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Fire Piston

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I was wondering if anyone out there had any experiance with the fire piston? How well do they work? I checked with the outfit that sells them and the one made from cocobolo wood starts out at $60.00 and the one made from horn starts at $80.00.
 
I saw thew article in muzzle blasts that started this new interest in fire pistons and thought : Gee I can make one of those on my lathe real easily. But I haven't had time to do it yet. Now that i have the last cutting of hay in the barn I hope to try making one some time this week. I'll post if it works, I can assure you they can be made for around ten dollars, not fifty or more. As a long time woodworker and retired tool and die maker (my last job was at a hydraulic plant ) I am certain that they woould not be hard to make.
 
The secret to having a good seal to hold the pressure is to use a Reamer to make the final hole as smooth as possible. That means using a drill bit that is undersize to the final reamed diameter. Don't drill a hole larger than 1/4" in diameter, as the larger the hole the more difficult it is to raise the pressure/temperature enough to cause ignition. YOu can buy a 1/4" diameter reamer for a relatively small cost, and it should last forever if its only used to ream out wood or plastics. Refer to a drill chart for threading(tapping) holes to find the correct sized drill to use to make the initial hole for reaming.

I bought a Fire Piston made of Lucite so that I could let students and friends see that the fire is actually started inside the container, and not my some slight of hand trick when I remove the piston. Until people actually see the fire piston produce fire, they don't want to believe its possible.

I think auto shop basics should be required of every student in High School. Apparently, the Science classes are NOT teaching the principles of the Internal Combustion Engine anymore.
 
Not starting a flame here but!!! some of you guys crack me up! ya all want something for nothing or so it seems. First the guy has to figure out how to make the thing then he has to buy the wood(ya priced exotic woods lately) then he has to make it(guess his time ain't worth nothing, then he has to fill out the order n mail it n everybody thinks it ought to cost less then 10bucks. why don't all the guys that think everything is so cheap to make n build go into business n actually see how much they make per hour, ya might be maken .50 cents an hour if yer lucky. Seems blackpowder people are often times beyond frugal to the point of cheap. Ask yerself some time how long would it take to make this item n figure in at ONLY $5.00 an hour n see how much it would cost ya. n this ain't even including the cost of materials or maybe a small profit margin(ya ain't doing it for nothing I wouldn't think). works out to a whole lot more then most folks want to pay so whomever it is building, making, constructing anything I salute ya all for not going postal at events with all the CHEAP comments ya hear/sorry had to vent, Claude if ya want to delete this its ok with me just had to blow some steam :cursing:
 
I started going to rendezvous in the mid 1970's. We did a lot of living history and skills and so forth. We did woods walks where you had to do so many different things like start a fire. There were always those who cheated and tried to bring frazzled baler twine or somesuch treated fuzzy fiber that would flash with a spark, but most guys used what was there, that was the intent, grab some dry grass and use flint and steel and make a fire as quickly as possible. My point is, that even in the study of living history, we never talked about nor heard of FIRE PISTONS. Then about 5 years ago, the subject began to arise and now everyone is talking about it...........

I am curious, what is the history of fire pistons and when did they develop and who used them? It looks like a lot of technology going in here...
 
A fire poston was patented in the early 1800s. In Europe, I believe. Before then, it does not appear in literature. The latest version came to us via a helicopter pilot who landed in a remote island in the Phillipines, and traded a chief something( I have now forgotten) for his fire piston. That fire piston is supposed to be in the Smithsonian Institute now. It is claimed that primitive peoples, like those the pilot met, had been making fire pistons for hundreds of years.

I personally have my doubts, although there are examples made out of bamboo that work. Since these peoples don't have a written language, they also have no written history. Its hard to meet our standards of " Historically Correct", without written documentation of some kind.

I still question even those made of bamboo, because they use iron or steel rods heated red hot to bur through the joints in the bamboo to make these pistons. I don't believe that there are any iron deposits to be found in SE Asia or in the Phillipines, so I believe even these primitive fire pistons are the result of early contacts with Europeans. The iron had to come from someplace else, for sure.

The other four TRUE primitive methods of fire starting are friction, refraction, reflection, and percussion. We can argue if the Compression method of the fire piston is truly " PRIMITIVE".
 
The fire piston is just a current ... fad. A ... curiosity ... just as it was back in the late 1700's and early 1800's.

There are some documented references to fire pistons in Europe in the late 1700's (almost mid 1700's). But it was always viewed as a novelty - a scientific curiosity. Why bother with such a fickle fire starting method when the flint striker was a well known and proven method centuries old - and very cheap to get. Patent applications for fire pistons were repeatedly turned down until they finally issued one in 1807 or 1813 (depending up which source). But it still was just a ... novelty or scientific curiosity. And the introduction of these new things called "matches" killed off any commercial hopes for them.

Did some actually get "invented" down in southeast Asia and the Pacific islands? Or are they a native imitation of a "curious item" brought along to "amaze the natives" with those "scientific explorers" who first contacted tribes in those areas? Hard to tell.

Their "discovery" in southeas Asia and central/south America seems to coincide with those great exploration voyages of the late 1700's. But the fire piston already existed in Europe before they set sail. So was it found down there, or brought along and "introduced"? A "detail" lost to history. And how do you compare Oral history to Written history?


As to making one for yourself cheaper? Yes, it's easy - if you do not figure in any of your own time and tools. Too many people look at an item and only look at what they think the original materials would cost. And they almost completely ignore their TIME to make it. And the time and tools necessary to make it. They never think of their time as anything more than a couple fun hours tinkering around - not as something they have to charge for to support a business.

The other "bad attitude" out there is that anybody selling something bought that item from somewhere else just to resell for a profit. That they bought it for a "fraction" of what they are selling it for - so they can make a "big profit". And thus they could sell it for a whole lot less by just not needing to make THAT MUCH profit. That ... fleamarket ... mentality. (Not even mentioning the "garage sale" mentality - of only paying pennies on the dollar for anything.)

And then there is all that business "overhead" stuff - rent/mortgage, utilities, insurance, licenses, taxes, advertising, supplies, materials, and a whole mess more stuff in you have employees.

My standard response is that if you think it is so easy and you can make it cheaper, then please do so. I'll even help tell you how to make it. And NO, you can't "borrow" my "business" tools, fuel, materials to do it yourself. Go get your own!

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
 
:grin: I enjoy making things I see just for the satisfaction of "doing it myself", not because I am cheap or broke. Anyone who thinks they are saving money by making "things" themselves are cheap. I know it costs a lot but I do it for "fun". :rotf: :youcrazy: :thumbsup:
Ronnie
 
Fire Pistons originated in the Phillipines in the 1700's. An Englishman brought it back to England (duh) and was going to patent it. Unfortunately, it was the same time the Lucifer sticks were patented, so he never pursued a patent.

I have a Fire piston and have used it to start fires many times. It does not replace my flint and steel or looking glass. It's just another way to make fire. I mostly use it as a conversation piece and light my pipe with. It does work with many different tinders such as char, bark, fungus.

I tried to make one and gave up. But they do work as long as you have a good seal.
 
Actually, a patent was issued in England in 1807, but other patents were issued in France, and other European countries. None were successful as a marketable item because of the invention and wide dissemination of stick matches, as you indicate, at the same time.

Anyone trying to patent a fire piston today is simply throwing good money away. Since the invention of the internal combustion engine, there is NOTHING new about creating heat through compression. And, once an idea is patented, it is not going to get a another patent.

For Instance, Sam Colt's patent on his revolver( actually the mechanism he came up to rotate and LOCK the cylinder for firing) expired in 1857, which so happens to be the year that Smith and Wesson brought out its first Cartridge revolver. Now, pinfire revolvers were around much earlier, So I doubt that S&W could claim a " new idea " to patent cartridges, or a cylinder that is loaded from the rear. Instead, they spent their money marketing their gun- a .22 short 5-shot " gallery " gun, followed by larger guns in .32, 38, and 44 caliber cartridges when the Civil War broke out in 1961. The guns were a hit from the beginning because of their solid frame construction, and the ease of carrying ammo. ( The original ammo was made with copper casings. This changed when it was found that the copper casings would seize up in the chambers as the copper expanded with heat, and the presense of dirt would make it difficult to clear the chambers even with the cylinder pin, which was use as the extractor. In the mid 1860s, ammo makers perfected the production equipment to make casings out of brass, both rimfire, and centerfire.)
 
The common "story" is that the fire piston was ... discovered ... down in the South Pacific in the late 1700's and then brought back.

But the idea/concept of a fire piston was known and recorded back in Europe in the 16th and 15th centuries. It just never became anything more than a "scientific curiosity" because of the availability of inexpensive steel flint strikers for starting a fire. So alternative fire starting methods tended to be more ... curiosities ... than common practiced methods.

So then another Historical Question comes to mind: was it truely developed independantly down in the South Pacific, or did they just copy the idea from earlier "exploration" voyages who stopped by to visit and used it to ... impress the locals? One of those things ... lost to history.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. It was also "discovered" being used by locals in South America in the late 1700's. Again, developed independantly? Or ... borrowed ... from earlier "visitors"?
 
What Smith & Wesson did was obtain exclusive rights to Rollin White's patent for the bored through cylinder. This gave them the sole right to produce this type of revolver for 18 years. Ironically, White as a former employee of Colt.
 
I believe the Smith and Wesson bought up the White patent simply as insurance, so they would not have a fight. I don't think the patent was worth much. After all, the BB cap cartridge was invented in the mid 1840s, which required a pass-through chamber in the cylinder, as did the earlier Pin Fire cartridges. Both those cartridges were more successful in Europe than in America, but both would have posed serious problems for White's Patent defense.

Even the Sam Colt patent was probably too broad to defend, as the pepperbox pistol had figured out how to rotate "barrels". What they lacked was the mechanism to lock the " barrels" under the hammer as they rotated into battery. But, back in that day, legal battles, while expensive, could be afforded, and were frequently fought.

Today, the Supreme Court is a bit tougher on recognizing patents.( Since 1950, only a handful of patents have been recognized by the Justices, while dozens of cases have seen patent claims reversed!) Patent litigation usually results not in a clear court win, but with a settlement that involves paying for a license to use the patented product. The litigation usually stops short of the Supreme Court.

I had a client contact me after receiving a threatening letter from an out of state lawyer over a Trade name use issue. A quick search with Google found several companies with the same name in various states. I sent the lawyer a letter asking for information on his claim of " original Trade name", and noted the list of similar named companies that I found simply by searching on Google. I never heard from him again.
 
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