How to Make A Fire Starter

Instead of buying expensive fire starters, you can make your own! This is also a great project for scouts before any camping trip. These fire starters help get a fire going because they burn slow.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• candle wax
• cotton wick
• dryer lint
• melting pot
• regular pot
• paper towel rolls

1. Almost all of the items used to make the fire starters can be found at home and can be recycled to make this project. You can use broken pieces of candle wax, empty paper towel rolls, and dryer lint - which you would throw away anyway!

2. First you will boil a pot of water. Put pieces of candle wax into a melting pot - then put the melting pot into the water. This will make sure that the wax melts evenly and doesn't burn.

3. While you wait for the wax to melt completely, take the empty paper towel roll and hold it vertically with the hole on the bottom sealed - standing up on a plate. Slide the cotton wick down through to the bottom. Make sure there are no gaps between the roll and plate for the melted wax to leak through.

4. Pull apart the dryer lint and place it in the vertical roll. Once the wax is liquefied, pour it down into your roll and it will find it's way to the bottom, around the dryer lint up to the top.

5. Let this dry for at least a half hour to an hour. Once you think it's completely cool, you can cut the roll every 1" to make several fire starters. Then you can peel off the cardboard roll.

Tips & Warnings

• always keep children away from hot wax, fire, and matches!

[boatst]

on 2/24/2009 Great idea. This would make excellant gifts for people who have fireplaces. Thanks for article.