Charcloth Tricks of the Trade

1. Learn the difference between tinder and kindling....
2. Your tinder must be absolutely dry, and preferably warm.
3. The finer your feather stick, the more easily it will light . (But you can see on the Featherstick page that even a roughly made, coarse, horrible one will still do the job.)
4. Practice making sparks onto the charcloth: if you find that they fly outwards, try holding the charcloth down with the end of the steel, and chipping downwards with the striker. On windy days, it also prevents the charcloth blowing away.
5. Prep, prep, prep: assemble all the dry wood etc that you will need before you start making sparks. Sort it by size, and get a good, big, double handful of tinder.
6. This is the difference: tinder (bone dry, fluffy, small, goes in your grapefruit, eg dry grass, bark, clematis heads...) is designed to catch fire easily but won't burn for long: and kindling (small twigs, split branches etc about pencil size, dry enough to snap easily) needs to take the flames before the tinder burns out.
7. Keep your charcloth in a tin or box: take out what you need then close it, otherwise one stray spark and you'll be back here buying more charcloth...
8. Fire Dogs: lay two biggish logs one either side of the fire site, place your grapefruit or feather stick between them and kindling on top: larger wood can be rested across the logs to catch fire without squashing the new fire. Also creates a mini-wind tunnel for added ventilation.
9. Use old embers: if you are returning to a previous site, or starting a new fire in the morning, then use any old embers, part-burned wood, charcoal etc you can find as your insulating layer. They will catch fire much more quickly than fresh wood, and will quickly create a hot heart to your fire.
10. Don't make wigwams: they either create a hollow heart and go out, or they flare up then collapse, squashing the fire. Use fire dogs to support logs across your fire.
11. Be patient, and keep trying. If you nearly succeed, then at least everything will be warmer for your next try. Charcloth is so good at catching a spark that you might think you have failed whereas actually you have succeeded. Blow gently to see if it is glowing.