs. About 3/16 teaspoon will start them even if they're wet.

I'll bet you'll get the same results with similar quantities of Vaseline

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