• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades
  • Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

Tow for a friend

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Aug 27, 2004
Messages
2,995
Reaction score
6,401
Have a friend who is building his first smoothie. This is all new to him and I wanted to get him some tow to try. What outlet would be a good one for tow? I have never used it myself.
Thanks
Larry
 
Smiling Fox Forge has flax Tow.
Or you can get a large amount of Jute from Amazon. I've tried both, they are very similar.

AAYU Raw Jute Grass Fiber - fire Starter| Spinning Natural lint | 500 Grams or 17.6 Ounces | Natural Product https://a.co/d/6vM5yQf
You can buy hemp yarn/cord at wal-mart and make up your own real easy, all my tow is hemp now.
 
I have a nice hank of tow I'll send you for free. Just send me $5 to cover the shipping.
Ohio Rusty ><>
tow hank.jpg
 
Flax grows wild on the side of every rural road in this area. You can probably harvest it for almost free and just pound it until it becomes useable.
Missouri was a hemp producer for a long time. At one time 10% of American produced Hemp passed through market at Arrow Rock Mo, the tourist attraction with about fifty residents now was once a major city.
Before 1866 hemp was processed mostly by slave labor. But the slaves were loath to do it, and were paid a wage
I think I’ll buy it😝
 
I bought some tow from Smiling Fox Forge some years ago. It was very fine and silky. I tried using some for tinder with my strike-a-light and found it would only smoulder and not catch flame. I think it may have been treated with a fire retardant. This might be a good thing, if it is used for wadding. However, that was probably 10-12 years ago. It may be different now.

I bought some tow from Dixie Gun Works that would catch fire, although there are other tinders I like better than tow. The stuff from Dixie was very rough and coarse, and I believe stronger than the tow from Smiling Fox. I thought the Dixie tow was better for bore scrubbing.

Jas. Townsend and TurkeyFoot Trading also had tow, last time I checked.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob
 
I almost forgot, but Dan Fruth (the gun worm maker) sells "unspun flax linen," which he states is better than "tow linen." He sells it in five-foot lengths:

Fruth Unspun Flax Linen.png

I have not tried it, but will probably get some if I order another worm from him. Dan says you can get 150-200 gun cleanings out of a five-foot piece like this. He has a listing for it in the classified section of the ALR forum.

Notchy Bob
 
Back
Top