A fire piston

what would be a good wood to make a fire p out of.
i have maple, oak, redwood, cherry, maghoney, popular, pine,chestnut,cypress,black walnut, red cedar, all seasoned for yrs.

I made mine out of black walnut,It works fine. Mahogany, would have been my first pick if I would of had it.

I would make mine out of mesquite.....of course I have no idea what a fire piston is. Perhaps someone could enlighten this poor old and confused canuck mountainman.

Try this on for size Mountainman. Check out this site for an explanation on firepiston. It explains better than I can.[url] http://www.firepiston.com[/url]/

Mountainman56 said:

I would make mine out of mesquite.....of course I have no idea what a fire piston is. Perhaps someone could enlighten this poor old and confused canuck mountainman.

Click to expand...

Hey you poor old confused Canuck Mountainman,
[url] http://www.firepistons.com/[/url]


[url] http://www.firepiston.com/[/url]

rabbit03 :thumbsup:

I would use the Maghoney too. Dilly

YOu want a hard wood, with very tight grain. That means you usally will do better with woods that show little " figure " to the wood. Eliminate oak, ash, cherry, maple, Chestnut, PINE, all softwoods, including cedar, cypress, basswood, balsaw, Redwood, poplar( aspen or cottonwood are its other names),etc.

Stick with Black Walnut, Mahogany, Ebony, and even teak.You might be able to get by with Birch.

Aha....very interesting. It all becomes perfectly clear to me now....kinda. :hmm: So mesquite WOULD make an excellent firepiston. Greybrd, if you would like a chunk of mesquite to try out PT me with an address and I'll send you some.

thanks Mountainman56 , i'll try the black walnut long as i have it handy..

Hi Guys
I have made some fire pistons.Two have been made using brass tubes and one out of clear plastic. Plus one out of hardware store dowel rods. They have all worked but all seem to need a powerfull push to get fire. Mine don't work as easily as is shown on the web site. How well do yours work?How are you drilling the hole accurate enough?
On one of my brass fire pistons,I have a very tiny hole in the bottom. The compressed air jets out very fast and hot.When set on top of char cloth it will ignite most of the time.Works with chared wood too.
With the clear plastic fire piston I get a rather bright flash that is like a camera strobe. Really lights up the room. When I show off these things to unbelievers they can't hardly comprehend that this can work. n.h.schmidt

Drilling the hole usually is not good enough. You have to use a REAMER to polish and smooth the cylinder to get good compression. The larger the diameter of the trunk and handle of the plunger, in relation to the smallness of the diameter of the rod, the more efficient a blow is in producing fire.

The problem I have with the Lucite one I bough it that the trunk and handle are too small in diameter, and it hurt my hand to smack it hard enough to produce fire. I have to strike the piston on something solid, holding the trunk of the device in my hand, and that is marring the handle on the piston.

My suggestion is to make another fire piston, without the hole in the bottom, with no more than a 1/4" rod, but with a 3 inch diameter or larger trunk and handle. I don't think the piston has to be longer than about 4 inches. another inch is not going to hurt anything, either, but will require more force.

Remember, you are compressing air to raise the pressure, and temperture by the friction of air molecules smashing against each other. The more air you are trying to compress, the harder it is to do so, with the human hand.

Hi
Yep compression is what these are all about. The two I have made using brass tubing are about six inches long. The bore is about .260 and I use a .250 brass plunger with O rings to seal it. One has the standard hole in the plunger for the Char Cloth.It works nicely . The other one is the one with the hole in the bottom. The hole is about a pin point in size.Almost too small to see light through it. I cal it my Fire Venturi. The hole is so small that you can't bottom the plunger out in one very fast stroke .The back pressure slows you down to a stop. This creates a very hot jet of air out the hole.
The question about drilling the hole was mainly for working with wood. I didn't think that a reamer would work well with wood.
Thanks n.h.schmidt

A few years ago a friend bought a fire piston at the Rocky Mountain Western Rendezvous and we played with the cussed thing all the while we were there with no success. He has since told me that he has figured out the technique and that it really does work. I may just have to try making one, since I do have some brass tubing also a BUNCH of walnut. Do you think Rosewood would work to make the cylinder? I have a small piece of it that I was gonna make a set of C&B revolver grips.

I beg your pardon, Mr. Schmidt. On hard woods, a reamer works exceedingly well. Just take your time and don't try to remove too much wood in one stroke. Clean the flutes often as you do the hole. And it won't hurt to use oil on the reamer to help it keep the edges on the cutters in top shape. Many hard woods have minerals in them, and they can dull a reamer's edge faster than steel.

The suggestion to use Mesquite appeals, but my concern about using it is that it grows in desert areas, where both silica and calcium deposits may be contained in the wood grain. That can be rough on tool bits.

Ok I do have a new 1/2" reamer. I will give it a try on my next attempt .
Mazo Kid
Nice to talk to you.I go to Mazo once a year to race in the electric boat races.I always have a good time. Thin wall brass tubing can work out nicely.It has to be glued into your wood tube. If the hole is drilled out big enough in the wood it won't distort the tubing. Then you can make the plunger. Have you checked out the Fire Piston sites? There is some instruction on how to make some of these . n.h.schmidt

:v Thanks to all who responded to my inquiry about firepistons . I have watched the videos about technique on the use of a fire pistons.
Since I live in Alaska the selection for suitable wood to use for making one is rather limited, wonder how a brow tine from moose antler would work?

There is one guy making/selling fire pistons made from a brass rod drilled out, and with a large nail as the plunger. A 3/8 inch diameter brass rod as I recall. He even had plans for it on the web ... somewhere. A search for Fire Piston should lead you to it.

The larger the diameter of hole/plunger you go with, the harder it will be to get enough compression of the air to have the heat get up high enough to start your "tinder" burning. So "larger" is not "better".

Antler might work - if the antler is solid enough to contain the air as it is being compressed. And if you can get the inside of the hole smoothed up enough for the plunger and its gasket to properly seal.

The easiest way to think about a fire piston is to think of it as a diesel engine cylindar/piston/rings assembly. The whole thing is designed to compress your air/fuel mixture enough that it heats up and self-ignites. You are doing the same thing, only using a small chunk of charclothe or tinder fungus for the fuel. Same prinicple.

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


p.s. Another gentleman over on the "charclothe" thread used a different phrase for a fire piston - that I don't recall hearing/reading before. He called it a ... compression lighter. And a web search for this term might bring up more info/sites.