Tester
Easier than rubbing sticks together though … lol …
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I don’t know how long that thing goes, I fell asleep, but I’ll just make a couple comments. First don’t spray carb cleaner in your alternator to clean it. Second, if you are hanging sheetrock on the ceiling, do yourself a favor and spend the $20 to rent a sheetrock hoist. Much much easier.
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Not if those sticks are “Strike Anywhere Matches…”
And I still carry these matches today… As a Boomer, born in the '50s, we all carried matches and a pocketknife… In Boy Scouts, we were taught to melt paraffin (candle wax) and dip out Strike Anywhere Matches wooden matches in the melted paraffin. Besides making the matches waterproof, the paraffin let the matches burn longer. We also kept these matches in a screw-on metal 35mm film canister for our hiking, fishing, and hunting trips.
Today, the “travel bag” in my vehicles contains those wooden matches, I also carry several disposable Cricket Lighters, a whistle, a signal mirror, a compass, and more…
Oh Boy, a trip down memory lane… When I turned 9-years old, I received my first rifle, a Western Field (from Western Auto) Model 100, single shot .22 caliber. I used this rifle to earn my Boy Scout Rifle Shooting Merit Badge. I had to fire five-three shot groups from a benchrest and a prone position at 50-feet. Each three shot group had to be covered by a quarter. I did not need to be tested twice, very few of us need two tries…
But what brought this to mind was the “matches.” Our Scout Master had fought in both the Second World War and Korea (combat…). He also taught us that we should always carry matches with us when we are in the field and he showed us the secret of the Butt Plate in his rifles. He unscrewed the Butt Plate and underneath, drilled into the base of the stock were several holes; the large one held a film canister loaded with a plug of paraffin loaded with strike-anywhere matches, and three more holes, each holding a single rifle round (cartridge).
I still have that .22 and under the Butt Plate is a 60-year old metal film canister loaded with Strike Anywhere Marches and 5-.22 Caliber Long Rifle Hollow Points in drilled out recesses.
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I don’t know where you can get those anymore. They are all safety matches that I have seen. Yeah we used to just dip them in nail polish to give it a waterproof coating. I always just carry a Bic lighter now. Of course when they get cold or wet they don’t work.
Heh heh. Sounds like something I would do but don’t carry a rifle much anymore. A guy I worked with at the truck plant in the summer had been in jail. He said they could get plenty of cigs but not many matches, so he showed me how he would take a match from a book and split it in two to get two matches. Danged if I haven’t done that myself from time to time.
Yeah, Strike Anywhere Matches are getting harder and harder to find, it’s hard to “child-proof” them… Goggle them and you’ll still find sources. About a year ago, I was at a family owned hardware store and they had them for sale in plumbing, next to a telescoping rod with an alligator clip on the end to hold the match for relighting pilot lights on gas hot-water heaters, furnaces, etc…
I’ve heard about nail polish on matches, but paraffin adds fuel so the match burns longer. Years ago, when I was hunting with a Muzzle Loader, black powder with a percussion cap (not a flint lock), I put a dab of clear nail polish on the percussion cap to keep it dry while walking the woods. So I know it works…
When I was a little kid, 5, 6, 7, or so, I lived in rural Upstate New York (Guilderland–west of Albany…) and my Mom would send me down to the neighborhood “little store” (Schaller’s Market), it was in the front of their home. They sold all types of stuff, you could even buy your eggs one at a time, they would break a bag of sugar or flour open and even sell it by the cup… Yeah, it probably cost a bit more, but you could not beat the convenience. They would even run a weekly tab, I remember getting my first tab when I turned 10-years old…
Also, back then, my mother would often send me down to Schaller’s with a quarter to pick up a pack of cigarettes for her, for some reason they had a cigarette machine behind the front door and they also had a rack behind the counter with cigarettes in the rack. Cigarettes cost $.23 back then, I got to keep the change from the quarter for the “Penny Candy” in the case. Back then, the cigarettes in the machine cost the same and you would get the change (2-cents) back with two pennies in the bottom of the pack. But still, the machine had a level to pull after you bought a pack that would dispense a pack of matches. If I bought the cigarettes from Mr/Mrs Shaller, they did not give a free pack of matches… So I usually bought my Mom’s cigarettes out of the machine. I got the 2-cents worth of candy and the matches…
Remember, this was a long, long time ago. I mentioned previously that we kids all carried pocketknives and back then, if we were caught with a knife in school, we were told to put it away, and I received my first rifle when I was 9-years old…
Back then, we did a lot of dumb things, perhaps that explains why a lot of us have only three fingers…
We would cut the striker head off the strike anywhere matches, make a small pile of them on a rock and then strike them with a hammer. Under the pressure of a hammer strike, those heads explode in a flash of light with a big bang.
I can’t say that I’ve ever had a reason to split matches to get two lights from it, but I do know the secret to get a match to burn twice. You light the match; blow it out, then you quickly press the burnt match against the hand of the person who does not believe the match will burn twice…
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You reminded me, I used to target practice with my .22 in our basement. I pulled the lead bullet off and filled it with hot wax. Worked pretty good, not lethal, and didn’t make much noise. Only problem was all of the powder didn’t burn up in the process so got things a little dirty.
When I was in the boy scouts we were allowed to use matches to start our campfire. Never had any problem w/that method. Some of the scouts would bring matches with wax on them, steel wool, etc, but plain old matches and some dry kindling worked fine by me. One time I watched a tv show where they made a fire rubbing sticks together, using the bow method, spinning one stick inside a small recess in flat, board. I tried it, after much spinning and sore hands and arms, got a little smoke, but never any fire. Figured I wasn’t generating enough rpm & force (i.e. power) w/the bow, so I brought out an electric drill. Still couldn’t get any fire … lol …
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In theory, that should have worked.
In reality, that old load of old lore is likely not vaid.
I’ve never had to do that. Ya figure first you have to find the flexible branch, and have to carry twine, then have a knife to carve a point on the end of the stick and so on. I figure a lot easier to carry a Bic.
To keep this car related though, making a fire is important if you are stranded in bad weather but then you have to be careful of the exhaust. I like those chemical hand warmers better.
Or more esoteric, such things are not as easy as they seem. Right kind of wood, starter … Technologies get lost.
rotfl again