Yea, I posted something similarly when we went backpacking. We got caught in a bad thunderstorm and I didn't mess around with my fire-starting gear. I dumped denatured alcohol over everything, used a plastic bag and a lighter and that worked just fine <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

O I just remembered something a friend had a while ago. I don't know what exactly it was. Maybe someone can explain it. I think it was a spot welding kit in a film case. You dump it upside down, send a spark and watch out! Molten metal is the result.

It's thermite. Here you go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exothermic_welding

Sweet. Thanks.

no problem its good stuff but pretty dangerous also.

Yea I can see that. My friend gave me a couple couple packs. This was in high school so not the best age to be giving someone that, but my friends and I set one off in a parking lot. It was on a bit of a slope so molten metal trickled down. Luckily we did it where nothing could catch fire.

My Stepson uses them all the time. He is an electrical technician inspector for the Railroad and they use these to weld their stuff to the rails.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and we are all ready for the new year! Great video link there Farewell, thank you for that, I really like the idea of the brace. Pit and I went out for our hike in the middle of a horrible rain and wind storm here on Vancouver Island, much more water than normal-which is saying a lot considering this is the wettest region in North America, one of the wettest in the world. Normal here in the Pacific Northwest is cool and wet- this was cold and just plain silly soaking wet. Even when you reached up for branches from the tree they were so soaked they had the feel of a sponge or rotten punkwood. The idea was to have a little fun with these unusually wet and windy conditions to test ourselves. We choose a stone that was surrounded on three sides by the sea to avoid any trouble- although we both knew we were not in any danger of starting any forest fires this day. We really just wanted to build a very small fire that could be used in theory to actually build a camp fire- not to build an actual camp fire. We were sucessful almost right away as you can see from the initial photos. The problem was that it was so wet the little fire would not last very long, so much water simpley dowsed the pine resin we were using for the long burn. After a few minutes and a retry the rains picked up and there was so much water running down my sleeve and hand over the firesteel that I was unable too produce sparks, Pit had the same results. That is what actually shocked us. Aside from the pine resin going out so quickly and later, the ranger bands we lit with the little bic lighter. It was a great experience and if anyone is up for it I would highly recomend any similar tests of your or our skills. I believe playing in the extreems can teach us some valuabe lessons. Personally I was surprised that what usually worked in normal damp and wet conditions failed in these extreem conditions. Goodluck guys and keep on keeping on! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Backup your backup. Redundancy is your friend.

Very nice pics and great demo of bad elements for fire making.

BAM! look at that!

thanks for this thread!

I use the base and brace method and I have good luck with it. However, I experienced a similar situation a while back as Pitdog and I had a dickens of a time getting a fire started. I did everything just like in the vid but the stuff just didn't want to keep going. Everything was drenched. It made me laugh thinking of all those times people have said they don't need to baton because you can always find dry stuff. I'd like to take them back to that moment and ask them "WHERE?" because nothing was dry. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />