hey guys welcome back to king of random
cooking today we’re whipping up a batch
of DIY survival style fire starters
using items you could probably find
around the house the materials for this
project are pretty simple I just went
down to the grocery store and picked up
some of these cotton facial cleansing
pads and I’m going to be melting down
and reusing this old candle I’ve had
sitting around but if you really wanted
to you could use a box of crayons
now I recently went to a survival
seminar where they’re selling flint and
steel fire starters the idea is you
strike the two together and make sparks
you can use that to ignite the finger of
your survival fire the thing is the
units they were selling or anywhere from
twenty to forty dollars which i think is
a little on the high end but I did get
one of these things this is a Ferro
cerium rod which is basically a
glorified version of the little Clint
you find in a thumb strike lighter now
Ferro serum is a synthetic alloy
combining a lot of different metals and
the idea is you take some kind of a
steel striker and run it down the side
and it produces hot sparks now I don’t
have any steel strikers but I do have an
old hacksaw blade and I found that these
things work just as well now the first
thing we need to do to start making
these wax impregnated cotton fire
starters is to simply throw our candle
in a pot and melt it down you could also
just throw it in the microwave for about
four minutes that seems to work just as
well so here we are guys our wax is
completely melted we’ve got quite a bit
of it here it’s actually a lot more than
we need so for convenience we’re going
to pour some out into a plate so it’s
about a quarter of an inch deep and then
we’re going to use that to soak our
cotton pads for just a second on each
side and we are going to need a place to
let our wax firestarters cool down and
ideally we’d use wax paper or aluminum
foil I couldn’t find any so we’re just
using a ziplock bag all right here we go
let’s get started with these white cloud
cotton squares these are a hundred
percent cotton and typically used by
women for applying makeup and cleansers
now we’re going to do is take these tabs
and dip them into the wax just so they
get a light coating on either side and
it would be good to have a pair of
tweezers but I couldn’t find any those
either so I’m using a fork alright here
we go
test number one we’re just going to dip
a little bit on that side there flip it
over a little bit of that side and
pretty much call it done set that off to
the side on our ziplock bag to cool down
number two whoops I guess that’ll work
too you could just pop them in and scoop
them out I think the key is we just
don’t want to have too much wax on there
[Music]
now for a variety I picked up some of
these cotton rounds these are also 100%
cotton and used for facial cleansing
these are large circular discs and these
are the kind of things I’ve seen other
Preppers using on the Internet as well
Dyanne just enough to get the wax in
there and drips it off this one here I’m
just going to try one side we’re just
going to let that soak for a second then
take it out so it’s wax infused on one
side cotton on the other but you can
already see that wax poking through and
while it’s taking up all these cotton
pads I couldn’t resist picking up a box
of tampons as well these things are
mostly made of cotton so we may as well
throw them in the mix as well beautiful
that looks amazing
alright guys it’s been about 5 minutes
our wax has cooled down and it looks
like our firestarters are ready for
testing
now just for comparative purposes I have
some of the original cotton and some of
the wax infused cotton just so we can
see the difference in the burn times so
test number one we’re just going to see
if you can use some sparks to actually
ignite this cotton at all so I’m just
going to fluff this up so it exposes a
little more surface area making it
easier to light and we’re going to start
a timer and see how long that burn let’s
light it up first try
Cotton’s burning you can see that little
fluff took off and no no time flat I
don’t see a whole lot of flame because
this cotton is compressed there is some
flame down here but it’s burning very
quietly okay we’re getting some more
orange flame up here and I suppose if
you lifted this up off the ground a
little bit you can get it to burn a
little bit hotter to start your fire at
this point most of the pad has been
consumed we’re just going to wait until
the flame actually goes out and there’s
the last little bit of flame there we’ll
stop that we’ll call it 50 seconds so
we’ve got about 50 seconds maybe a
minute on the top end with one of these
cotton facial cleansing pads but that
was with no wax so let’s try the wax
infused version and see if there’s any
difference this pad here has the wax on
one side and the cotton on the other so
we’re just going to fluff up the cotton
side the same as we did before to catch
the spark alright got on the first try
last time let’s see we can do that again
there we go and it’s off
[Applause]
[Music]
the thing I know it’s about these flat
pads the flame doesn’t get very high
everything’s so compressed and I think
the air is having a hard time getting to
it so we really need to do is stick some
sticks underneath it so it has a little
bit of leverage
that’s the healthier flame than we found
the last one for sure you know if I
flatten that back out again
the first thing I notice is the flame
there’s a lot more orange and a lot
healthier and it seems to be burning
quite a bit slower we’re already at 43
seconds and we haven’t even drink
through an eighth of that pad yet so we
just cross seven minutes in 30 seconds
you can see our pad is charred now and
the flame has moved over to just the
edges so I think we’re running out of
the wax I think it’s kind of on its last
legs here
I wouldn’t expect to see more than about
another minute of burn time that’s
pretty good okay so there’s a crossover
for 10 minutes it’s been over 10 minutes
guys and the flame is still going now at
about nine minutes I flipped the pad
over and found that the cotton on the
bottom hadn’t burned yet so once I was
exposed to the air it took off and gave
us another full minute of good burn time
we are coming up on eleven minutes here
and we still got a little flame going
it’s almost gone there’s the 11 minute
crossover and that flame is just about
gone I think this is it five four three
two it’s done stop
eleven minutes in 17 seconds so we lit
our cotton pad and it burned for 50
seconds we lit our waxen fuse pad and it
burned for 11 minutes in 17 seconds so
looking at the comparison here it looks
like that little bit of wax increase of
the burn time thirteen and a half times
that’s pretty dramatic especially in a
survival situation now in addition to
using feminine hygiene products I also
tried dipping some wax cotton balls as
well as some paper towel the wax cotton
balls work great because you can split
them in half fluff out a little bit of
the cotton and strike it off the paper
towel will not so much the wax is a
great fuel but it’s a terrible tinder
and it acts as a barrier preventing the
sparks from getting to the cotton so to
get the best use out of these fire
starters we need to leave a little bit
of white cotton exposed somewhere that
we can use as an initial starter now
this disc I coated on both sides and we
found that the wax acts as a barrier and
prevents it from igniting in order to
get this to light up I think we need to
snap it in half and expose some of those
cotton fibers on the inside roughed them
up and get them to a position where they
can capture a spark and hold on to it
you’re getting break them into pieces
and use it for multiple fire starters
[Music]
there we go
so guys good news these wax fire
starters are working really well one
question on my mind is how waterproof
are they what would happen if we took
one soaked it in a glass of water and
then broke apart and tried to start it
would it act any differently it’s making
tea have this soaking for about 60
seconds in a glass of water now if we
break it open and expose some of those
cotton fibers let’s see if we can get to
let off it is a little damp I can feel
that it’s it’s moist
let’s see how that affects the
performance all right here we go
first try and there we go
despite being soaked in a glass of water
for 60 seconds to still it off on the
first try that is pretty cool so guys
based on our experience here today this
is what we’ve learned
we found that burning cotton by itself
works really well but it burns in a
flash and does we produce a whole lot of
heat but if you take a little bit of wax
from something like melted crayons or
melted candle you can increase the
amount of time it burns by about 1300
percent and not only that but you get a
lot stronger and hotter flame as well
we found that soaking one side of our
pad in wax works better than soaking
both sides because the wax acts as a
barrier to any sparks flying and making
it a lot more difficult to relate to
tinder it’s very important that we keep
part of our tinder that white Cotton’s
fluff so we have something to fluff up
to catch a spark and cause it to ignite
we dipped our firestarters in water and
let them soak for about 60 seconds and
found that as long as we could crack
them open and fluff up some of the wax
and fuse cotton on the inside we could
still get them to ignite we also tried a
wide variety of different cotton
materials from facial cleansing pads to
cotton volve and found that they all
seemed to work really well although I
can’t recommend using tampon because for
some reason that just feels a little
wrong so there you have it guys that’s
how to turn ordinary household items
into improvised survival tinder that
will burn over 10 times longer and get
your fire going a lot faster thanks for
joining me for this experiment I’ll be
looking for you the next one talk to you
then
currently wind resistant as well
[Music]
cooking today we’re whipping up a batch
of DIY survival style fire starters
using items you could probably find
around the house the materials for this
project are pretty simple I just went
down to the grocery store and picked up
some of these cotton facial cleansing
pads and I’m going to be melting down
and reusing this old candle I’ve had
sitting around but if you really wanted
to you could use a box of crayons
now I recently went to a survival
seminar where they’re selling flint and
steel fire starters the idea is you
strike the two together and make sparks
you can use that to ignite the finger of
your survival fire the thing is the
units they were selling or anywhere from
twenty to forty dollars which i think is
a little on the high end but I did get
one of these things this is a Ferro
cerium rod which is basically a
glorified version of the little Clint
you find in a thumb strike lighter now
Ferro serum is a synthetic alloy
combining a lot of different metals and
the idea is you take some kind of a
steel striker and run it down the side
and it produces hot sparks now I don’t
have any steel strikers but I do have an
old hacksaw blade and I found that these
things work just as well now the first
thing we need to do to start making
these wax impregnated cotton fire
starters is to simply throw our candle
in a pot and melt it down you could also
just throw it in the microwave for about
four minutes that seems to work just as
well so here we are guys our wax is
completely melted we’ve got quite a bit
of it here it’s actually a lot more than
we need so for convenience we’re going
to pour some out into a plate so it’s
about a quarter of an inch deep and then
we’re going to use that to soak our
cotton pads for just a second on each
side and we are going to need a place to
let our wax firestarters cool down and
ideally we’d use wax paper or aluminum
foil I couldn’t find any so we’re just
using a ziplock bag all right here we go
let’s get started with these white cloud
cotton squares these are a hundred
percent cotton and typically used by
women for applying makeup and cleansers
now we’re going to do is take these tabs
and dip them into the wax just so they
get a light coating on either side and
it would be good to have a pair of
tweezers but I couldn’t find any those
either so I’m using a fork alright here
we go
test number one we’re just going to dip
a little bit on that side there flip it
over a little bit of that side and
pretty much call it done set that off to
the side on our ziplock bag to cool down
number two whoops I guess that’ll work
too you could just pop them in and scoop
them out I think the key is we just
don’t want to have too much wax on there
[Music]
now for a variety I picked up some of
these cotton rounds these are also 100%
cotton and used for facial cleansing
these are large circular discs and these
are the kind of things I’ve seen other
Preppers using on the Internet as well
Dyanne just enough to get the wax in
there and drips it off this one here I’m
just going to try one side we’re just
going to let that soak for a second then
take it out so it’s wax infused on one
side cotton on the other but you can
already see that wax poking through and
while it’s taking up all these cotton
pads I couldn’t resist picking up a box
of tampons as well these things are
mostly made of cotton so we may as well
throw them in the mix as well beautiful
that looks amazing
alright guys it’s been about 5 minutes
our wax has cooled down and it looks
like our firestarters are ready for
testing
now just for comparative purposes I have
some of the original cotton and some of
the wax infused cotton just so we can
see the difference in the burn times so
test number one we’re just going to see
if you can use some sparks to actually
ignite this cotton at all so I’m just
going to fluff this up so it exposes a
little more surface area making it
easier to light and we’re going to start
a timer and see how long that burn let’s
light it up first try
Cotton’s burning you can see that little
fluff took off and no no time flat I
don’t see a whole lot of flame because
this cotton is compressed there is some
flame down here but it’s burning very
quietly okay we’re getting some more
orange flame up here and I suppose if
you lifted this up off the ground a
little bit you can get it to burn a
little bit hotter to start your fire at
this point most of the pad has been
consumed we’re just going to wait until
the flame actually goes out and there’s
the last little bit of flame there we’ll
stop that we’ll call it 50 seconds so
we’ve got about 50 seconds maybe a
minute on the top end with one of these
cotton facial cleansing pads but that
was with no wax so let’s try the wax
infused version and see if there’s any
difference this pad here has the wax on
one side and the cotton on the other so
we’re just going to fluff up the cotton
side the same as we did before to catch
the spark alright got on the first try
last time let’s see we can do that again
there we go and it’s off
[Applause]
[Music]
the thing I know it’s about these flat
pads the flame doesn’t get very high
everything’s so compressed and I think
the air is having a hard time getting to
it so we really need to do is stick some
sticks underneath it so it has a little
bit of leverage
that’s the healthier flame than we found
the last one for sure you know if I
flatten that back out again
the first thing I notice is the flame
there’s a lot more orange and a lot
healthier and it seems to be burning
quite a bit slower we’re already at 43
seconds and we haven’t even drink
through an eighth of that pad yet so we
just cross seven minutes in 30 seconds
you can see our pad is charred now and
the flame has moved over to just the
edges so I think we’re running out of
the wax I think it’s kind of on its last
legs here
I wouldn’t expect to see more than about
another minute of burn time that’s
pretty good okay so there’s a crossover
for 10 minutes it’s been over 10 minutes
guys and the flame is still going now at
about nine minutes I flipped the pad
over and found that the cotton on the
bottom hadn’t burned yet so once I was
exposed to the air it took off and gave
us another full minute of good burn time
we are coming up on eleven minutes here
and we still got a little flame going
it’s almost gone there’s the 11 minute
crossover and that flame is just about
gone I think this is it five four three
two it’s done stop
eleven minutes in 17 seconds so we lit
our cotton pad and it burned for 50
seconds we lit our waxen fuse pad and it
burned for 11 minutes in 17 seconds so
looking at the comparison here it looks
like that little bit of wax increase of
the burn time thirteen and a half times
that’s pretty dramatic especially in a
survival situation now in addition to
using feminine hygiene products I also
tried dipping some wax cotton balls as
well as some paper towel the wax cotton
balls work great because you can split
them in half fluff out a little bit of
the cotton and strike it off the paper
towel will not so much the wax is a
great fuel but it’s a terrible tinder
and it acts as a barrier preventing the
sparks from getting to the cotton so to
get the best use out of these fire
starters we need to leave a little bit
of white cotton exposed somewhere that
we can use as an initial starter now
this disc I coated on both sides and we
found that the wax acts as a barrier and
prevents it from igniting in order to
get this to light up I think we need to
snap it in half and expose some of those
cotton fibers on the inside roughed them
up and get them to a position where they
can capture a spark and hold on to it
you’re getting break them into pieces
and use it for multiple fire starters
[Music]
there we go
so guys good news these wax fire
starters are working really well one
question on my mind is how waterproof
are they what would happen if we took
one soaked it in a glass of water and
then broke apart and tried to start it
would it act any differently it’s making
tea have this soaking for about 60
seconds in a glass of water now if we
break it open and expose some of those
cotton fibers let’s see if we can get to
let off it is a little damp I can feel
that it’s it’s moist
let’s see how that affects the
performance all right here we go
first try and there we go
despite being soaked in a glass of water
for 60 seconds to still it off on the
first try that is pretty cool so guys
based on our experience here today this
is what we’ve learned
we found that burning cotton by itself
works really well but it burns in a
flash and does we produce a whole lot of
heat but if you take a little bit of wax
from something like melted crayons or
melted candle you can increase the
amount of time it burns by about 1300
percent and not only that but you get a
lot stronger and hotter flame as well
we found that soaking one side of our
pad in wax works better than soaking
both sides because the wax acts as a
barrier to any sparks flying and making
it a lot more difficult to relate to
tinder it’s very important that we keep
part of our tinder that white Cotton’s
fluff so we have something to fluff up
to catch a spark and cause it to ignite
we dipped our firestarters in water and
let them soak for about 60 seconds and
found that as long as we could crack
them open and fluff up some of the wax
and fuse cotton on the inside we could
still get them to ignite we also tried a
wide variety of different cotton
materials from facial cleansing pads to
cotton volve and found that they all
seemed to work really well although I
can’t recommend using tampon because for
some reason that just feels a little
wrong so there you have it guys that’s
how to turn ordinary household items
into improvised survival tinder that
will burn over 10 times longer and get
your fire going a lot faster thanks for
joining me for this experiment I’ll be
looking for you the next one talk to you
then
currently wind resistant as well
[Music]
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