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Rose Mountain Fire Pistons
425 Service Road
Campton, Ky.41301
606-668-6986 |
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Fire Piston History
Fire
pistons have been used by native peoples of South East Asia and the
Pacific Islands as a means of kindling fire since prehistory. They are
found in cultures where the blow pipe is used as a weapon and this
suggests they may have developed out of blow pipe construction. Their
use has been reported from Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Indo-China,
Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, the Philippines,
Madagascar and South India.
An 1876 New York Times article reported the discovery of the
earliest date of its use in the west. It reports an address by a
Professor Govi that claimed a book written by Father Boscovich, of Rome
in 1755, De Litteraria Expeditione per Pontifican Ditionem, (The Clever
Mechanism) makes the claim that the fire piston was invented in 1745 by
Abbe Augustin Ruffo. This report also claims that the modern fire
piston was reinvented independently in the west through experiments
with the air gun and not modeled after native designs.
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It is recorded that the first fire piston made its wider debut in
front of scientists in 1802 and was patented in 1807 simultaneously in
both England and France. Fire pistons, or fire syringes as they were
called then, were popular household tools throughout Europe during the
early nineteenth century until the safety match was invented in 1844.
The fire piston may have inspired Rudolf Diesel in his creation of the diesel engine around 1892.Fire piston from the past
A 19th-century glass-cylinder fire syringe with a metal piston to which the tinder is attached.
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Fire Piston Description
According
to Wikipedia, A fire piston consists of a hollow cylinder ranged in
size from around 3 inches to 6 inches (7.5 cm to 15 cm) long, sealed at
one end and open at the other. A piston, about a quarter inch (ca 0.64
cm) in diameter, can slide into the cylinder forming an airtight seal
with the cylinder wall. The piston has a handle on the end to allow a
firm grip to be applied to it and can be completely withdrawn from the
cylinder.
Native, and modern versions, are made from wood, horn, antler and
bamboo. Lead was used to cast fire pistons in both modern and native
versions. Other metals have also been used in modern versions. The
piston has a notch or recess in its face into which a piece of tinder
is placed.
The piston must be rammed quickly into the sealed cylinder with a
single stroke. The compression of the air causes the temperature to
rise rapidly to 260 degrees Celsius, or 500 degrees Fahrenheit. This is
hot enough for the tinder on the piston face to ignite. It can then be
withdrawn and transferred to a larger mass of kindling to create a fire.
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How Fire Pistons Work
Rapid
compression of a gas (known as adiabatic compression) increases its
pressure and its temperature at the same time. If this compression is
done too slowly the heat will leak away to the surroundings as the gas
returns to equilibrium with them. If the compression is done quickly
enough then there is no time for equilibrium to be achieved and the
absolute temperature of the gas can suddenly become several times that
of its surroundings, increasing the original room temperature of the
gas to a temperature hot enough to set tinder alight. The air in the
cylinder acts both as a source of heat and an oxidizer for the tinder
fuel.
The same principle is used in the diesel engine to ignite the fuel
in the cylinder rather than the spark plug used in the gasoline engine.
It is closer, however, to the hot bulb engine, an early antecedent to
the diesel, since the fuel (tinder) is compressed with the gas, while
in a diesel it is injected when the gas is already compressed and at
the high temperature.
Fire pistons have a compression ratio of about 25 to 1. This
compares with about 20:1 for a modern diesel engine and 10:1 for a
gasoline engine. The piston of the fire piston is made deliberately
narrow so that the force on the piston is not too great to make it
impossible for unaided human strength to compress the air in the
cylinder to its fullest extent. To achieve the compression ratio, the
final compressed volume of the tinder and air must be small relative to
that of the length of the piston tube. These two factors together mean
that only a tiny amount of tinder can be lit by a fire piston, but this
is sufficient to light other tinder, and then to light a larger fire.
Easily combustible materials such as char cloth or amadou work well
as tinder in the fire piston. The tinders that work best in the fire
piston combust at a very low temperature. Cotton fibers for example
combust at 235 °C (455 °F) and will light in fire pistons. |
Fire Pistons of Today made by
Rose Mountain Fire Pistons
Ultimate Acorn Fire Piston
Buffalo Horn Fire Piston
Antler Series Fire Piston
Internal Safe Model Fire piston |
Fire Piston TindersHere are some commonly found tinders
that work in a fire piston.
chaga, true tinder fungus, mullen pith,mullen fuzz, milkweed pod ovum, cattail fluff, poplar cotton, cramp balls and punk wood . In addition, several other items may be prepared such as char cloth, charred twine and fungus preparations such as our sure-fire fungus
Sure Fire Fungus
Charred Tinder Twine | |
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