Homemade fire starters

I know many of you make your own fire starters. Care to share how you make them?

 

It's on my to do list still...

Paraffin wax and shavings from my planner in cupcake wrappers.
I pack a wrapper in a tin full of chips, while heating paraffin, pour enough wax till it's all mostly wet. Don't ignite the paraffin.

 

After 3 years, the bark on birch starts getting loose.
Select a good one &
Peel strips

 

Thank you. Do you use mini cupcake holders or normal size?

 

Paraffin/planer shavings/mini cupcake cups here, too.
They work great.

 

There's a bunch of posts on here, but darned if I can find much.
Here's how I do it (make firestarters)........
Buy a dozen eggs (or, several dozenif you want) in those formed cardboard holders, then eat the eggs. Yum.
Once the carton is devoid of eggs, fill with sawdust while wax is melting in a double boiler.
Once wax is melted, pour into egg carton filled with sawdust.
Let cool, and then dump extra sawdust into a sawdust box or outside.
Stack the cartons on a table in the stove room, and hope the dogs don't find 'em.
I was buying Gulf Wax at the Wally, but we've found so many old candles at garage sales, I don't do that anymore.

 

I used the mini-cupcake thingies last year and found they don't burn well, or very long (for me). I made about 150 of those little buggers.
Back to the egg carton method this year.

 

What happened to the



moto ?

 

Much better

 

Taskmaster.

 

Do you do some "noodling" on a dry round to get good long wood chips ?

 

That's all I have this year. Hard to find eggs in the cardboard containers nowadays. Family, Farm, and Home (sorta like a TSC) sells empty cartons.

 

No, those don't fit in the carton easily.
I grab sawdust and planer/TS shavings from the shop.

 

Do you pack it tight or just fill them?

 

I try to pack the sawdust somewhat, then add more. Jon fishingpol uses paper towel tubes instead of egg cartons (don't remember if he also uses cartons). I think savemoney , Larry, uses the mini muffin papers.

 

If you don’t have shavings hanging around you can buy some at T/C. We get it for the chickens I steal some from them to do the egg carton method.

 

Humm that gave me an idea. We have toilet paper rolls, dryer lint, shredded paper and I have an old block of candle wax. Unfortunately no saw dust or wood chips at this time but might be able to get some but will have to dry it though.

 

Supercedars are an option too. Pretty inexpensive if you break into quarters or smaller. I've only tried them once, so I don't have much experience with them.
They're available here on our site in the store. But a hoodie while you're there.

 

Normal size, I try to smush/pack them the best I can. They don't look as pretty as super cedars but work pretty good. I dont know if it makes a difference but I use a high-ish btu hardwood like sugar maple.