How do you start your indoor fire?

[hanniedog]

Come on guys everyone knows a jelly gas flame thrower works best.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Blow torch?

Come on guys everyone knows a jelly gas flame thrower works best.

You can also use a blow torch or a welding torch. :biggrin:

 

[mikereynolds]

I use the chunks and scrap from the wood pile that I can't sell to heat my home. I keep 4 garbage cans full right outside with one inside by the stove. To liget, I stuff the stove with the chunks and use a propane torch to light it. Fast and easy!

 

[Whitespider]

Very simple. It has lots of air already embedded inside it. Ever looked at the cross section? Obviously not.
Spider, be careful.

Wood Doctor,
I know more about corrugated board (it ain't cardboard... cardboard doesn't have a fluted center) than most people ever will. I worked on a corrugator (that's the machine that makes the stuff) for several years at a place called Liberty Carton in Minneapolis... started out as at the "dry" end as a stacker and worked my way up to operator of the "wet" end. The machine had the capability of making single, double and triple walled board, three different flute sizes (A, B and C), up to 8 ft wide and, on a really good day, 700 linear ft per minute. The properties of the board could be varied in several different ways, such as flute size, the thickness and/or type of liner and flute stock, as well as the type/amount of adhesive used.

So yeah, I've spent a lot of time looking at the "cross section" of corrugated board... inspecting the flute and adjusting the amount of heat, steam, pressure and adhesive is how you get the flute "just right". Making those fine adjustments, using the correct combination, to get the perfect flute and flat (non-warped) board, yet sill retaining the properties to take the knife and crease rollers is something of an art-form learned only through time and experience. I can look at a piece of corrugated board and tell you how "good" the guys who made it are at their job.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Sounds very good, Spider, but it would appear that you never use corrugated paper board to start a fire in the stove or fireplace. I find that it works very well when wrapped in newspaper and topped with kindling. I believe that was what the OP was asking about.

I often fill a corrugated 9" x 12" x 2" box filled with sawdust and small wood chips from the shop and use that to get the fire going. Works perfectly. As I said, it's been years since I have ever used a petroleum-based product to light the fire in my woodstove or anyplace else.

To each his own.

 

[mattellis2]

3 dried pine cones with some small kindling piled around it tee-pee style. i save all my cutoffs from my wood shop, and split that up for kindling. usually throw in 2 or 3 pieces of pine limb about 3" in diameter on top of that. one kitchen match is usually all it takes to get it going. i leave the stove door cracked until i have a decent fire going, then throw a few hardwood splits in, and shot the thing up. once the splits have caught, i close the damper most of the way. that old fisher heats out 1900 feet pretty darn well!

-matt

 

[logbutcher]

Here 'bouts you gotta first be sur your teeth are cemented in place. Then some of that C-4 Crappie spoke of. Got to sawzall some steel belted ones ( 18"ers best) for holding power and good smokin'. Chiquita boxes are the pits. BUTT: Cleans up the yard. Old banjos work fine---smash against the tailgate first . The jelly won't ignite, forget it; hard to handle like jello.

Near an airport ? Siphon off some AV from the nearest Citation (preferred) to mix with the C-4.
Insert into said firebox. Ignite with flint ; look closely with face near firebox to see if the AV takes off. Forget diesel, it's an old man's thing with no BTU or explosive gases to trim eyebrows and beards.

Then once it pops, close damper immediately for best effect. N.B. CLOSE DAMPER.

Then enjoy your fav beverage.

"Kinling ? We don need no stinkin' kinling."

 

[Beaver eager]

I buy a bundle of slats (thin pine 4' long) from H/D and use one lenth each time breaking it up into 6-8" pieces and for the tinder I build bows (mostly hickory) so I have lots of wood shavings from the drawknife that I just pack into a brown paper lunch bag and stack in a big box. Pile all that in there and touch off with the MAPP gas. After a few minutes I toss on a smallish log and let that go for twn minutes and stack it us nice and tight right to the top. This is done when I have let the fire die all out but usually I have a good bed of coals and just toss more in.