Sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) is a fairly common tree in Kent and we have a couple of sizable compartments of it in our woodlands, in fact a couple of years ago we coppiced about an acre of it over the winter. It was introduced by the Romans as a food source but there are other […]
Whilst I’ve previously written about fire steels in this post from 2017, we’ve put together a 10 minute video showing how to go about getting the most out of your fire steel. It includes demonstrations of the push forward method, the thumb push and the pull back methods as well as a couple of techniques […]
Inner barks provide us with a great resource in our bushcraft, from making cordage to both folded and woven containers. In this video however I talk about their effectiveness as a tinder. I’ve written about using inner barks as tinder in this post previously, take a look at it in conjunction with this video. In […]
Whilst I’ve previously written about tinder bundles here, we decided to put together a short video showing how to make and use a tinder bundle showing some of the more important aspects such as construction, wind direction, posture and breathing. In the video I’ve used the inner bark of sweet chestnut but I could have […]
We use char cloth regularly on our courses when we’re teaching fire lighting. Char cloth is a tinder made from natural fabric that’s charred in a tin, a bit like making charcoal but on a much slower, and quicker, timescale. I generally use cotton as it’s easy to get hold of. And from the various […]
A few days ago I spent some time collecting downy flower heads for tinder. At this time of year I tend to collect as much as I can so that I have plenty to see me through the year. In this video you can see me collecting thistles, rosebay willowherb, clematis, ragwort and goat’s beard. […]
