Make Your Own Fire Starters

People like to be inventive when lighting their barque or camp fire, so here on Go Repairs we want to share a few ways to make your own fire starters.

Each fire starter has its own benefits so see which diy fire starter best suits you.
To start take a moment to watch the video we've prepared, it should give you an overview of what needs to be done, then continue with the rest of the article.

WARNING! If you attempt to make this yourself then take all necessary precautions and wear any necessary safety equipment. Safety advice.

Toilet Paper Fire Starter

Materials Needed:

• Toilet Paper
• Petroleum Jelly
• Lint

Take a piece of toilet paper fold it right the way across about 1 cm in to the sheet. Now sprinkle some dryer lint into the crease and roll up the paper. Twist both ends to seal and smear in petroleum jelly.

Cotton Ball Fire Starter

Materials Needed:

• Cotton balls
• Petroleum Jelly

Take some petroleum jelly and smear it on the outside of the cotton balls, this is a messy job so best wear gloves. The trick with this homemade fire starter is that the more you coat it the longer it will burn, so adapt it to suit your needs.

Tampon Fire Starter

Materials Needed:

• Tampon
• Plastic bag
• String

The tampon is quite a useful little fire starter with one tampon being able to create multiple fire starters. Take your tampon and split it in half. Using the top half that has the tampon in, just seal either end with a piece of plastic carrier bag and tie with a piece of string. This will weatherproof your tampon fire starter and if you tie it like shown in the video, then it will also serve as a handle too.

Tampon Applicator Fire Starter

Materials Needed:

• Tampon
• Petroleum Jelly
• Lint
• String

Taking the other half of the applicator, feed through some string and lint into the gap. When full seal either end and the string with a blob of petroleum jelly.

Cotton Pad Fire Starter

Materials Needed:

• Cotton Pads
• Candle wax

Our last diy fire starter uses just a cotton pad and some wax, but gives great results. If you want to make the same one we did in the video, then you must first start with wax and something to melt it in. I used a tuna can suspended from two others cans and used a tea candle as my heat source. For the wax I just broke up another tea light (it took roughly one tea light candle to make one pad).

When the wax is liquid just pop a cotton pad in and allow to absorb the wax. When its absorbed as much as it can remove the pad and allow to cool on some Aluminium foil. I used needle nose pliers to remove the pad to avoid burning my hands. I would advise heating the nose of the pliers to avoid the wax from instantly cooling on contact and sticking to your pliers.

If however you want the inside of the cotton pad to remain cotton, I would advise you drip wax onto the pad instead. This will allow the wax to cool on the surface of the pad and not be absorbed all the way into the homemade fire starter.

Making your own fire starter the last way will reduce its burn time, but allow lighting it to become easier.

DIY Fire Starter Burn Test

We test burnt some of our homemade fire starters as you seen in the video. It was dry weather and quite warm with an intermittent wind. Below are some of our fire starter burn times:

Cotton Ball Fire Starter (Dry) 18s

Petroleum Cotton Ball Fire Starter 2m 40s

Petroleum toilet roll Fire Starter (filled with lint) 1m 47s

Lint Fire Starter 21s

Tampon applicator Fire Starter 2m 25s (not full burn)

Dry Tampon Fire Starter 1m 47s

Dry Cotton Pad Fire Starter 40s

Wax Cotton Pad Fire Starter 9m 45s 

So there you have a few simple suggestions on how to make your own fire starters, using only simple materials. Don't be afraid to try different combinations of the suggestions to create something completely new. Or if you have any tips on how to make your own fire starters you'd like to share, then leave them in the comments.