by Woodsbum
One of my MANY issues I have is my inability to either film, splice, or create a decent video in any form or fashion. Due to this definite deficiency in my skill set I tend to find good videos that others have done. This video is pretty good about charring natural materials.
I char a lot of different things to use with my flint and steel for starting fires. For quick and easy charring I tend to use a lot of heavy cotton cloth from JoAnn’s Fabrics. I do also use a lot of inner tree bark, cat tail down, punk wood for coal extention, various types of plant stalks, etc. Mostly anything that is light and porous that seems like it will char well gets tried out. Some does work while others don’t.
This video shows various natural materials and what the natural materials look like after having been charred.
Many videos about how to make a char tin or how to actually char material are available. This video is pretty good and shows how to make char cloth as well as lighting it with a firesteel. Of course there are hundreds of videos out there, but this guys cover some good points such as only making a small hole with an awl or nail rather than a slit with a knife. He also mentions something that many people I teach charring to, which is the way that the lid always sticks after the charring is done. He doesn’t really show how long to char it. I personally keep it on the fire until I don’t see much smoke left at all. I actually char things longer than most, but since I live in a very wet/moist type environment the drier the char cloth the better.
I hope you enjoyed this post about charring and use of natural materials as a char media. If I can get a video put together that I am not completely ashamed of, I will try and get something built to show you a couple good char tin tricks.
