Charcloth production

[JEEP]

Just a few snaps from this evenings charcloth production at our allotment:

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[AL...]

Love the firepit :)

Cheers
AL

[Roadkillphil]

T^

[Hushwing]

aye nice firepit that. good even spread of the burn on the charcloth - any tips?

[CanadianMike]

Nice, go big or go home, eh Jakob? Lol, this is one of the foulest smelling projects I've done to date that is remotely camping related!

Hushwing, you can make charcloth in any metal container with a small hole (say 3mm) or two in it. I've made small strips of it in an Altoids tin with heating by propane torch, worked great. Secret is to very loosely pack the cloth into whatever tin, and keep checking the off gassing from the holes with fire to see if it continues to hold a flame. If it does, more heating is required. If the flame from the hole keeps going out after a second or so, the charcloth is ready to cool and use.

[paulthefish2009]

Seems a nice way to spend the evening,love the gratuitous knife shot by the way. Paul

[JEEP]

The best advice I can give, is to use 100% pure linen fabrick as base for the charcloth. It chars quite fast and very evenly - as an added bonus, it doesn't smell as bad as cotton, while charring.

[JEEP]

Knife is just there to add some scale ;)

[JEEP]

I'll just post the middle picture again:

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Funny how Tapatalk always seems to manage to mess with your photos.

[Ashley Cawley]

Great stuff Jakob :) Thanks for sharing.

I've always used air-rifle pellet tins, but I think I'll have to try something else because those tins seem to be ok for a good few uses but then warp & develop gaps on me. Any recommendations on other tins? I've never owned or tried a baccy tin, any good for it?

Not forgetting folks, if you're new to making Charcloth there is an article & video back on the main site here:

- http://www.naturalbushcraft.co.uk/camp-craft/making-charcloth-for-bushcraft-and-fire-lighting.html

[JEEP]

The tins I use are of the kind high-end fishing line comes in, one of my colleagues at the store gave me a few

[Hushwing]

Right you lot - I've got a complaint to make! You're giving too many interesting things for me to try - I just had to go and make some char cloth. All advice was extremely useful thanks.
I had bought a tin of hard bolied sweets the other day from Aldi/Lidl/Lidi/Aldl or whatever. 99p - wanted the tin for this task. sweets were actually ok ;). Use my wildstoves woodgas stove to do the burn as i can lower or raise the flame fairly confidently now. and an old 100% cotton 3 year olds-vest-turned-to-duster

before seeing this posting I had made 5 very wee holes in the lid (was working on the principle of a charcoal burner and being able to get an even burn by altering air flow around the burner by closing/opening chimneys). Probably on this scale was probably a bit daft (alright totally daft and unnecessary) but it has sort of worked. Found it burnt quickly and was possibly more prone to flaming if I wasn't careful and kept the fire down. But actually at no time did it get away from me - just lifted the tin off and blew the flames out (happened a total of 3 occasions over 2 burns). I suspect i wouldn't need to quite fuss as much with one hole (oooohh matronnnn). pics enclosed. Did use some of the first batch to re-light the fire to make a second batch, which had a certain poetry to it.

***WARNING*** 1. this is almost as contagious as getting an ember on a bow drill (though that was a long long time ago...) and 2. Do as the guys say and let it cool down before opening the tin - suddenly noticed that an ember had taken hold of some of the cloth and was smouldering away. Just put it back into the tin and turned tin upside down to block the holes.

First burn results
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the smoking pot with 5 chimneys
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the second batch
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[AdrianRose]

Char cloth and flint/steel is my favourite method of firefighting.

I always use denim as the material and an old Tate and Lyle golden syrup tin.

Always works a treat.

Ade.