I found some good reads on fire starting.. gonna dig 'em up & post links.
more importantly i gotta Get out there and practice a Lot more!
especially splitting wood with the (hopefully!) new DF, etc..

Good plan Tony!

walmart sells fire sticks that light like a match. looks cool.

Does anyone actually the practice the bow/drill method? It is actually easy once you get the hang of it, and learn a couple of tricks. I like to practice with the equipment that I carry, that includes multiple firestarting methods. But, it is a real confidenct booster to know that you don't even need that!

I read what Ray Mears wrote about bow drills so always carry lots of gas lighters instead! I'd freeze before I managed to track down the right kinds of wood to fashion the anvil and drill out of..

And don’t forget to keep them close to your body in cold weather or they have trouble lighting. Gotta keep the butane warm. And if you have one that’s already cold and you need to quickly warm it so it will light, put it in your armpit for a minute or so to warm up so it will light.

Good tip Andy.

Sweedish Steel and dryer lint. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

gotta love that dryer lint

Aha, I thought you were over here.

Sneaky.

I purloined some of my wife's cotton balls only to find they weren't cotton at all. They don't even call them cotton on the bag - "Cosmetic Puffs" was the name on the bag. The cosmetic puffs are some type of synthetic and they light easily with a spark and burn hot emitting a deep black smoke.

I suspect one of the reasons that dryer lint works so well is because it is a mixture of tiny bits of different types of material, some of them synthetic.