Hello world! Pure Carbon here and today I will be showing you how to build a small, long burning fire starter that I call the fire cube. Its essentially a cotton ball covered with petroleum jelly which is compressed as small as it can. Its great for lighting emergency fires and is small enough to fit into any survival kit. It can be quickly be made using common household items and will burn for about 15 minuets. So sit back, Relax, and enjoy!

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Step 1: Required Materials

Here are the required materials to build this project:

A cotton ball, your choice of size just keep in mind that a larger cotton ball will take up more space, but will burn longer and a smaller cotton ball will take up less space, but will burn for a shorter period of time.
Petroleum Jelly
A pair of scissors
A 2" by 2" piece aluminum foil

Step 2: Add Petroleum Jelly

First take a small amount of Petroleum Jelly and rub it all over the cotton ball until it's completely saturated. The jelly will help it burn longer and will keep it small and compacted.

Step 3: Create the Cube

I always knew those days of working with Play Dough would come in handy someday. In this step you will need to resurrect those suppressed Play Dough skills that you had when you were a kid and compress the cotton ball down as much as possible. You will then need to mold it into a cube shape because I have found that this shape works best. The Petroleum Jelly will also help it hold its shape.

Step 4: Wrap It in Foil

Now take your 2" by 2" piece of foil and wrap it around the cotton cube. The foil will help keep it dry in damp conditions, however it only makes it water resistant and will not protect it if it's completely submerged in water.

Step 5: Add Matches (Optional)

While wrapping the foil around the cotton you can add some matches and a striker if you intend in adding this to a survival kit, or an emergency kit of some kind. This step is obviously optional, but It can be useful if you don't have anything to light the cotton with when the time comes.

Step 6: Marvel at Your Work

Now you are done and you can marvel at your work. To light it all you need to do is first remove it from the foil fluff up one side of the cube and light using your preferred fire starting method. Enjoy you silly humans!

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