DIY FirePiston Fire Starting

Fire Piston cylinder (L) and piston (R)

There are loads of different ways to start a fire – but one of the neatest ones has to be with a fire piston.  Matches and lighters are well known, using electricity…  well that isn’t that unusual and flint… well that is pretty well understood too, but starting a fire with compression – especially the compression that you can generate with only your own force – well now that is different.  That latter method – compression is exactly the means that a fire piston uses.

If you’ve got a few tools you can easily make your own setup in a couple of hours.  I used an aluminum round for the body and bored it out so that a rod fitted with an O-ring to improve the seal would just fit.  The piston has a small cup machined in the end to hold char cloth and that’s it.

For those not familiar with char cloth it’s cotton that is carbonized to become great tinder.  It’s simple to make too.   Wash out a tin can put in some old cotton material – like bits of t-shirt, put the top in if you have it and then cover it all with aluminum foil.  The idea here is to keep air out – you want to char not burn the cotton.  Put it on a BBQ burner or in a campfire and keep heating it until smoke stops emanating.  Then cool it before removing the foil.

Notice cup in the end of the fire piston for the charcloth

Now when you use the fire piston you’ll put a bit of the charcloth in the cup of the piston, slide the piston just into the cylinder and then holding the cylinder slam it down on a hard surface to drive the piston up.  Quickly remove the piston and you should find the char cloth has an ember ready to be gently fanned into the start of a fire.

It’s a cool way to start a fire, and a good way to come to appreciate the value of a lighter!  Have fun and safe machining.