Geek Prepper Survival Skills when SHTF!
Don’t pay for fire starters. You can make your own Cotton Ball and Petroleum Jelly Fire Starters, at home, very inexpensively and in less than 5 minutes.
Cotton Ball and Petroleum Jelly Fire Starters
Cotton balls that are covered with petroleum jelly work very well. The cotton acts like a wick, allowing the petroleum jelly to burn while minimizing the consumption of the cotton itself. You can get a few minutes of burn time out of a single cotton ball, using this method.
Directions for making your own Cotton Ball and Petroleum Jelly Fire Starters
Get some 100% natural cotton, cotton balls, some petroleum jelly, a resealable bag and a spoon (plastic?)
Add some of the cotton balls to the bag
Scoop a bit of the petroleum jelly and add it to the bag of cotton balls, start out with a small amount, its easier to add more jelly than it is to remove it!
Knead the petroleum jelly into the cotton balls, remember you don’t want the cotton balls totally saturated. They are easier to light with a spark if some of the cotton remains free of petroleum jelly
Video testing the burn time of a regular cotton ball against the Cotton Ball and Petroleum Jelly Fire Starters
Need more burn time? Our Homemade Firestarters (dryer lint and candle wax) burned for almost 15 minutes: http://www.geekprepper.org/homemade-firestarters/
Another fire starter that works real well, that I’ve not seen mentioned before is, jute rope soaked in cooking oil or olive oil.
get a plastic ziplock bag and shove some cut up scraps of jute or similar cordage in the bottom 1/2 inch, and then pour enough cooking/olive oil in to saturate the cordage, but not make a sloshing oily mess. Close it up and store like that. When you need it, pull a few strands out and feather out the ends of the string, it takes a spark from a fire rod extremely well and burns hot for a good little bit.