MagLite Fire Piston – goinggear.com
Posted By: admin | 2009.11.27
More info at wiki.goingprepared.com and forums.goingprepared.com. A fire piston made on the cheap out of a 2AA MagLite and a few other parts. store: www.goinggear.com info site www.goingprepared.com
25 Comments:
mgv357 / December 26, 2008 11:14 pm
But what is it for? That little ember wouldnt start a fire.
goingprepared / December 27, 2008 4:36 am
Sure it would, people have been using similar tools for thousands of years. You just have to have the right tinder, like cattail or fluffed up bark.
efletch91 / January 18, 2009 5:24 pm
Wow. That’s really pretty damned cool. I have a broken maglite and I started taking it apart and whatnot already. But for the seal on the end of the rod, I might do what you did or I might put a little bit of traditional throwback in there and make a groove to wrap some of this leather strip that I have left over from a purchase at a craft store and maybe set the wrap together with some modern materials like soak it in some sort of sealant. Very cool. It’s almost made for you by maglite!
goingprepared / January 20, 2009 6:38 am
Just be mindful that porous woods like what they use in dowels might not work with that method since the air will just flow around the leather, despite how much you seal it (that is what I tried first). You could get around this by using a more oily and tight grained wood like cocobolo, which usually works very well for fire pistons. You could also make a leather cup on top of the piston, instead of in a groove, so you would not have to worry about the wood’s porousness.
askAlanNow / February 14, 2009 3:39 pm
3:53 He would be.
kumili727 / March 5, 2009 1:44 am
lol “Les Stroud would be jelous”ha ha
ComradePepper / March 31, 2009 11:17 pm
or just bring a lighter
hopewynne123 / April 12, 2009 8:25 am
dnt read this(cuz it really wrks). u will gt kissd on the nearest frieday by the love of ur life. 2mara wll b the bst day of ur life hwever if you dnt post ths comment 2 at least 3 vids u will die withn 2 days nw uv startd readn this dnt stp this is so scary snd ths ovr 2 5 vids in 143 mins when ur done press f6 nd ur crush’s name wll appear on the screen n big letters ths is so scary cuz it actully wrks ths really wrks
Ggreenvideos / April 23, 2009 10:29 am
That seal is a diaphram for an aquaseal cartridge part#3234-020 at home hardware(Canada) I’m in the process of making one now. I was going to try a steel piston mainly because I have a steel shaft that fits rite in, just have to cut it to length. Do you think that might work?
goingprepared / April 23, 2009 10:50 pm
Yes, it would work great. The only reason I used the aquaseal part was because the wood dowel was impossible for me to seal and an air tight seal is very important.
Using steel, delrin, etc. would allow you to cut a channel into the rod and use an oring in the channel instead of the aquaseal part on top.
Ggreenvideos / April 23, 2009 11:51 pm
Great idea man…thanks for sharing it! I also had a hard time making a nice smooth cut on that diaphram. they were $3.77/pair at home hardware.
hunteddown848 / April 26, 2009 2:24 pm
thats sooo tite!!! can u make a tutorial on how to make one? and what kind of wood is tht, and wut u use for an o ring??
destroyersteak / April 30, 2009 10:28 pm
lol les stroud realy would be jealous
TheHarleyhillbilly / May 10, 2009 3:11 am
great video
bestSVMS / May 22, 2009 8:11 pm
could you use charcloth with a few drops of gasoline or achol
so that you would get a actul flame, so that you can kind of skip the tinder bundle and ignite some manmade stuff
that would be cool because it would be like a awesome lighter, but could be used traditionaly if you run out of fuel
and a couple drops in a bottle would go a long way
can someone try it?
905nathan44 / June 20, 2009 6:15 pm
nice vid. I have been trying to make a fire piston using a piece of hollo bamboo tube and i attached numerous things to a dowel to try to make it air tight. I can’t seem to be able to get my hands on that plumming piece so i have tried tape, twine, and eaven marker caps. the hole in the bamboo is about half an inch. nothing i use is air tight. can you help me with things that can make this bamboo hole air tight. thanks.
goingprepared / June 22, 2009 6:33 pm
It might be the bamboo fibers themselves. Maybe try heating up some wax and rubbing it on the inside to help seal up any gaps between the bamboo fibers. Epoxy or something similar would probably also work.
FezTube11 / July 3, 2009 3:46 am
Les Stroud would be jealous, hahaha!
Nice.
Loki95531 / July 29, 2009 3:20 pm
Now that is a proper way to channel McGuiver. far out! I just upgraded to the 3watt led version so now I can use the old one for something useful. rock on.
darwouine / August 10, 2009 1:42 pm
YEEEEEEAAAAAAAH BABY
notreallydaedalus / August 31, 2009 1:37 am
I love it! What a great idea!
gunfuego / September 7, 2009 12:24 pm
I’ll just stick with my magnesium fire starter…….
gfpfan / October 3, 2009 1:03 am
well done video, thanks
suschi15 / October 24, 2009 7:57 pm
sorry i canot vry good english..what is that??
thx for answer
swordofdixie / October 27, 2009 5:37 am
I’ve seen the “experts” pumping fire pistons before but I’ve never seen one ember up on the first pump! Dang it, man! Great job! I’ve never wanted to put together a fire piston before until you showed us how easy it is. Thanks a lot.