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General => Gear Questions, Information, Reviews and Competitions => Topic started by: admin on January 21, 2014

Title: How to Make Your Own Esbit Stove, Firescreen, and Fuel Tablets
Post by: admin on January 21, 2014: This tutorial shows how to make the equivalent of a Hexamine tablet using wax and cotton wool instead of chemicals. No idea how effective it is but according to the author it works fine and is cheap, efficient and lightweight.

http://blog.appalachiantrials.com/how-to-make-your-own-esbit-stove-firescreen-and-fuel-tablets/

(http://www.ni-wild.co.uk/imagesb/homemade_esbit_stove.jpg)
Title: Re: How to Make Your Own Esbit Stove, Firescreen, and Fuel Tablets
Post by: Rich.H on January 23, 2014: Nice reading there, and a handy idea. It does have one major issue though, the commerical tabs used normally contain a good amount of ethanol based material which burns far hotter than anything paraffin based. So on their own these diy tabs would take a fair amount to really "cook" anything.

Something that did come to mind though was a slight adaption of this concept. I tend to always have my own quick fire starters with me when I head out. They consist of a small piece of cotton wool with a blob of vaseline squashed inside it. Being cotton wool they will happily light from even cold sparks from flint and steel or anything hotter, so they catch almost instantly. As I like to work with natural materials a lot these sometimes come in handy, either everything is very wet, or your just having a bad day, or lazy etc. The vaseline means they keep going long enough for your kindling to catch and the rest goes from there.

One issue with the idea thought is having to keep these dry, normally I simply place them in individual plastic zip bags. But this still has the potential for problems if all my gear got wet and a bag split. So if you were to take one of these and just dip it briefly into the wax it would give you a nice waterproof coating of the same type you get on waterproof matches. Then simply scrap off a small section of wax, pluck out a few cotton fibres and light away no matter what conditions you are in.

Time to get some made up me thinks to test just how well they resist a good soaking and still remain usable.
Title: Re: How to Make Your Own Esbit Stove, Firescreen, and Fuel Tablets
Post by: RedLeader on January 24, 2014: I did wonder myself, esbit tablets are mostly hexamine whereas these are entirely wax. That said, hexamine stinks, if these turned out to be efficient enough to boil a bit of water and light enough that they could live in a first aid kit then they may have use. Also, like you say, great for helping get a stubborn, wet fire lit.
Title: Re: How to Make Your Own Esbit Stove, Firescreen, and Fuel Tablets
Post by: whoRya on January 24, 2014: Just picking up on a small bit of the discussion. I would usually carry a packet of non-safety matches to light my stove. Do you reckon the matches could be waterproofed with a dip in candle wax? The problem would be if they got wet then so would the striker on the box, but a non-safety match could strike off a bit of granite (or a bit of designer stubble :) )
Title: Re: How to Make Your Own Esbit Stove, Firescreen, and Fuel Tablets
Post by: RedLeader on January 24, 2014: Yep, this is a tried and tested way to protect matches. When you try and strike them it rubs off the wax and the match lights. I've never tried it myself but the theory seems sound.

Quote from: whoRya on January 24, 2014
Just picking up on a small bit of the discussion. I would usually carry a packet of non-safety matches to light my stove. Do you reckon the matches could be waterproofed with a dip in candle wax? The problem would be if they got wet then so would the striker on the box, but a non-safety match could strike off a bit of granite (or a bit of designer stubble :) )
Title: Re: How to Make Your Own Esbit Stove, Firescreen, and Fuel Tablets
Post by: Rich.H on January 24, 2014: Quote from: RedLeader on January 24, 2014
Yep, this is a tried and tested way to protect matches. When you try and strike them it rubs off the wax and the match lights. I've never tried it myself but the theory seems sound.

Quote from: whoRya on January 24, 2014
Just picking up on a small bit of the discussion. I would usually carry a packet of non-safety matches to light my stove. Do you reckon the matches could be waterproofed with a dip in candle wax? The problem would be if they got wet then so would the striker on the box, but a non-safety match could strike off a bit of granite (or a bit of designer stubble :) )

Works just fine everytime, I used to use these a few years back before I found out about the cotton wool & vaseline trick. One point though is to try and scrape some of the wax off first with your nail etc, on occasion the wax can be stuck on very tightly and it pulls the ignition material away from the match stick when struck. You can guarantee this happens after 11pm at night, in a downpour and if it is your last match.