Last year my wife got me a package of yankee candle firestarters. It was a small wax paper cup with wax in it, the wick was towards the side. I used the entire box over the course of the season. I liked the ease of setting and forgetting, it was a time saver in times we had to restart or had some mild days when there was no fire. My questions is does anybody make their own, or something simular to this??
I made some using some scratch and dent wax and saw chips/dust. I melted the wax, mixed the wood in and scooped it into a paper towel tube taped on one end. I tamped it down with a dowel and let it cool. Once cooled, peel the tube off and slice into pucks on my bandsaw. This was a clean batch, nicely packed. I do use Supercedars most of the time, but I like to try and see how I do making a batch here and there on my own. Planer shavings work very good, splitter trash and chainsaw chips, not so much.
That's a good looking homemade batch of fire starters! Looks a lot better than the egg carton versions.
Jon, why not leave the tube on? MOHMH, I've been making my own for a while now. Just got done with a batch. Made almost 4 dozen. Found a milk crate full of one pound boxes of Gulf wax at a garage sale that we paid a couple bucks for. Been using that with sawdust and shavings from the shop. I'm running out of sawdust. Time to make some more sawdust.
Don't feel bad Dave. Here is my last batch, or, it is possible a sasquatch defecated out in back of the house. If figure it out when I start it this fall and report back. Splitter trash and saw chips, not so good. I have a bag of saw noodles drying in the shed to try. Why don't I leave the tube on? I like to see how well they packed. A quality control thing. The sasquatch doo-doo probably would have stayed together.
Yes, I take 3 oz paper dixie cups and pack them tightly half full with paper from my office paper shredder, melt old candles from Good Will in a slow cooker I got from Good Will for $7, and fill each cup with about 1.5 oz of melted wax. I also use up saw dust from my table saw to make them. They burn awesome for 12-14 minutes, but I make sure not to engage the cat before they're completely consumed. We rarely need kindling with these as long as we're using dry wood.
Quite the assembly line you got there Brian. I have the equipment, I just need some ingredients. Do you use a wick or just light the edge of the cup?
I just light the loose shredded paper or the edge of the paper cup. I use my wife's Pecan Tassie cookie stamper to pack the shredded paper tight into the cups.
Pinecones are excellent starters, I use them for the outdoor firepit. They aren't around my area so when I walk with the dogs and know they are there I'll bring a bag and collect some.
Ah, hadn't thought they might not have packed well. Sometimes, when I don't put enough wax in the egg carton mix, there's a little loose sawdust in the bottom when I break off a chunk. Those look like Sasquatch brats. Sort of. Or doo-doo. More like doo-doo, actually. As long as they burn, it's all gooder.
I have in the past made homemade wax and sawdust fire starters, they worked fine. The problem is unless you can get the wax for free I don't see that they are cost effective. I get these at Wall mart for $10/ box, sometimes less on clearance. Cut them into small cubes, you get a few hundred, lasts a long time.
That seems like a decent price. I might want to check that out at my local Wally World. I think I'll want to try making my own too, just for the experience and it may be cost effective too.
Once or twice a year I check out the local Good Will, Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul stores and pick out the biggest cheap candles I can find. I've gotten huge triple wick candles for a buck a piece. They make a lot of fire starters. Plus I've got a whole RubberMaid bin full of half burned old liturgical candles we cleaned out of the basement of a closed church a couple years ago. Nice old beeswax candles. The Easter candle stubs had dates going back 40 years.
