Never use Kindling

I'd say my scenario here is more to do with draft than anything else.
If I tried to load the stove with a fire starter and dry wood I may get a decent fire going - never tried though. We get a lot of soaking rain fronts followed by cold low fronts swing from 60's to 30/20;s on a regular basis
When I have outside temps in the 60-50's trying to get a shoulder burn going for a low of 30 in the morning the kindling is key to warming the fire box and getting the flue temp up. I don't want a smoke plume dropping in the yard/valley for 30mins while my wood starts burning. I'm trying to do my part in burning clean

 

Yea
you folks with warmer weather need kindling more than us up north.
if above 40 at night, we usually don't need a fire. House gets warm enough from cooking & day time heat.

20s at night, & 40s in the daytime still,
low slow 24/7 burns for me now.

Snowing right now

 

I generate enough scraps in the shop and trash from the splitter to keep up with my kindling needs, which isn't much. I probably only did a cold restart 10 times this season.

 

I use 2x4 cutoffs out of dumpsters or old hemlock barn boards I scavenge.
Also start the season with a couple 5 gallon pails of noodles and soak them down with the crud that comes out of the bottom of my biodiesel settling tank (chicken fat,frie chunks, fish batter, cooking oil, etc.). A couple sheets of newspaper with an ash shovel full of oil noodles wrapped up and 3 pieces of board kindling will bring the firebox up to blower temp in 10 mins or less from a cold start. Throughout the season I'll sweep the floor in the furnace room and add the bark/slivers/sawdust to the noodle pails.

 

I have made wax and sawdust starters with great success, the trick is in the consistency. You want it a bit crumbly, not too much wax, works as good as a super cedar. Still, wax costs money, and the time involved. At Walmart(Wallyworld), I like the Zip fire starters they sell there. Pack of 6 is 5 bucks, and I break them into 4's. They are made with kerosene. Hard to tell what the solid is, it's a grey cube. Could just be fine saw dust, or newspaper soaked in kerosene. Definitely has kerosene, it's on the label. Gives me an idea - shredded newspaper soaked in kerosene, pressed and dried in little cubes

 

We use a pair of small rounds to hold the kindling up then: In the shop stoves I use my brush burner, 30 seconds heating the inside top of the stoves to help them draft then 30 seconds blowing under the kindling & it is going.

In the house my wife likes her blow torch.