Petroleum Jelly Infused Cottonball Tinder

[CharlesHarris]

Cotton balls infused with petroleum jelly are reliable wet-weather tinder which has been used by ski patrol and search & rescue units for many years.

This is how we teach “PJCB Basics” to our CERT teams:

Start with a 6 oz. jar of Vaseline and a big bag of pure cotton balls from the drug store. No synthetics!

Melt the Vaseline in a double-boiler, taking precautions against fire.
Pour most of the molten liquid into a #10 (2 liter) can with its top cut out, GI canteen cup or mess tin.

Fill the emptied out, but still well-coated Vaseline jar with dry cotton balls. Work / knead the CBs with your fingers to take up the melted Vaseline coating the inside of the container. If necessary grab another handful of dry cotton balls, repeating the process until the original Vaseline container is wiped virtually dry.

Now grab more dry cotton balls, put them into your #10 can, mess tin or canteen cup, and knead them with the rest of the melted Vaseline, knead, repeat, and repeat. A large (1 liter) bag of cotton balls readily soaks up an entire 6 oz. jar of melted Vaseline. Take your batch of infused cotton balls, and repeatedly knead and work them together so that the Vaseline is evenly distributed through all of them so the CBs are totally infused, being both fueled and waterproofed, but not so highly saturated that they will ooze Vaseline when squeezed. This enables compressing a large number of them into a small container, so that they are easy to separate, pull apart and fluff to readily take the spark from your ferro rod or Doan Machinery tool!

Pack your finished PJCBs into a tight, compressed mass in 35mm film cans, snuff cans, the crannies of your Altoid survival tin, etc. Then put fire tinder containers everywhere in the odd corners of your truck, personal survival kit, coat pockets, etc.

If you don't smoke, yank the filling out of an old Zippo and mash about ten of these LIGHTLY infused, highly compressed cotton balls, into its fuel cavity. With good flint you've now got ten fires in your pocket! I buy old lighters at garage sales, etc., field strip them, pack and stow them everywhere.

To build your fire pull an infused cotton ball out from your stash, pull it apart with your fingers to fluff well, then place it onto the tip of your metal spade, mess kit spoon or K-bar sheath knife. This makes it easy reposition it after lighting, into your toothpick, matchstick, grass ball and wood shavings "bird nest tinder ball." As soon as your birdnest catches, start by laying on "chop stick" sized split wood in a small "tipi fire," then go upward in size to the "pencil sticks," then to "tent peg sticks" and so on until you can go on real split firewood.

Master Chief told us as young aircrew to start with at least a canteen cup full of tinder, shavings and chopstick to up to pencil-sized small dry wood. If you don't have that much, go out and get some more!

My anorak pocket "firebox" is packed in an Altoids tin and contains:

Four Esbit solid fuel tabs http://www.bestglide.com/esbit_stove.html

Aviator's Sparklite Kit http://www.bestglide.com/Spark_Lite_Info.html

Fresnel lens http://www.bestglide.com/fresnel_lens_firestarter.html

A twist-type hand pencil sharpener, which is great for making thin wood shavings from sticks, etc.

As many PJCBs as I can cram into the nooks and crannies of the box so its contents don't rattle.

Box is held closed with two Ranger Bands cut from bike inner tube. Rubber is also very good as expedient fuel.

I always have a K1 ferro rod and striker on my key ring http://www.bestglide.com/K1_Info.html

Best Glide ASE is a prime contractor and major supplier of survival kits and individual kit items to the U.S. government, military, commercial and general aviation. They carry only quality, tested items, most of which are the actual U.S. and NATO specification survival equipment identified by NSN number, from the original government contractors. Survival gear is their only business, they have been at it a long time and have a stellar reputation in the military and aviation communities.

I have no connection with the firm, other than being a satisfied customer. I owe my life to their gear being available to me and performing when I needed it do so. I can provide no higher testimonial.