Week 3/ charcloth

This sub forum will have the weekly bushcraft challenge, an idea brought to KAC by Son of Liberty.
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Week 3/ charcloth

Post by son of liberty » Sun Feb 10, 2013 7:05 pm

Charcloth

You will need a small metal container (Tin foil can be used)
You will need some cotton cloth and a natural material of some sort

Charcloth is Tinder deep in history, it was the traditional way of starting a fire for as long as man has been able to make Carbon steel. It was once part of daily life as common as a match or lighter is today. It is used to catch a single spark and hold it as an ember.

In this challenge you will make Charcloth and you will char some other Natural material to use as char tinder.

Use Cotton cloth , and old shirt or rag, cut the cloth in to small squares and place them in the tin or wrap them in tin foil.
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Place the tin in a fire
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Allow the tin to burn until open flames are no longer coming out of the tin, then remove and allow it to cool. If you open it to soon the cloth will catch fire just from the heat and burn up your charcloth.

You should have this when your done, throw a spark on a piece and test your cloth.
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After you have made Charcloth, try to use a natural material that you can get in nature, punk wood, a leaf, what ever, but make sure you test it.

I have used some moss I plucked off a rock, Also in the picture is my favorite tinder of all, a cotton string bundle wrapped tight. These things catch an ember so easy and smolder so hot for so long that you can blow a wet tinder bundle in to flame. Some folks use 1/2 inch cotton rope cut in 1 inch lengths I love this tinder.
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You should test all of these with your ferro rod , you should also use this challenge to practice the use of tinder from the last challenge , make your fire with your regular tinder and ferro rod
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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by burn360 » Sun Feb 10, 2013 8:15 pm

i use to make this all the time in boy scouts stuff works great
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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by Kadnine » Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:13 pm

Going for it! This'll be my first charcloth.
IMG_20130211_130207.jpg
IMG_20130211_130207.jpg (187.56 KiB) Viewed 4170 times
Cotton shirt squares, steel tin, jute twine bundle, Ka-Bar and mag bar.

Will post results (and maybe another video) later.

- Keith
~~~

"'...what it is to be a bondservant thou knowest full well, but of freedom thou hast never yet made trial, to know whether it be a sweet thing or not. For if ever thou hadst experience thereof, thou wouldest counsel us to fight for it not with spears only but with axes.' Thus the Spartans answered Hydarnes." - Herodotus

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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by Kadnine » Mon Feb 11, 2013 4:17 pm

Okay, everybody needs to start somewhere in the learning process. Couldn't make it work. What am I doing wrong? It WAS windy today, but not THAT windy...

Did I let it cook too long, perhaps?

I made a video. Hope you like John Lee Hooker:
[youtube]n-3DdPOtVVw[/youtube]

- Keith
~~~

"'...what it is to be a bondservant thou knowest full well, but of freedom thou hast never yet made trial, to know whether it be a sweet thing or not. For if ever thou hadst experience thereof, thou wouldest counsel us to fight for it not with spears only but with axes.' Thus the Spartans answered Hydarnes." - Herodotus

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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by son of liberty » Mon Feb 11, 2013 5:29 pm

It appears you have over cooked it. When you put the tin in to the fire you want the fire to be hot and well coaled out. Put the tin in the fire and within a minute you will start to see flames pouring out of the lid of the tin, let it cook till the flames coming out of the tin reside, then remove it from the fire and allow to cool. The whole cooking time is usually just a few minutes.
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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by Kadnine » Mon Feb 11, 2013 5:47 pm

Okay, I was looking for flames out of the tin, but never saw any. And it cooked a good fifteen minutes. Cotton square mass was way, WAY reduced when I opened the lid.

Will try again tomorrow.

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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by Kadnine » Tue Feb 12, 2013 3:35 pm

No time today for a retry. But I just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying this sub thread forum by SoL! I love a challenge.

- K
~~~

"'...what it is to be a bondservant thou knowest full well, but of freedom thou hast never yet made trial, to know whether it be a sweet thing or not. For if ever thou hadst experience thereof, thou wouldest counsel us to fight for it not with spears only but with axes.' Thus the Spartans answered Hydarnes." - Herodotus

~~~

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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by BIGC » Tue Feb 12, 2013 6:11 pm

Did it on first try today!!!!!!!!! Then used the char cloth as part of the science experiment for my daughter


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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by son of liberty » Wed Feb 13, 2013 4:40 pm

Don't forgo trying to make char tinder out of a natural material such as leaves, or moss, or cattails, something you can dig up out in the bush. Its critical to replenish you supply of tinder with every fire, fire is the tool used to create the materials that will make the next fire easy so char up something else and use it when conditions don't require instant fire, times when you have the chance to work on it a bit. Doing this will ensure that even if your out for a month you have some of the best tinder you brought to start a life saving fire , such as a signal fire or a fire to warm you up after falling in an icy creek when time is critical and a serious matter of life or death.
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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by BIGC » Thu Feb 14, 2013 8:54 am

I had meant to try something else but there is not a lot of resources around here to try.. I need to get out and go hiking and grab some stuff to test, plus I need to grab more wood to fuel the firepit, I ran out of burnables in the yard.. All I had was a small stack of sticks that had broken off my birch in a storm a while back, once I burned through them I need more to experiment with..
1 Corinthians 13:13

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.





http://stores.ebay.com/Big-Cs-Survival-Store?_rdc=1

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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by mtmetzger » Sun Apr 07, 2013 2:44 pm

Finally got around to making some since I had a fire going last night...

My G-Shock tin was a nice size so I popped a hole in the top:
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Cut up an old shirt
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Put it in the fire for about 5 minutes
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Got out
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Tested a piece.
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Made more. :)
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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by fromkentucky » Fri Jun 21, 2013 8:35 am

son of liberty wrote:...fire is the tool used to create the materials that will make the next fire easy...
I never thought about it like that. Good point.

Newb questions:

Charcloth holds a spark/ember for a while, so do you just throw your tinder on top of it and blow until you get a flame, or is the charcloth the tinder?

When would you use this, as opposed to simply trying to light the tinder bundle?
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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by Kadnine » Fri Jun 21, 2013 1:09 pm

fromkentucky wrote:
Charcloth holds a spark/ember for a while, so do you just throw your tinder on top of it and blow until you get a flame, or is the charcloth the tinder?

When would you use this, as opposed to simply trying to light the tinder bundle?
Consider using the "nesting" concept. It's difficult to wrap one's mind around, without being shown first-hand. But shape yer tinder bundle into a rough bird's nest, complete with a dimple on top. Charcloth goes into the dimple, a spark should light it into flame, place burning bundle under more twigs/sticks (or, if it's vigorously burning and no wind, on top of tinder sticks.) Use the flames to dry out damp logs and make a good bed of coals. A good hot bed of coals will dry out and burn just about anything!

So, 1) make charcloth, (which I've yet to master) 2) place charcloth into tinder bundle, 3) light charcloth, 4) feed the tinder bundle flame with fuel until you can achieve a bed of coals. Then? Yer golden and have a burning campfire/cook fire all night long!

- K
~~~

"'...what it is to be a bondservant thou knowest full well, but of freedom thou hast never yet made trial, to know whether it be a sweet thing or not. For if ever thou hadst experience thereof, thou wouldest counsel us to fight for it not with spears only but with axes.' Thus the Spartans answered Hydarnes." - Herodotus

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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by fromkentucky » Fri Jun 21, 2013 6:25 pm

Gotcha, I've seen bird's nests in videos, that makes sense.

Heres a question: Would it be possible to make char cloth from cotton balls?
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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by Kadnine » Fri Jun 21, 2013 7:13 pm

fromkentucky wrote:Gotcha, I've seen bird's nests in videos, that makes sense.

Heres a question: Would it be possible to make char cloth from cotton balls?
Don't know. We should get together and try it out! You free to come over one of these weekends? I have a supply of... oh, six or seven steel Camel cig tins. We could try out several materials. I'm actually in need of practice! Maybe build a fire set in several configurations together and take some pics/videos for the next Challenge?

- K
~~~

"'...what it is to be a bondservant thou knowest full well, but of freedom thou hast never yet made trial, to know whether it be a sweet thing or not. For if ever thou hadst experience thereof, thou wouldest counsel us to fight for it not with spears only but with axes.' Thus the Spartans answered Hydarnes." - Herodotus

~~~

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Re: Week 3/ charcloth

Post by fromkentucky » Sat Jun 22, 2013 1:09 pm

That could totally be doable. I can't this weekend, but probably next (29th and 30th). I'll be in Oregon from the 6th-15th.
"A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and substantial reason' why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right's existence is all the reason he needs."

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