For me, being in the nature is a lifestyle and hobby which started from childhood summers at my parents' summer cottage in the woods. Outdoor life is the most natural life I know.
I created this RU-vid channel, because I wanted to share some of my great moments in the wilderness. I hope that people who watch these videos can sense and experience at least some of nature's magic moments the way I do. Maybe these videos will give some relaxing feelings, take away the urban stress and even encourage people to explore nature by themselves.
Hopefully my videos would make people start to understand how fragile the situation of the remaining wild nature is.
I'm also making tutorial videos of some outdoor and bushcraft skills, which used to be common at earlier times, but are now forgotten.
The name of this channel - Hungry Cat Wilderness - comes from a very hungry, black creature who lives in our house.
It would be very nice to receive your comments about my videos.
You can make char from any natrual cloth, rope, fiber or plant. I have made it out of just about everything at one point or another. My favorite things to make char from are cotton or hemp rope 1/2" to 1" in diameter or rolled or braided denim. I find that having it in a stick form allows for more versatility. You can break of a smal piece or ignite the whole end like a cigar and have a large, hot ember for starting wet or damp tinder or for windy conditions. As long as you make it correctly, it readily takes the tiniest of sparks. Also, you can you any container that is mostly airtight and fireproof. I find that bigger holes or gaps in tins don't matter as long as they don't allow for excessive air flow. You can always cover it with a cloth or tin foil after you pull it out to avoid ignition if it has larger holes or gaps. I have even used aluminum foil tightly wrapped arounf the material. Also, when using a tin, if you put a layer of punk wood on the bottom and then stack your char material on top of it, you get a much better final product that is dull and fluffy and doesn't get hard and shinny as sometimes happens. Also, I like to make a big batch at a time and keep it stored in an air tight container. Then you can toss some in a tin or baggie before your trip and don't have to mess with making it every time or two.
Thank you for actually using flint and steel on your char cloth. A bunch of guys on RU-vid are making char cloth and using a ferro rod to get an ember with the char cloth. If you are using a ferro rod, there is no need for char cloth, it's just an extra step when you can go directly from your ferro rod to an open flame with good tinder or simply a PJ cotton ball.
This is a great video! Very educational! I'm attempting my first batch of acorns - small handful this time around. There blogs with written instructions that skip entire steps or are unclear. Hopefully I can salvage what I have. I have an air fryer/dehydrator that I can use for drying. Fingers crossed!
This proceedure is "nuts".no pun intended! I leach acorns in a fraction of this time! Simply put acorn meat in blender w water...Drain off water when done..Do this several times &vtheyll be ready to go!
There are flames only because your tin is completely in a fire. I have a larger 1 qt tin and on a burner you would be hard pressed to see flames. You would need to regulate your burning just at the right strength to give a gentle stream of escaping gas, enough for you to light with a lighter. Otherwise too little escaping gas and lit flame goes out, or too much escaping gas roaring lit flame goes out immediately. I am also surprised that your tin has no liquid smoke residue crystalizing up coating the inside surface of your tins. The again you are only doing 16 pieces at a time. I do about 60 in a qt tin and smoke goes to liguid and then crystallizes completely coating the tin. I did a whole large t shirt, so it took 5 rounds at 25 minutes per. Now i have enough char cloths for a year or two. Good stuff, thanks for sharing.
That was coffee grounds. But it was specified later that pure acorn brew was also just as delicious. It's just a personal preference. (Obviously, as might have been the case for the confederates in the example given, if you don't HAVE coffee grounds, you can skip this step.)
In the drying step , right after the water process , would it not be better to use a dehydrator on them than a stove or open air ? Just a thought , but it seems like you are used to the low tech route .
With that small of a tiin and that great of a fire, I believe you should get pretty complete charring. I use a 1 qt tin with 60+ pieces of cloths and out of 5 burnings I only had about 3 pieces that were 75% partially charred. This was done on a propane burner. I rotated the tin all sides, even upside down and shaking the tin fairly vigorously to ensure good even contact and exposure of the contents.
You can use char cloth with a ferro rod, but the way you use it will be different than how it's done in this video. You'll want to place your char cloth on a stable surface (rock, table, etc you get the idea), then position your ferro rod vertically over top of it (it can even be touching the fire cloth, or flush against your stable surface right next to it). You'll want to strike from the top of your rod (ie. the end you're holding) downwards onto the char cloth, and if you're positioned correctly the sparks should catch pretty quickly. At that point just take your char cloth, put it into your tinder, and blow on it to nurse your fire; the char cloth burns relatively slowly and stably when it's just caught sparks, so you don't need to rush.
Exceptional instructional video. My favorite aspect is your overall concise shooting style, e.g. butcher-block setup, "unadulterated" live audio, and just enough use of text/diagram overlays. Great stuff - thank you!
if you crack the tubules down into thin rods they smoulder very much like an incense candle. I've integrated making these as part of the process of getting at the amadou. (edit: much in the same way the tubes are removed in the video, but then further cut into narrow square rods)
It is but German tinder which is amadou was the preferred tinder back in the early 1800s because pipe smokers could keep it in their pockets without having all the black mess of charred cloth as the English
Olen viimeaikoina tehnyt taulaa ilman tuhkalipeässä liottamista. Olen liottanut taulan palaa tavallisessa vedessä pari päivää, ja muokannut sen sormilla venuttamalla vanuttamalla ilman vasarointia. Kuivauksen jälkeen ottaa hyvin kipinän vastaan, kun siihen hieroo tuhkaa pintaan. Hyvä video, ja hyvä vinkki tuo pinnan rikkominen. Tarviikin kokeilla sitä seuraavaksi.
