re: Fire Piston

Thank you for all the nice comments!! It is a great conversation piece  and an actual working fire starter but you need the char cloth. I tried other materials and they never ignited like the char cloth which is half burned already!!

Hi Dave. If I made another one, I would put storage for the char cloth in the other end and have the grease too! good ideal!!

Hi Tom. The fire piston has a copper tube liner so the burning end never touches the wood. I used an aluminum tip on the rod so the fire did not burn the wood on that end. I have seen them made with a straight wood rod and it does get burned on the end. You have to dump out the burning cloth into tinder right away.

Hi Ryan. I'd like to see your metal one!! What kind of metal lathe and mill do you have? I  like this site because you can post metal working projects as well as wood ones!!...and I have a lot of the old buddies from Lumberjocks here too!