In the past, I have generally used a cotton ball with a dab of petroleum jelly as my preferred tinder. During some recent testing, I accidentally got the cotton ball damp. I found out that damp cotton performs very poorly as tinder. This was grounds for some serious thought, since wet conditions are often experienced in the field. I decided it would be wise to try to make a waterproof tinder that could be easily ignited with a ferrocerium rod.
The First Attempt: Cotton in Paraffin
I first tried waterproofing the cotton ball with paraffin. I took a coffee can with an inch or two of water in the bottom, placed a coil of wire in the bottom of the can, and then put the can on a twig stove to heat.
Next, I took an empty pineapple can, placed a bar of paraffin (approximately 5 ounces) into the can, and placed the pineapple can on the coil of wire in the coffee can, making a crude double boiler. I had recently purchased a large number of bars of paraffin at a garage sale for a grand total of one dollar, so I had a good supply. When the bar of paraffin was fully melted, I removed the coffee can from the heat, but kept the pineapple can with the melted paraffin in the hot water. This kept the paraffin can warm and put it at a more convenient level for working with. It also reduced the risk that I would knock both the can and the stove over at the same time.
Next I took a number of cotton balls, immersed them fully in the paraffin, removed them with a long-handled needle nose pliers, and set them aside to cool. I treated 20 cotton balls in this way before I ran out of paraffin. While the cotton balls were cooling, I soaked the end of the needle nose pliers in the hot water to remove residual paraffin from that tool, dried it, and put it away.
A couple of days later, I tested the paraffin balls. They were too hard to break by hand, so I cut one in half with a knife. I had hoped that there would be unsaturated fibers in the center of the ball, but the paraffin had soaked all the way through. I could not ignite the ball with a ferrocerium rod, even after scraping the ball with a knife to try to loosen some fibers. The ball ignited easily with a permanent metal match. One half-burned vigorously for more than eight minutes.
The Second Attempt: Petroleum-Jelly-Coated Cotton Balls in Paraffin
I did a search on the web for “water-resistant tinder”, and found an article about “How to Make Homemade Wetfire Tinder” at tacticalintelligence.net. The article suggested saturating cotton balls with petroleum jelly before immersing them in paraffin. I decided to give it a try.
I coated five cotton balls in petroleum jelly, and set them aside for later use. I then lit the twig stove, put the tin can double boiler over the flame, and melted a bar of paraffin.
When the paraffin was completely melted, I dipped the five petroleum jelly/cotton balls into the melted paraffin, and set them aside to cool.
The next day I tested the paraffin-coated, petroleum-jelly-impregnated cotton balls. I was disappointed. Perhaps I used too little petroleum jelly. In any case, sufficient paraffin penetrated to the center of the cotton ball that I was not able to fluff any fibers, and thus was not able to get the ball to ignite with a ferrocerium rod.Continue reading“My Quest for Waterproof Tinder, by The Novice”
