Survival: The Tinder Rasp & Tinder Cloth

The Ferro (-cerium) rod enjoys a near mythical status in survivalist circles, and allthough I prefer a good old BIC lighter in my pocket instead of the awkward (in packing terms) ferro rod: I do have several.

There are lots of ways to create a good, fast burning tinder you can use with the revered rod, some include pencil sharpeners, but most include knives and some fair share of whitteling.

These methods are great, and mostly used by some huge-knife wielding enthusiasts, but I prefer my more "grandma like" solution: 

The tinder rasp.

The rasp was born when I made my first loaf of Tree Bark Bread somewhere in 1994 during military training: It is just a humble piece of tin, preferably a jar lid but a soda/beer can will do the trick as well.

Much later I used tinder (made with the rasp) on some leftover wax cloth from my DIY Torch exploits: And that was truly a union made in heaven!

Rasp tinder + waxed cloth =
Total Success!

The tinder powder was easily ignited and sat the wax cloth on fire: Giving me a 4-7 minutes to use that stable flame to make a proper fire!

In the picture: DIY tinder rasp, rasp, was cloth and a flint striker (ferro rod).

Here I make tree flour / tinder with the tinder rasp.
The rasp will be collected in the jam jar.

How the lid looks like: Check my article Tree Bark Bread
on how I made it.

That`s a whole bunch of tinder / flour!

Enough talk! Let`s set fire to it!

Works every time!