Prepping - How to Make a Char Cloth

How to Make a Char Cloth

In an emergency, you may need to use a char cloth.  I suppose the first question you may have is, “What is a char cloth?”  In short, a char cloth is a burnt piece of cloth…no, seriously it is.  The next question is, “Why do I need a char cloth?”  Another very good question and if you are serious about Prepping you may want to at least try to make these.  A char cloth is used when you need to start a fire using flint and steel.  The char cloth will hold the sparks while you put extremely flammable material on top (straw, dead leaves, dryer lint, etc.) so that it will catch fire.

The first thing you need are the materials:

Cotton material – (an old 100% cotton shirt, or rag is perfect)

A tin – I use an Altoids tin, but you could use a bigger cookie tin if you want.

A screwdriver or nail

A hammer

Tongs

A fire

Step 1:

Get a fire going (I know, “I need a fire to make things to help me start a fire, how lame”).  It will help you with future fires.  You may have matches now for a fire, but they will run out, you may need a flint and steel fire making solution before long.

Step 2:

Cut your cloth into pieces that will fit into the tin.  For the Altoids tin, I make them about 1” X 1 ½ “.  If you are using a bigger tin, you can make them bigger, but I would say 2X2 is the biggest you would need.

Step 3:

Take the hammer and screwdriver (or nail) and punch a hole in the middle of the tin.

Step 4:

Loosely put the pieces of cloth in the tin.  If you have too many to fit into the tin, you can do the process more than once with a tin (just take out the ones you already made).

Step 5:                                  

Put the tin on the coals from the fire USING THE TONGS.  While you can put it directly in the fire, it may “cook” them too quickly.  You will see smoke come out of the hole.  That is perfect.  I have had flame come out, and I would just pick the tin up with the tongs and blow it out, and put it back on the coals.

Usually after 7 minutes, I will take the tin out (when I use the Altoids tin, if your tin is bigger, you may want to wait 15 minutes or so),  I open the tin (carful, it is HOT) and look at the cloths.  If the cloths are a dark black, they are done, if they are brown, they need to be put in longer.  Look at all the cloths, shuffle them around a bit if some are black, and some are brown.  Put them in for 3 or 4 minutes at a time, and recheck them.  You can remove finished ones if you desire, and work only on the brown ones.

If the cloths are rather brittle, you left them in too long.  They should still be somewhat flexible.

Step 6:

Now you need to try one out to make sure they work properly and so you know how to use it.

Grab some lint or dry grass, and your flint and steel.  Take the flint and steel and put some sparks on the char cloth (if you want, scrape some of the flint on the char cloth before sparking it).  Blow on the cloth, and you will see orange dots light up, those are the embers.

                                                                    

Put the char cloth on top of some of the lint or dry grass, then put more on top.  Blow the cloth trying to put the lint or grass where the embers are brightest.  When it catches, put it in the area you will have the fire, and put small twigs and sticks on top so it will catch (but not smother the flame).

Have fun, don’t burn down the house.

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