Tinder Bundles
Tinder Bundle and Ember Fires
Sometimes the best you can get is an ember. Build a Tinder Bundle and use an ember to turn ember into a flame.
Tinder Bundles
Grass
Cottonwood Inner Bark
Shredded Cedar Bark
Fine Feathers from a stick
Unraveled rope made from natural fibers (Jute, Hemp or Sisal)
Dry moss
Tinder Extenders
Punk Wood
Charred material
Cattail
Processing Cedar Bark into a Tinder Bundle
Prepping
Mash up your tinder material over a dry cloth or hat. If it is wet out, make sure you protect your bundle from rain or drips of water. Mash, rip apart and otherwise abuse your tinder to break it down. Form a "bird's nest" out of your material. Add material collected in your dry cloth or hat to the middle of your bundle. Then add the very fine dust left on your work surface to the middle of your bundle. Keep dry and set aside at the ready while you work on making and ember.
Cedar Bark
Cedar Bark Tinder Bundle
Strip bark from a dead cedar and mash it up in your hands. Get it nice and fluffy and then shape it into a 'bird's nest'.
Add your ember and blow life into it until it catches fire.
Dry Grass Tinder Bundle
Grass takes little prep work and works great if its dry.
If you have straw-like grass, mash it up in your hands and put the finest material in the middle.
More is better with grass.
Jute and other Twine or Rope
Unravel rope into fine fibers or scrape your twine with a knife to make a handful of fluffy fibers.
Jute tinder will easily ignite with a spark or an ember and blowing into it.
Note that Manila Rope is often oiled. This smokes a lot and can be tricky to ignite. You may need to let the ember sit for a while, otherwise blowing too hard, too soon will just burn up the fibers without igniting it.
Dry Moss Tinder Bundle
Moss and similar vegetation works fine, but really needs to be dry.
If your moss is a little damp, you may be able to make it work if you add some ember extender such as dry punk to the middle of the bundle or dry it out a bit under your jacket.
Wet moss won't work.
Usnea (Beard Lichens) also works. The must be dry and fluffed up a bit.
Wood Shavings and Feather Sticks
Finely shaved wood can be used as a tinder bundle. You can make it out of just about any type of wood.
For best results, shave your wood as thin as possible. Creating two feather sticks and holding them together works the best, but takes a lot of prep time.
FIRE!
Using a Tinder Bundle
Carefully place ember in middle of tinder bundle with the fine material you placed in the center. Carefully close your bundle around the ember. Start with gentle blowing to get your ember going. As you develop more and more smoke, add more and more air. Lots of smoke means you need LOTs of air and are about to ignite your bundle. Once you have a flame, carefully turn your bundle so the flame is on the bottom of the bundle and will dry out and ignite the rest of the bundle.
Making an Ember
There are many methods for making an ember.
Friction methods such as a bow drill
Ember from old fire
Flint on steel
Magnifying glass ideally on charcloth
Ferrorod on punkwood or cattail
Fire Piston
