Fire: Fire Piston

I had initially planned on doing a video on the fire piston, but I decided I didn't want to embarrass myself. This fire piston belongs to a friend of mine, he is actually pretty fast at it. I on the other hand am not. If you have never seen a fire piston work; its a pretty cool concept. Many believe the Diesel engine is based of this concept.

The fire piston is an ancient fire making device. Primarily in the Pacific Island regions. It works like this: By compressing gas(air) rapidly, the gas com-bust lighting the tinder. The preferred tinder is char cloth as you can see pictured below. It took me about 8 minutes to light that tinder.

A small smoldering of the char cloth

Basically if you prefer this method, good on you. It takes much practice and is a very cool technique; when you can do it. Just make sure you take a back up fire starter! Not for the faint of heart.