Firestarter: Cottonballs with Vaseline

Sawdust was flying everywhere at work, as a huge Oak tree was being chainsawed to pieces. The old Oak started to tip over the main golf cart path. Therefore we had to fall the beautiful tree!! The sawdust covered the path along with the grass around the path. The short curled pieces of oak dust reminded me of the coming backpacking season and i didn't have any firestarters. I never have backpacked firestarters up the trail. Usually moss, twigs and other debris finds it's way into my hands with my trusty lighter.
In 2013 i wanted to experience with firestarters. After asking a couple fellow employees about how to make sawdust firestarters the conversation turned to a new firestarter i hadn't heard of before. COTTONBALLS with VASELINE! I became curious!!!

Here's where my curiosity took me!!

In my mind firestarters should be cheap, easy to make, lightweight and conduct a long lasting flame!! Agree??

My experiment:

Cheap??
For $3.69 I bought 100 cotton balls and 13 ounces of Vaseline. By the time I used all the Vaseline i had produced 35 cottonball firestarters. Therefore i used all 2.69 of the  cost of Vaseline. Not using all the cottonballs, only 35 of the 100 would be 35/100. Because they only cost $1.00, 35/100 meant i used 35 cents of the $1.00. The sum would then equal 2.69 (vaseline) + .35 (cottonballs) = $3.04!!
Which would put each cottonball firestarter cost at $3.04/35= .086 cents.
Less than 9 cents per firestarter.
So far so good huh!! Agree??

Easy to make??

Its really simple!! Take your Vaseline and spoon it out into a old sauce pan. Turn the stove top to low heat, which was number 2 out of 9 on my stove top. If the pan gets too hot you can burn off the Vaseline and lose fuel before you can soak it up with the cotton. This will make your cost per firestarter go up as you lose fuel. I made sure to stay in the kitchen in order to know when the petroleum jelly was mostly melted.
Next take your cottonballs, the amount depends on how big your pan is, and place them in the melted jelly. I took about 5 or 6 at a time, rolled them in the jelly with a spoon and watched the cottonball soak up the fuel. Its easy to notice once the cottonball has soaked up it's full capacity. Next remove the balls from the pan and let them cool down. Repeat the cycle a couple of times. This is key. Dont put all the Vaseline in the pan at once as this also will cause loss of fuel from evaporation. Instead place just enough for 5 or six cottonballs. Once they have hardened you can store them away for later use.

Lightweight??

I don't have any info about how heavy each final cottonball weighs. I don't own a digital ounce scale. Someday i will! Its not a need , just a want. Cottonballs are small and all you need is one per fire. Therefore a small Ziploc back with 2 to 4 cottonballs is relatively light and doesn't take much space. If you have a problem with the weight or size of these for sake of room then your probably brought to much gear!!

Long lasting flame??

Yes indeed!!! With my stopwatch i timed the life of the flame a total of 4 times. 3 of those 4 times i burnt the balls as one normally would but the 4th time i placed a cottonball in a plate of water. The water in the plate covered half of the lower portion of the cottonball. The normal burn times were two 16 minute times and one 18 minute time. Therefore about an average time of 17 minutes. The 4th time while placed in the water the burn time was 22 minutes. Go figure!
The properties of Vaseline does not allow water to penetrate up through the cottonball. Thus making this firestarter perfect for the PNW as our climate is wet.
I also blew on the flame as hard as i could from a foot away and couldn't put out the flame. Next i poured droplets of water onto the flame with the same result, with flame remaining. Next i poured 8 ounces of water on the flame all at once and finally the flame was quenched.

The flame from the normal burn ranges from 3 to 5 inches which is very siginicant!!
In the wilderness the lightweight vaseline cottonballs are easy to hike with! The flame will catch most tinder and wood on fire with an average of a 17 minute burn time. Plus making these cottonballs are easy without breaking the bank. There's potential to save money depending on what you use normally!! Its a win win situtation.
Next i need to use them on my next hike and backpacking trek!! i will keep you updated on how they work out in the field!
Now stop reading this blog and head outdoors!!!!