Charcloth - Does It Need A Vent-hole?

I make charcloth from old jeans and such all the time. At home in the oven, in the fire in the bush.
Thing is nobody ever told me I need to pake a hole in the tin, so I've never done that and I never had any issues with it. Pre youtube it was like that, you got some information from someone, sometimes not as detailed, or you got to be with someone doing something and you picked up on that and experimented yourself.
What would that vent-hole do? The idea is NOT to give the cloth any oxygen because that's how you char anything, right? Is it faster with a hole or something? I don't know and I'm seldom in a rush.

 

I talk to a north american native friend of mine and he told me how they use a tinderbox. you make a hole in the lid of the tinder box, then fill it loosely with cotton. then throw it in the fire and wait until smoke come pouring out of the hole and then remove it from the fire. ounce it is cool store your flint steel ect in side .

 

I make char cloth and also char cord from cotton materials and rope. I put a hole in my can and when it starts to smoke I know that it is cooking. I will often light the smoke hole. The smoke will burn. When it stops putting anything out of the hole I block it off and remove it from the heat source. When it is cool I carefully remove the charred material and store it in little zip lock bags. I use it with flint and steel and in a piston fire makers.

You can do this with most any fine fibered dry vegetable fibers I use jeans and sash cord because it is easier to handle and is something that KI always have on hand. I can to basically the same thing with jute or any crushed and dried vines that I fine in the woods. I generally use an old Altoids can. The hinges will let the moisture vent but I still put a tiny hole in the top for ease of use.

LOL, that is why I like the ferrocerium rods. You get to skip the char cloth and start on step two. I know it is lazy but it is faster and easier. Once you master a technique there is nothing wrong with moving to something easier. For me there really isn't a big labor saving between a ferro rod and a match as long as I have jute twine on hand. I only carry matches in small plastic tubes for small emergency kits that I give away. I do also carry a few sealed up stormproof matches. But in general I always have a bic lighter and a ferro rod.

 

I only know one way to make it... hole in the lid in the Tin. (via youtube)
Traditionally here we actually used a different Fire lighting technique called the tondeldoos Which is funny enough translated tinderbox.
Its same same but different. here is a video of that.

 

Thank you for the extra resources

 

Funny debate this, I have a couple of old Jacobs cracker tins...neither has a hole and they're both pretty much airtight but I can still char cloth at home on a stove top or in an oven as well as extinguishing smouldering horseshoe fungus tinder in an empty tin when out in the field. Not having a hole in the tin doesn't cause any problem for me. The biggest issue for me is keeping tinder dry enough in our damp environment. A hole in the tin would just let my tinder get damp.

 

I too Have no real need for charred materials (ferro-rod , and mostly dry climate)
Just interesting to learn and understand the proper history and methods for various things.

 

If you look into the old ways there is often a good logical reason for old timers and indigenous people doing things the way they did. Once you have it worked out and incorporated into your bushcraft it just helps all the other old skills make sense and it all begins to fall into place. I've been prepping for years but I'm very far from being an expert in bushcraft...there is another opinion and something new to learn where ever I look.

 

Dont get me wrong, I love bushcraft..
But I look more at the survival/wilderness living aspects.. I generally like making things that Are going to function, and are going to meet a need interms of something that will provide fire, containers, cover, cordage etc..
So yeah I am trying to learn and practice those elements in bush-craft, but also try incorporate things into survival where I can.
But yeah for the most part If I am going to make something its always usually for function over form..

 

Exactly, I look at survival and "YUCK never have liked that name" prepping a lot like when I was a Boy Scout. Our motto was always be prepared. My preparations include a lot more than just end of the world run into the woods and hide stuff.

I've always tried to foresee problems and have answers before the problem arose. I am the person that has a truck full of tools, chains, straps and stuff that will stop and help you if you are broke down or stuck in the mud. I carry a pretty extensive med kit, nitrile gloves, heavy gloves and good masks incase of some sort of disaster. A lot of people that survived 911 in New York ended up with COPD from the dust that was actually tiny sharp edged crushed rock.

Prepping means that you have decided to think ahead and be prepared for the bump and chug holes in the road of life instead of just plowing blindly through. The thing is that once you start doing this it becomes sort of insidious and works its way into all parts of your life.

 

I live in an area that has vast stretches of forest. I won't even go in the woods for the first two weeks of deer season because of all the crazy bozos running around in them. I can't imagine what it would be like after a disaster of dome kind. I foresee a lot of people getting shot by either mistaken identity or just craziness and probably a lot of fires that will get out of control of idiots building big fires in dry woods.

I'm going to hunker down in place and let the stupid go until they get it out of their system. Our culture has for far to long protected the stupid from their stupidity. Without those restraints the stupid will die pretty quickly from the results of their malady.

 

I hear you guys,
I wouldn't call myself a preper, although I do have a lot of gear generally packed for various things (and know enough about wilderness survival, still learning always learning....)
I also was a boy scout.

I too prefer being a bit prepared ahead of time and have decent tools and items etc ready.
But what I focus on is more wilderness survival/ wilderness living.
as I am involved in the training of that here in Southern Africa, and I am often out on course doing that and practicing, teaching and doing.
We dont really differentiate that much between bushcraft and survival we kind of do both but put more emphaisis on the Survival Aspects.

 

I see where you're coming from but I don't totally agree LW. I would think lack of clean drinking water, starvation and disease would account for far more deaths then accidents or stupid mistakes....having said that, every dead body that I've seen was the result of some form of stupidity and should have been entirely preventable, there are plenty of folks out there worthy of a Darwin Award.

 

Did you see a program called Contagion on BBC4 last night LW. It's about an experiment to chart how fast an epidemic can spread...I'm sure it will be on iplayer by now.
Most people that they interviewed had no idea that the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic killed more people then both world wars combined...it was estimated to have killed tens of millions of people world wide.

 

This is a good post. Ystranc, could you put this over into a thread where it better fits. Can't think of the name right now. Good stuff and we should be discussing epidemics, because such have historically been top risks for humanity. Thank you.

 

Where would that be? I looked and couldn't find a forum about epidemics or plagues.

 

Thank you.

 

Sorry about putting a post where it shouldn't really have gone...it was just the direction that the conversation went. Please feel welcome to move it or duplicate it elsewhere if you wish.