Making fire starters

In today’s video, I create Fire Starters to use up the sawdust I produced while building the outdoor table. I got the idea from watching the videos on SV Seekers channel where he was doing this as well with the extra savings from the wood for the cargo hold walls.

First attempt with fuse
First attempt with fuse
Second attempt
Second attempt
The cooled block
The cooled block

Initially, I planned on using cardboard tubes as a mold to form the fire starters. But I realized it quite fast that this won’t, work. I had problems with them staying put while pouring the hot wax in. And they are also missing a bottom, so the wax was flowing out on the bottom. I added a base by using some painters tape, which helped to mitigate the problem a bit but I was not happy with the overall result. It was also taking way more time than I expected.

So I searched for a different idea and decided to just pour the wax with the sawdust into a big flat pan. This was way quicker and also created a smaller mess. After cooling, I then cut the block into smaller chunks to get my real fire starters.

Now I needed to wait for the right day with some warm weather and no rain. I waited quite some time in the hope of a good weather window to go into the forest and make a big fire but unfortunately, winter is coming, and the weather was never right. So I decided to try them ou in an old pan in my lawn.

Cut fire starters
Cut fire starters
Burn, burn
Burn, burn
It works!
It works!

I had quite some difficulties to get the poured blocks to catch fire. Perhaps it would have helped to have a short fuse on them like I did for the first attempt. And the wind blowing around the house while testing them was not helping either. But in the end, I managed to start a fire with them although a small one :-)