Fire Starter

These are easy to make waterproof'ish fire starters. They can get wet, but won't light under water.

MATERIALS:

Mini muffin pan
Mini muffin papers
Chainsaw saw dust
A candle
An old pot
An empty soup can
Wax paper

Strip and clean an empty soup can. Then pinch one side to make a spout. I also got fancy and clamped the side so I could hold the can with a pair of vice grips and pour. The can gets really hot, so this makes it much nicer.

Put the muffin pan on a piece of wax paper. This can be messy. Fill each muffin spot with a muffin paper. Then fill each muffin paper with chainsaw saw dust. I like chainsaw saw dust better than regular saw dust, but saw dust should work fine too.

Pack the saw dusty into the muffin papers. Try to get it kind of tight.

I use an old sauce pan. I bent the sides with a pair of vice grips to form slight spouts. This helps to keep it from spilling as you pour it into the custom soup can you made in the last step.

Melt some wax, but remove it from the heat if it starts to smoke. It should NOT smoke. If it is smoking it is close to flashing which means it can catch fire. This would e BAD. Especially if you are in your kitchen.

Hold it over your loaded muffin pan and gently pour the wax into your soup can.

This is the tricky part. Gently pour a small amount of wax over the saw dust. When the wax is hot it will foam up at it hits the dry saw dust. This can cause it to spill out and pour over the too of the muffin pan. Just go slow and everything will be fine.

This is the easy part. Just let it cool to room temp. After they cool, put them in the freezer for about 20 minutes. This makes it much easier to get them out of the muffin pan.

I keep all the tool and part together on a cooks sheet. That way when I need to make I just grab my kit and head into the kitchen.

Make sure you pour all the hot wax out of the soup can so it doesn't cool in the can. You can pour any extra wax back into the sauce pan. If it cools in the soup can there is no good way to hear it up to get the wax out.

Just light the paper edge and you're all set. They will burn from 9 to 11 minutes. This is usually plenty if time to start a fire. We use one or two of then in our fire place and never have to put in any paper.

Enjoy!