Split Matches Make More Fires

Ken — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 11:00:33 +0000

I remember as a teenager reading about great escapes during WWII and how the ingenuity of prisoners was employed out of necessity in the prison camps. As supplies were low, they had to stretch their resources in different ways. One way of increasing their limited matches was to split them lengthwise and then ignite the individual parts as needed. For wooden matches they used razor blades to slice up to four splinters. As shown in the photo, you can use your finger nails to split a basic safety match from a matchbook lengthwise from the bottom to the top. These parts are not as robust as the original whole so some care is needed to achieve the results of ignition. Essentially, you hold the shaft between your thumb and middle finger while applying slight pressure over the match head with your index finger while you strike it. Or, alternatively, you can hold the shaft with your thumb and index finger while applying pressure with your middle finger over the head. As usual, now is the time to try this out and find out which method works best for you BEFORE you find yourself in a situation where you NEED to split your matches. The cool thing is… it really works!

Alternate striking method for matchbook matches to create fire

Ken — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:31:04 +0000

I started exploring the idea that safety match-book matches might be lit if I treated them like fire-by-friction wood… that is, if I pre-heated the match by rubbing it slightly before I used a mild friction surface to strike on. It worked on the ceramic bottom of a cup, so I enthusiasticly showed my son who just plain struck it quickly and succeeded. I continued to explore this discovery and found other objects that worked, such as a medium surface sharpening stone, and a semi-glossy brick. Surprisingly, you can strike a match on a pane of glass too, but it can cause damage to the glass.

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Split Matches Make More Fires

Alternate striking method for matchbook matches to create fire