Homemade firelighters

[Gav73]

Anyone have experience of making their own firelighters?

I’ve been using sawdust and shavings rolled into a ball, put into egg cartons and drizzling melted candle wax on the top to bind the sawdust together. 
The egg cartons work great as they hold the material and are easy to rip apart into single firelighters. 
It took a while to get the consistency right, but now we find they work much better than the firelighters we used to buy. 
Challenge I’ve got is finding something other than egg boxes as the container for the shavings and wax - we’re not getting through as many eggs now. 
Anyone have any suggestions?

[geordieben]

I use silver birch bark and strips of amazon cardboard. 

 

As for egg boxes, why not ask your neighbours/local fb group/fb Market Place. Ask people to keep a load for you and then nip round and collect them. 

 

My mate has loads of chickens and sells eggs and I keep all my boxes over winter for him to use as the chickens don't lay 

[Mike Hill]

Bicycle inner tube works very well.

[Steven P]

If you are gong to the expense of candles my first thought is it would work out a similar price to firelighters from the shop with more hassle? Oh, one I used to use is just bung a tea light under the kindling.

 

Myself, a decent dry kindling and a newspaper does me fine, but with lockdown and no 'metro' on my commute I am going bog standard firelighters from Lidl. Still with kindling on top, and they does well.

 

If you are making your own, might be that you want to melt the wax in a pan, and mix in all the sawdust, shavings and so on and them spoon that into your egg cartons? You could even pour this mix onto a baking tray (grease proof paper it first) to make a fire lighter slab and just break bits off a you need them, or chop into squares? Might be better to get a dedicated pan for this, saves arguments.. I do the same with bird feed, melt lard mix in bird seed, pour into yoghurt pots, hang from a tree

 

 

On a very similar theme - my boys love their ice cream so  take those boxes, stuff them with sawdust and onto the fire - a lot cleaner and saves covering the hearth with sawdust

Edited February 19, 2021 by Steven P

[Stubby]

Toilet roll middles . Fold one in half length ways and push it into another one  stuff the middles with wax from Baby Bell cheese .

[Peasgood]

15 minutes ago, Mike Hill said:

Bicycle inner tube works very well.

Uncle swore by plastic milk containers.

 

Personally I buy the Quickfire ones off ebay in bulk. Use half a one at a time

Edited February 19, 2021 by Peasgood

[Gav73]

16 minutes ago, Steven P said:

 

Some interesting ideas.

I’ve not bought any candles, just melted down any old ones I’ve got my hands on, I tried the toilet rolls idea, but found they were far bigger than I needed - it was a bit of a pain as I couldn’t bulk produce in the same way as with an egg tray or carton. 
 

Also the slab idea was great in theory, but messy and my wife struggled to break them up. The egg boxes worked well for size and ease to break a piece (one egg holder) away. 

I’ve not tried mixing the wax and sawdust together - might make it easier to place into a container of sorts, I may give that a try. 
 

The main thing I want to try and do is produce them in batches without having to use the B word (buy 😞) anything. I usually make them when I’m working away in the workshop with the stove on, so don’t spend much time on them. 

[daveatdave]

what about bun papers

[AHPP]

Sawdust and old engine oil.

[Ontario Firewood Resource]

Here's the Canadian firelighter, we go through a lot of these... look at the fire roar!