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DIY Altoids Tin Fire Kit

Sunday, February 17, 2013 15:46

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To start off, there are many variations online of inventive, resourceful people repurposing the tin those powerful Altoids mints come in. I’m a big fan of Altoids and have held onto the tins for some future use.

As a matter of fact click here to see how this website depicts 22 ways to repurpose your Altoids tin, many survivalism/Preparedness ideas within.

Before I sketch a simple fire kit for your Bug Out Bag using a repurposed Altoids or similar mint tin, I should state that if you find yourself stuck in a woodland situation, no matter what the scenario or circumstances may be, having knowledge of primitive wilderness survival is an invaluable resource to rely on. If you find you are without the fire kit I discuss below, your BOB, or any man made materials to start a fire, then you should have the mental reinforcement in knowing you can survive with just a knife in the woods. But, even if you don’t have a knife, the tasks may be a bit more challenging, but you should have the knowledge and skill to survive. If you have not begun a study and research into primitive wilderness survival methodologies, then a great place to start, and where my wife and I began, is the work of Tom Brown Jr.

With that said, in our disposable, supermarket driven consumer culture, there are really not a whole lot choices when it comes to repurposing the packaging of items you may find in a supermarket, at least not for a survival situation when having to Bug Out. Surely, those more inventive than I may argue differently. Regarding vessels you can use to store smaller items inside, is itself a compact, the Altoids tin seems the way to go.

For a Fire Starter Kit we can stow all the essentials of getting a fire going into one large Altoids tin. Those teeny tiny Altoids tins can be repurposed, but they’re not large enough for a Fire Starter kit. Think more along the lines of small sewing kits, or even a small pill case. When preparing your kit, try to adopt the motto I’ve gleaned from the prepper community: “have a back up for your back up.” Have a redundancy plan and don’t just store one type of thing in your Fire Starter kit so you have more than one possible way of starting a fire, keeping in mind that some methods work better than others depending on the situation—climate, materials available, and so on.

Altoids FireKit in US Army Belt Pouch

Here is a list of items that I’ve packed into my own kit as a start. By no means is this an exhaustive list. Many other survivalists and preppers may do this entirely differently and I am very much open to any suggestions our readers may have on how to improve this.

Of course prior to breaking this out and lighting anything from your Fire Starter Kit, decide your purpose and what kind of fire you’ll be creating (a cooking fire, a fire for warmth, a fire for protection, a bank of coals, a fire to transport). Make sure you prepare the space for your fire, gather any materials you’ll need, prepare your tinder bundle, and don’t forget your fire bundle.

Items for building your Fire Starter Kit:

Small Bic Lighter: a lighter is instant fire but not entirely reliable if it gets damp or if you run out of lighter fluid
Magnesium strip with steel rod: most of these have the steel rod or stricker build in alongside the strip itself; with this item you scrape some of the magnesium from the strip onto the top of your tinder bundle, then strike the steel rod with the back of your knife to create sparks which hopefully ignite the magnesium and your tinder. This method has good success, but again, can be fussy if the tinder is damp or if the climate itself is damp.
Match bundle: Be sure to pack as many matches as you can into the kit. You can always line the bottom of the tin with them or bundle them with a rubber band or twist tie. I prefer to bundle them together, so if the tin gets knocked over, no matches are lost. You can also include with regular wooden kitchen matches a few waterproof matches and strike-anywhere matches.
Match striker: I cut out the match strike pad from a box of wooden matches and taped it to the inside of the tin lid with Gorilla Glue duct tape. I also think that the lid can be used as a shield as the wind but you must be careful not to accidentally set the contents of your kit on fire!
Cotton balls: (I’d suggest soaking them in an accelerant and placing them in a small Ziploc bag so the accelerant doesn’t affect your other material.) These can go up pretty quick, use one or two to start, I’ve packed 4 into the kit without being soaked in an accelerant. To make them last, try pulling the ball apart so you’re using the “fuzz” to light the tinder—sort of like using some other fuzzy material like pocket lint or the lint from your socks.
A good piece of charcloth: It’s not pictured here because at the time of writing, I haven’t made any for the kit, but I do plan on making some. Charcloth is very delicate, so you’ll need to preserve it so it doesn’t crumble into powder. If you have the room, you can use a mini-Altoids tin to protect your charcloth, or slip some into a small, rigid envelope, or even an empty Orbit gum package. You can also use the empty gum packet as tinder.
Twine or a shoelace: To back up your lighter, match, magnesium strip& cotton balls, I suggest putting some good twine or a shoelace into the kit. As pictured, I have twine but will be putting a shoelace into it. This is to have in case all else fails and you need to make a bow drill. Normally if you are stuck in a woodland situation you could take your shoelace off your shoe and use it for a bow drill, or find natural cordage to do this for you. Having a shoelace in this kit keeps your shoelace on your shoe, is a bit stronger than simple butcher’s twine, and gives you one extra redundancy plan in your series of redundancy sources of fire making.

To keep moisture from entering the tin I would use a band of duct tape, I prefer the Gorilla Glue variety, around the edge of the lid, only to be removed upon use of the kit, or you can place the whole tin in a water tight, zip lock style bag. If you decide to make multiple kits for varied purposes out of Altoids tins, like a First Aid Kit, a Suture Kit, Sewing Kit, etc—then be sure to label all your kits. A simple color-coded strip of duct tape or electrical tape would be an easy identifier. A strip of red tape can signify this as your Fire Starter kit.

As an extra, I like that this tin can fit into a small US Army belt pouch, that I can wear on my utility belt, or can easily slip into a jacket or vest pocket, or can be clipped at the ready outside my BOB. Either way, a repurposed Altoids or mint tin as a Fire Starter kit takes up very little space in your BOB.

2013-02-16 08:00:20

Source: http://www.green-and-growing.com/2012/03/diy-altoids-tin-fire-kit.html

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