Making char cloth

I made some char cloth the other day,and I was thinking that maybe some of the folks here,may never have made any.Soooooooo here's how


First get your self something made from 100% cotton,and cut it up





Put it in a can,as you can see you need to put a hole in the lid of the can




Put the can in the fire,I like to let the fire die down and put the can in the hot coals



Smoke will start to come out of the hole in the lid.When the smoke stops,take the can out of the fire.Set to the side some where to cool,when the can is cool to the touch,open it and you have char cloth

Good post. I use denim from old jeans ($2.00 a pair at my local Goodwill store). I did learn the hard way that you have to wait until the can completely cools before you open the lid. Having your charcloth float away as hundreds of little glowing pieces is quite pretty, but aggravating!

TheAxeman taught me a dead simple method to charing cloth.

- grab yourself a tin that is fairly air tight and the material you'll be charing
- light your material in a fire (yes, that's right..light it)
- don't let it burn completely, then quickly stuff it into the tin
- cover it with the lid so that it is air tight and let it smolder
- wait until it is cool, then open up

voila! Charred material ready for your spark/ember

I've had better success with this method than "cooking" the material over a fire...though my flint and steel technique still needs a lot of work.

I will have to try your method next time I make up a batch. Sounds to me like it should be a little faster. Using the "cooking" method, I can usually load only a dozen pieces of 2"x2" charcloth in my paint can before I begin to get uneven cooking of the cotton patches.

Have you found that preparing charcloth in the manner you described, permits you to prepare more pieces of charcloth at one time or about the same as conventional cooking? Thanks for sharing this info.

In my experience using this method I've really only used it to do a few pieces for my next fire, and then I will repeat the process.

It's advantage is that it's quick and convenient, but I've never tried using it to make a bulk of char cloth in advance.