Homemade fire starters...on the cheap.

Exactly what I’m aiming for!

 

First impression, not impressed.

I lit 3 of them in the grill to get the charcoal going. When I came back after 5 minutes only 1 was still burning. Not a particularly breezy day.



I added 3 more and re-lit them. That worked but it really should have only taken two or three.

 

So you used 30 matches?
Seems a little much.

 

The matches were garbage but yes it’s overkill.

 

Dixie cups are doing a fine job

 

i cheat , used mineral spirits and dry rotted wood cut into 3" x 1 x 1 or so pieces on band saw, toss pieces in bucket liberal application of mineral spirits. +no time to scrounge old candles ect and buying wax - too much cost. The spirits are from my parts washer- used in cleaning saw blades and sometimes chains. the pieces get stored in a coffee can( real can not the cardboard or plastic ones)takes about 15 minutes to make 3 coffee cans full.

 

Brings back memories. My dad used to bring home gallon jugs of mineral spirits from work to light the Kingsford charcoal in the Weber kettle grill and burn trash in the barrel.

 

A few weeks ago I dumped a crock pot full of hot wax into some saw dust. So I have been chipping off some wax dust, putting an inch in a Dixie cup and lighting up. Seems to work well and I can add as much or as little as I want.

I would have added it in the cup while it was still warm but I didn't have cups at the time of manufacturing.

I tried some muffin cups too but those were very large and very messy.

 

2nd run on the wax coated corrugated cardboard with matches. Set them sideways this time to try and get the wax burning faster. Helped a lot. If I did these again I think I’d submerge the entire piece of cardboard and the match heads. There’s a gap between the match heads and the wax now that may be causing these to stall.

Still nowhere near a couple pieces of Supercedar…

 

In case anyone wants to know what a box of 100 unwrapped Supercedars look like…

 

That's a lot of fire starting

 

Between the masonry heater being fired twice a day and the Jotul once a day I sometimes start 3 fires a day so they will go pretty quickly. I had a part time job that got me free newspaper but have long since let that go. These are so much better!

1/4 Supercedar this morning on 4 splits of red oak and shagbark hickory with 2 pieces of pine kindling.

 

Trying some new glass cleaner soon too…

 

Just a little hack for matches in the event you ever want to try and get a little more kick out of them. Melt a ping pong ball in acetone until it's a gooey consistency and then dip the match head in the solution. Let it dry and then you'll have a much more potent match (it also works great for waterproofing your matches). One melted ping pong ball goes a long way and if the solution ever hardens in the jar, just add more acetone.

 

Unused envelope stuffed with paper scraps and 15 pumps of nasty hand sanitizer we got last year. Worked surprisingly well.

 

My egg carton starters didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. Ended up using 2 or 3 per fire with a couple sticks of kindling. Dixie cups work MUCH better with shredded paper.

 

Found some new Swedish matches at Meijer this weekend. Smoother striking with none of the flaming bits I’ve experienced with the Diamond green tips so far.

 

I can hook you up with hardwood shavings from the lathe if you wanna try them. No need for re-grinding. I keep a bucket full of fine stuff just for firestarters.