anyone ever heard of a "fire piston"?

gaboonviper85

gaboonviper85

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Jan 13, 2008
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it's a tool of sorts meant for lighting fires....it's basically a hand operated "thing" that uses compression to ignite a tinder such as "char cloth"....it works like a diesel motor compressing air which in turn heats the air to really effing hot temps....so basically it's a cylinder with a plunger....you put the tinder on the end of the plunger, place plunger in the cylinder, then smack it like it owes you money and hopefully when you pull the plunger out you'll have a glowing ember...

Just wondering if anyone has ever seen one or heard of such a thing....

I ask cause I made one tonight at work on the lathe....can't believe it actually works...my hand is sore now though....I'll post pics later when I get home.
 
gaboonviper85

gaboonviper85

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ok well....sucks that i cant make a video but oh well youtube has a bunch.

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gaboonviper85

gaboonviper85

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I don't have anything to take a video....but the way it works is..

In the recess on the top if the piston, you pack with "char-cloth" (google char-cloth)....the place piston into the cylinder....then hit the back if the piston hard....as the piston compresses the air in the cylinder it creates alot of heat...right after you hit it quickly remove the piston and hopefully the char-cloth will have ignited....

It's a neat "survival" fire starter as it will work in a hurrican or even underwater aslong as you don't get the char-cloth wet..

This thread has no purpose...I just wanted yall to see what I do when I get bored at work.

I learned about a fire piston from the show survivorman...thought it was a neat idea....I told the guys at work about how this "fire piston" works and like usual they asked me what I was smokeing......so I made one to make my boss look stupid which isn't too hard but it brings me great satisfaction to do so! So anyway once I showed it to him we decided to see what gun powder would do....it didn't light sad to say! And don't worry I only put 1 grain of powder in it.

Anyway...I'll try to get a video of it working...need to borrow a camera.
 
gaboonviper85

gaboonviper85

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I just put a drop of denatured alcohol in it...hit it and it created a dense fog...so I quickly put the piston back in and hit it with a big fucking hammer....it blew the piston about 3' in the air LOL.

This thing is fun.
 
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