On the subject of backpacking...
 

"Mr. Opus McDopus" wrote in message
.. .
I found a very light weight survival type gear...PING-PONG BALLS!

If you need to make a fire quickly, in wet conditions, ignite a ping-pong
ball under some kindling. If ya have any cracked or spare ping-pong balls
handy just take a cigarette lighter to it and be prepared to drop it
quickly! Don't do this in the house over the livingroom sofa.

Op


What's so hard about starting a fire if you have a book of matches or
lighter?
Ping-Pong balls = less room in your pack.

For our survival test, we were out in the wilderness for 7 days with just a
small plastic magnify-glass.
-tom

On the subject of backpacking...
 

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote ...

You can make lightweight, cheap emergency fire starters from
dryer lint and candle wax.

--
Ken Fortenberry

My 'oh-****-kit' contains a half dozen cotton balls coated pretty well with
vaseline. Works well.

If you don't mind a few extra grams, Esbit tablets are pretty hard to beat
as a fire-starter.

Dan
...hope the peeper's healing well.

On the subject of backpacking...
 

"Daniel-San" wrote in message
et...

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote ...

You can make lightweight, cheap emergency fire starters from
dryer lint and candle wax.

--
Ken Fortenberry

My 'oh-****-kit' contains a half dozen cotton balls coated pretty well
with vaseline. Works well.

If you don't mind a few extra grams, Esbit tablets are pretty hard to beat
as a fire-starter.



I'm into multipurpose. Ben's 100 Bug dope works wonders, as does a squirt of
cooking oil.

--riverman

On the subject of backpacking...
 

"riverman" wrote ...

"Daniel-San" wrote ...

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote ...

You can make lightweight, cheap emergency fire starters from
dryer lint and candle wax.

--
Ken Fortenberry

My 'oh-****-kit' contains a half dozen cotton balls coated pretty well
with vaseline. Works well.

If you don't mind a few extra grams, Esbit tablets are pretty hard to
beat as a fire-starter.



I'm into multipurpose. Ben's 100 Bug dope works wonders, as does a squirt
of cooking oil.

--riverman

Multi-purpose is great -- keeps the weight down and helps save pack space.
My problem with it revolves around my extreme laziness. Not that I can't sit
down and figure out what works as what, and what secondary functions item
'a' may have have, but it's the pure simple easiness of having a small
sil-nylon sack with my emergency stuff contained.

Example:

Fall trip, I might not carry bug dope. I still have the same emergency
firestarters. No worry about that.

I rarely (if ever) carry cooking oil, so if I did once, and planned on that
as a fire starter, I'd either be carrying two firestarters - or - next trip,
I might not have one at all.

Don't know if that makes a hill-of-beans worth of sense, but my emergency
kit is pretty well thought out (trial and error -- mostly error) tampering
with it could be bad -- for me.

Dan

On the subject of backpacking...
 

Mr. Opus McDopus wrote:
I found a very light weight survival type gear...PING-PONG BALLS!

If you need to make a fire quickly, in wet conditions, ignite a ping-pong
ball under some kindling. If ya have any cracked or spare ping-pong balls
handy just take a cigarette lighter to it and be prepared to drop it
quickly! Don't do this in the house over the livingroom sofa.

Op

I read Frank Zappa's autobiography in high school, just because he
sounded like a fun guy. It was a good read, and though I'm not a fan of
his music, I am a fan of his writing. I think it was _The Real Frank
Zappa Book_.

He has a chapter where, as a kid, he tried to make a ping-pong ball
bomb. I forget how he found out, but he was using a rat-tail file to
grind ping-pong balls to dust and making that a prime ingredient in his
experiment in juvenile pyromania.

He was packing it into a can or something, sitting on the garage floor,
and it went off. He says it picked him up off the floor and threw him
across the room by his balls. He was surprised later in life to learn
he could still father children.

Steve

On the subject of backpacking...
 

Good ideal , carry about 6 dozen in your vest and you won't need a life
preserver.

On the subject of backpacking...
 

Sum Ting Wong wrote:
On Mon, 6 Feb 2006 19:29:06 -0500, "Mr. Opus McDopus"
wrote:


I found a very light weight survival type gear...PING-PONG BALLS!

If you need to make a fire quickly, in wet conditions, ignite a ping-pong
ball under some kindling.


Coleman fuel in a squirt bottle...


Joe's an expert with that Coleman Fuel.....

And Asadi's got a "cute" trick......

Willi

On the subject of backpacking...
 

Willi wrote:
Sum Ting Wong wrote:

On Mon, 6 Feb 2006 19:29:06 -0500, "Mr. Opus McDopus"
wrote:


I found a very light weight survival type gear...PING-PONG BALLS!

If you need to make a fire quickly, in wet conditions, ignite a
ping-pong ball under some kindling.



Coleman fuel in a squirt bottle...



Joe's an expert with that Coleman Fuel.....

And Asadi's got a "cute" trick......

The funny thing about that immense conflagration is that after it died
down the campfire still wasn't going.

The best firestarter I've used is fire "ribbon", which is basically
napalm in a tube. It may not be the best thing for backpacking, though.
And you can't carry it on a airplane, even in your checked luggage.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

On the subject of backpacking...
 

"Willi" wrote in message
...
Mr. Opus McDopus wrote:
I found a very light weight survival type gear...PING-PONG BALLS!
Don't do this in the house over the livingroom sofa.


I take it this is from experience!

Willi

No, not perzactly. The guyz at work like to get up a rousing game of PONG
during lunch, and having participated on a couple of occasions, I witnessed
one of the fellas ignite a cracked ball. The damn thing went up like it was
filled with gasoline! It just hit me then that it would be good for
backwoods survival, as I suspect a few balls would ignite wet kindling in no
time.

I haven't tried this yet, but plan to in the near future.

Op

On the subject of backpacking...
 

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

"Scott Seidman" wrote in message
. 1.4...
Ken Fortenberry wrote in news:lHSFf.42178
:

You can make lightweight, cheap emergency fire starters from
dryer lint and candle wax.

--
Ken Fortenberry



Fine steel wool also-- no prep at all.

Birch bark. No prep, no carry.

Various pine barks, cones and needles are also very good.

Even when saturated by rain?


Wolfgang
who hears that mice will also do in a pinch. :)

You ignite mice by pinchin' them?

Op