The World Best Fire Starter

Intro: The World Best Fire Starter

If you have a fireplace in your house, you have to start the fire.
I want to show you how to make free starter from recycled materials.
You can get everything for free.
This is my first Instructable, please be nice ;-)

Keep in mind that you're going to work with hot wax, quite unplesant to get onto your body.

STEP 1: Materials

Get Materials:
Old candles
egg cartons
Sawdust from wood

STEP 2: Melting the Wax

melt the candles in an old pot, I suggest using always the same one, the wax has to be completly liquid

STEP 3: Fill It Up!

fill some sawdust into the egg carton, fill the whole carton, or even multiple cartons, a didn't find a solution for plastic egg cartons :-(
maybe someone has an idea?

STEP 4: Pouring the Wax

get the hot wax. You have to carefully pour it onto the sawdust, you need quite a lot of wax, if it gets solid on the top of the sawdust, the wax wasn't hot enought. Fill all portions and let it cool for some time.

STEP 5: Use Em'

At my fireplace I need two sections of them to start the fire with big wood blocks and no paper.
You can use them for all your fire needs, throw some of them in your backpack if your hiking or biking or doing whatever outside.

The fire pictures were taken with a Nikon Coolpix compact camera, everything else with a Sony a-300.

Improvements:
melting the wax with a microwave, a bit tricky!

Comments

[laci37]

The best fire starter is gasoline mixed with alcohol and saw dust, but it isn't good to carry with you so when you go hiking or something these can be used. Anyway, good Instructable, thanks! :)

[Thelonelysandwitch]

im with you all the way man, all the way.

[Koolraap]

siriously, how can you forget the oxidizer ? throw in some ammonium nitrate with sawdust, burns amazingly :-) ps. gasoline with ammonium nitrate doesn't work for fire starters, the gasoline burns above the ammonium nitrate, so the oxidizer doesn't do it's job pps. ammonium nitrate + gasoline doesn't form an explosive, ammonium nitrite is an explosive by it selve, but gasoline is added to make ik more prone te ignition, so it's about as stable as chuck of wood instead of a piece of rock. ppps. potassium nitrate works almost as good as ammonium nitrate

[laci37]

Gasoline and ammonium nitrate do form an explosive, a terrorist have blown up a large building with it in the US. and for fire starters there is no need or oxidizer, gasoline is enough for the smaller wood chunks to catch fire.

[Koolraap]

as i explicitly stated gasoline and ammonium nitrate don't make an explosive, because ammonium nitrate is an explosive already, gasoline is just for sensitizing

[deathpanda]

you don't use gasoline in anfo. its ammonium nitrate, fuel oil and sometimes nitromethane. you also cant just put a hand full of ammonium nitrate on the ground pour some gas on it throw a match at it and get a boom. anfo needs confinement and an detonation train to work properly.

[Koolraap]

jeah, and fuel oil doesn't mean gasoline ? i'm not an native english speaker, so my vocabulary may be a bit off

[deathpanda]

fuel oil and gasoline are different. it is probably something that is lost in translation. they use fuel oil instead of gasoline because it has a higher flash point. meaning its harder to burn than gasoline. gasoline can be easily ignited with a match while fuel oil is not. I have tried to light fuel oil with matches and its pretty much pointless unless you heat it first making it safer to work with when building there bomb.

[docmarkc]

Fuel oil=Diesel.

[Thelonelysandwitch]

pppps. how about we just use one of those wind proof jet lighters

[Koolraap]

I tried, a 1000 C + torch lighter doesn't get big logs burning

[itsruthanitha]

The environmentally safe, clean burning alternative to liquid charcoal and liquid fire starters are safe waterproof fire starters. The built in O-ring keeps fuel sealed and prevents evaporation indefinitely.

Recently I bought this Waterproof Firestarter, The Ferro rod and which are both included in 1 fire starting kit and that fits conveniently in your pocket. I found this discount code. http://patriotdeal.com/collections/all/products/flint-firestarter Use this code "PD10"and save 10%.

[Matt428]

real Nice instructable, looks real GOOD!!!

[Gcamper]

I made a bunch of these and I probably only added half an inch of stuff in the bottom. I used an old shredded cotton tee shirt. Has anyone experimented around and compared the results when using more or less sawdust or other filling? They generally only act as a wick, making it burn faster.

[Gcamper]

I made a bunch of these and I probably only added half an inch of stuff in the bottom. I used an old shredded cotton tee shirt. Has anyone experimented around and compared the results when using more or less sawdust or other filling? They generally only act as a wick, making it burn faster.

[TALLJ29]

Just used some old notecards from school last year as my sawdust, makes me feel nice.

[mmedeiros]

hahahah. fun

[dovehunter2]

yes, this works very good, i use this method too. i gave my brother-in law a dozen and he was so pleased he wants more this year

[kingsmanname]

I've never tried but for plastic eggs you could line the inside with wax paper or very lightly coat the inside with a small layer of wax first.

[emmjul]