Make Sawdust Muffin Fire Starters

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Making good use of waste products is a great way to conserve resources, and sawdust is no exception. One of the lesser-known benefits that this material provides is that it can be used for starting fires. All that you need is a big candle, some sawdust, a muffin pan, muffin papers and time, and you can create a batch of highly efficient fire starting material. Learn how to apply this easy hack to your survival portfolio today, and you can have access to water-resistant and effective resources when you need them the most.

 

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Preparing the Ingredients

You can use any kind of sawdust to make this trick work, but the secret to creating long-lasting kindling is to focus on small pieces. If you make this with material that is too dusty, it will burn erratically and too fast. If you use larger pieces, such as mulch, then it will not be cohesive enough to produce the desired results as well. The ideal size of sawdust and wood fragments should be about the same, or a little larger than oatmeal. You can mix some pure dust in with the larger pieces, but try to make the majority of the batch from the bigger fragments.

 

Once you have the sawdust on hand, prepare the muffin pans by lining each hole with a muffin paper. Then fill each one about halfway to three quarters of the way to the top. Set the pan aside when finished. The next step is to melt a large candle in a pot on the stove or grill. Use a low to medium heat to prevent burning or boiling, and stir continually as the candle melts down.   You want to make enough melted wax to saturate each of the muffins that you are preparing.

 

 

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Pouring the Wax

The next step is to carefully pour the hot wax over each muffin, being careful to fill just to the top of the sawdust. You don’t want a layer of pure wax that will harden and make lighting the muffins difficult later. You may need to pour a little more on top of each one as the wood soaks up the wax. Allow the muffins to dry overnight until they become hardened patties. You can use them immediately or store them in containers or baggies until needed.

 

One note about pouring. The wax will be extremely hot and easy to spill. You may want to consider using a funnel or fashioning an empty can to serve as a spot for the material. If you want to use an aluminum can, all you need to do is squeeze the sides near the top until it deforms and creates a spout. Then, carefully transfer the candle wax from the pot to the can before pouring over the sawdust.

 

You can also place the candle directly into a can that you bend afterwards and then place into the pot with some water. This double boiler will not only melt the wax, but reduce some of the risk associated with pouring hot wax from one container to another.

 

One of the best aspects of this method is that the combination of wood and wax will create a nice, long-lasting fire that can be used to light larger fires in difficult conditions. They work great in the rain or when winds are too strong for traditional ignition sources to get the job done. They also help you to conserve and make good use of limited resources, and this technique can be used to recycle both wood as well as wax.

 

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