Alternates or Substitutes for Charcloth

[isaac]

Yup... I try to use small pieces. I sometimes have spit on a piece to put it out if I lit a piece that was usable again.

IW

[jbtusa]

Well, finally had a chance to try out Keith Burgess' methodology in his new "Primitive Fire Lighting" book. I found a piece of punky old pine in the woodbox, charred it and let it smoother out in the tinderbox (tin). Then I held a chunk ot if next to the flint like I would a piece of charcloth, hit the flint a couple of times with the steel, and by gosh, the darned thing caught the spark!

Now I will char some more punky wood, fill the tinderbox with it, and be done with charcloth. Finally, an answer to charcloth.

Next will be the same experiment but with bracket fungus. ...Will report...

[Rod]

One thing to think about---these fellows lives depended on being able to make a fire when needed. I'm sure they were familiar with every means of making fire, be it charcloth, charred wood, various fungi, etc. And, knew which materials were suitable for their particular environment. For me, one of the fun things about doing this is rediscovering stuff like that, trying out various likely fire starting materials available to me, and seeing what works and what doesn't.

Rod

[jbtusa]

Now having discovered that charred rotten punky wood works just as well as charcloth for catching the spark, does anyone know how the rocky mountain fur trappers smothered the charred wood, ala the tinderbox? The traders lists and inventories do not mention "tin boxes" or "tins" like we use today which could be used for tinderboxes of the 1820's.

[Mark]

You can use ashes, sand, dirt, anything that will restict the amount of oxygen that feeds the fire. It will all work quite satisfactory. Try it you'll like it.

Mark

[RileyMN]

Jan 12, 2011 7:28:17 GMT -7 jbtusa said:

Now having discovered that charred rotten punky wood works just as well as charcloth for catching the spark, does anyone know how the rocky mountain fur trappers smothered the charred wood, ala the tinderbox? The traders lists and inventories do not mention "tin boxes" or "tins" like we use today which could be used for tinderboxes of the 1820's.

Why would you want to smother it? You are using it to start your fire!

[Chuck Burrows]

The traders lists and inventories do not mention "tin boxes" or "tins" like we use today which could be used for tinderboxes of the 1820's.

Many if not most of the terms we commonly use today were either not used then or they are a variation so one must dig deep into the lists line by line at times........There are some boxes listed as fire steel boxes on the 1836 RMO list for instance. Also there are plenty of tin kettles in all kinds of sizes listed along with lids. Even a tin cup will work.

[jbtusa]

That's what I was thinking. The mtn men could have used their tin cups or tin pots to put the burning char into in order to smother it by covering with a leather rag, lid and/or burying. Those methods would certainly work but that is speculation on my part because I do not recall any documentation in that regard. The char has to be protected and burying it directly in the soil would damage it.

[Rod]

I can't really recall reading of any documentation as to smothering and carrying the char, either. I *seem* to remember something about the use of a horn for this, but I don't remember where I read it---could have been in reference to something the natives used, too---I really don't recall. I use one of those oval brass tobacco boxes to hold my char materials.

Rod

[Mitch]

I've tried the "cloth on a stick" method and it will work....wind some scrap cloth on the end of a green stick,get it burning and then smother it with "DIRT" until cooled.....char doesn't really need "protecting" and will withstand being buried in dirt...just my experiences, you may not be able to reproduce said results ;D

[jbtusa]

Has anyone tried charring by starting punk wood or fungus on fire and then setting it on the ground and smothering with a tin cup or pot over it?

That may explain the lack of documentation on what the western trappers used to make char because there is no mention of tin boxes or tinder boxes on the inventory lists or autobiographies.

[Chuck Burrows]

Yes and it works fine for both charred wood or cloth or whatever. Just scrape the ground clean so it's fairly falt and with out a lot of extra loose dirt, place your embers there, and put your cup or kettle over it with a rock on top to help seal the edges.

One thing to remember when doing any kind of search for these words is the terms we use today may not have been used in the same way as in the past for instance.
Tinder to most folks today is not the same as char, but in period it was according to Webster's 1828 dictionary, whihc was printed smack dab in the middle of the "classic" RMFT period of 1822-1840:

TIND'ER, n. Something very inflammable used for kindling fire from a spark; as scorched linen.

Note that the period definition for tinder in fact includes what we now call char cloth. But even the word tinder only shows up five times via that search engine in the RMFT period literature.
So without further definition when reading the literature they could be talking about any type of tinder...do a search for the various words here and you'll see what I mean:
www.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/search.html

In fact the word char in the dictionary has nothing to do with firestarting and the one of two times it even comes up after doing a search on that site it refers to a fish:
CHAR, n. A fish.

CHAR, n. In England, work done by the day; a single job, or task. In New England, it is pronounced chore, which see. I know not the origin of the word.

CHAR, v.t. To perform a business.

CHAR, v.i. To work at others houses by the day, without being a hired servant; to do small jobs.

A search on the xmission site is by no means a complete one but does give you a good over view as a start - I recommend also searching for related terms such as fire, striker, flint, steel, etc. - for instance Clyman mentions using his gunlock for starting a fire at least twice. He also mentions, as do several others, that making a fire with flint and steel was (and still is - personal experience ) never a 100% guaranteed method, high winds, wet, cold, and lack of good tinder/char are all factors that can prevent one from starting a fire.

[Mitch]

why don't you try a few of the above mentioned ideas and see how they work for you?? there is NO "one way" to make char, make a fire,etc.....Try some of the ideas yourownself and see what you can make work and report back

[jbtusa]

Chuck: Good job with the research and terminology. The terms char, tinder and kindling are so confused these days. My quest is to find how the western fur trappers started fire on a day to day basis, which from lack of documentation, charcloth was not the norm. The AMM have reached this same conclusion too.

Charred rotten punky wood seems to be the answer because it does readily catch the spark from flint & steel, is available in unlimited quantities, is found virtually everywhere and is free. The same would have held true for all the frontiersmen in America. Cloth was too expensive and in limited supply to be burning up to start fires on a daily basis for the guys out on the frontier. I speculate that some charcloth was used, but that charcloth was not the norm.

I could be wrong, but this seems to be what I've found through reading, trial and error.

[Mitch]

I disagree that cloth was too expensive and uncommon...check a few trade lists and see how much cloth there really was....what about patching for rifles? clothing,etc...not everyone was wearing braintan ;)as to using cloth for char-I agree it was probably not common...and you can catch a spark on "charcoal" left from an old fire if you are patient