Alternatives to newspaper for fire starter

[woodroe]

Newspapers are going the way of the dinosaur and getting harder to find
unless you have a subscription which I don't.
My source has run out so wondering if anyone else is contemplating what to do for wood stove fire starter.
Cutting up cardboard boxes which are a plenty might become my next source. 
Anyone else there yet ? What are you coming up with ?
  

[mike_belben]

Sawdust and vegetable oil.  Nothing better.  Eliminates all need for kindling.  I start fullsize blocks from stone cold with just a few scoops every day.  No babying the stove either. I dont make small pieces of wood either.

[Corley5]

Tar paper  ;) ;D

[sawguy21]

Shavings or wood chips. Be careful with dry sawdust, the bang will get your attention real fast. 

[newoodguy78]

Pine cones work great the pitchier the better. 

[Raider Bill]

I soak wine corks in thinner or mineral spirits. Old mayo jar. 
Need the natural corks. Burn hot and never fails. 
One does it.

[Magicman]

As far as I am concerned there has never been but one fire starter:


 
And that is Fat Lighter.

[hedgerow]

I got lucky some years ago and a factory a friend worked at changed there name and they had pallets of new cardboard boxes they were getting rid of. I went over with a trailer and pickup many pallets of them. Been using them to start my Garn for years. Some day I will run out. 

[Runningalucas]

Spill plane:

from the link: "Before matches became widely available in the 1860s, long, coiled wood shavings known as spills were used to transfer a flame from one location to another, such as from a fireplace to a candle, lantern or stove. Typically made using a special inverted plane, spills burn more slowly and consistently than paper, and also double as a convenient tinder material. We based the design of our spill plane on an 1850s Edward Preston spill plane in our collection." less than 50%

https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/hand-tools/planes/64338-lee-valley-replica-spill-plane?item=15P1501

[thecfarm]

I've got that Fat Lighter wood at the store.
I also have some fire starters that are made out of wax and shavings that are made in Livermore, ME.

[beenthere]

Whittle a handful of shavings off of the wood to be burned. That will light with a match and start the kindling wood, then add larger sticks from their. Had to learn to do that in Boy Scouts 70 years ago now. 

Saw a tip from a trappers video that narrow strips of rubber from tire innertube were his emergency fire-starters as one strip would burn for a long time to get small branch wood to catch fire for his wilderness trappers cabin stove. Also would not be affected by moisture. But still needed a match or cigarette lighter (good emergency item to have). 

Then there is steel and flint. Also have used steel wool.  
But now there is plenty of paper delivered to my mailbox every day that is only worth lighting a fire. 
 

[rusticretreater]

Junk mail will always provide some worthless paper for use fire starting.  Paper shredding your old financial documents and then burning them is a doubly good way to start a fire.  A camping fire starter that I have made consists of an egg carton, wax and either wood shavings or string.  You cut up the carton into handy individual fire starters. Light an edge, sit it upright in the tinder and it burns a long time to get things going.

[sprucebunny]

I use a propane torch. Try to have some pine or construction debris around but even dry hardwood in small pieces starts with about 2 minutes of torch. Bonus I can use it to get the chimney draft going and skip the usual smoke phase.

A one pound bottle lasts me most of a season.

[Jdock]

Paper towel soaked with bacon grease. Burns long and hot enough to get fairly chunky wood going, as long as it's good and dry.

[moodnacreek]

I forgot tar paper. When I was a kid I always burned that at my 'fort'. Anyhow in my log yard there is always 'bull' spruce logs, that is open grown, all knots with spruce gum galore. My old time mentor was a trapper and he would scrape it to smoke steel traps. That is my fire starter. You can chew it alsobut good luck spitting it out.

[barbender]

Yeah bull spruce is really only suitable for fires, imo. Gnarly stuff.

[SwingOak]

Junk mail. Paper bags from the grocery store. Fat wood. Cardboard. 

You really want to get it going fast, put a pile of white spruce boughs on the bottom. Whoosh. 

[Ianab]

Lithium batteries? :D

Not that I'm admitting to anything, but some plastic computer cases, a handful of lithium batteries and a couple of magnesium laptop chassis will get a rubbish fire cooking pretty well.  :-\

[doc henderson]

I get newspaper from my mother in-law.  I have to be careful, cause if I ask, I will get 2 trash bags full.  I make fire starters from planer shavings.  I have a whole group of folks that bring me candle leftovers.  I use Christmas cupcake papers and have 5 tins used only for this.  I dip colored yard in was, then cut the at an inch for a wick.  light easily with a lighter.  more fun is using the glycerin and potassium permanganate (fish filter cleaner on the internet) and it get going fast. @Southside and have about 10 minutes of 5-inch flame to get things going.  I give a dozen in cookie tins to people as gifts and the whole room smells good from the scented candle wax.  I did have one child life specialist light one on a shelf thinking it was a candle.  
chees-its will burn and used on BSA campouts.  vegetable oil will work.  It depends if this is in the house stove or on a campout.  I have tons of dryer lint from my shop dryer and my shop towels.  

[Magicman]

Diet books  :P  should make good fire starters.   :D

[Crusarius]

somebody read garfield today

[Crusarius]

alright, I have a proven technique that is something I have been doing for years.

I take a 16 ounce or sometimes less cup and scoop some hardwood pellets out of the bin and dump them in the center of the stove. then I take one of these squares and set it in the middle of the wood pellets. then I stack small pieces of wood on top of it and larger pieces on top of that. Light the cube, then walk away. usually even with wet wood within 5 minutes I have a perfect fire. 

I did this this morning with frozen logs and it worked perfectly!

[woodroe]

Thanks for all the tips, tricks and ideas. Have plenty to work with, start fires with now.

[tawilson]

Because this thread commenced me to thinking, I remembered I had a couple jugs of Tiki torch oil kicking around. Tried it this morning and it worked fine, smelled great and I haven't seen a mosquito yet.

[mike_belben]

 :D