Get Your Fire Started and Keep it Going with a Blow Tube
Outdoor Hub Fans 07.07.11
Here is how to make and use a “blow tube” to help get or keep your fire going.
We have all been there: You have a great camp site. It’s just getting dark outside. You go buy the mandatory wood the campground sells, but it is wet and doesn’t want to light. Sure, you can get down and blow into it, but you’ll get a face full of ash.
Here is the best thing since sliced bread for camp fires, fire places or wood stoves. I use about a 40 inch long, 3/8 inch copper pipe, a copper cap, a drill w/small bit, a blow torch flux, and solder. You can make them much shorter for backpacking; 18 inches would be fine.
I solder on a flared flange in the mouth end you blow into just to keep it from being sharp and makes it easier to hold your lips to it without a sharp pipe end.
Clean, flux and solder on your end cap and flange(let cool). Then decide what sized hole you want in the end to “focus” the wind you will blow like a billows into your fire pit to give it a forge effect. I wouldn’t go over 1/16″.
I have made these for friends as gifts and they thank me for years. If you have struggled with a fire and had a few coals but just couldn’t get it to take off, you need one of these.
If you have bon fires at home or a woodstove you will want to make more than one.
Be warned the end cap will melt off it you are not blowing through it to keep the solder cool. You can use it as a poker a bit, but this tube is to make a dull little fire roar to life.
I like them for camping because I can sit in my lawnchair and blow into the fire without standing on my head near the fire pit. The one I have in the basement by the woodstove it about 30 inches long.
I added a ring to hook a wire to hang it on a fire iron set on one of them.
Just a small warning: everyone who sees you use this will want their own… even strangers in the next camping site.
