Check your matches!!

Camping last weekend, I had something happen I've never seen in 40 years......all my matches and a Bic butane FAILED!

I keep kitchen matches that I've waterproofed in paraffin in a waterproof match case, along with a few birthday candles. This has always worked for me. These matches were only a year old, and the match heads turned to mush when I tried to strike them. Never had this happen before. Apparently kitchen matches aren't what they once were, and paraffin/candles broke down the match heads in just a year. Then, my Bic which has worked countless times, failed to light, but came back to life after I got home!
What worked.....book matches in a baggie. We also had a mag bar and a fire steel in the group, so no big deal. I've just never had kitchen matches fail before.

Moral to the story: Apparently kitchen matches have changed (the heads are much smaller now). Test your fire starters before heading out!

Good reminder. Thanx.

“What worked.....book matches in a baggie.”

This is what I always use. I’m just starting to finish off my 20,000 cardboard matches I bought 20+ years ago. Keeping them stored in a dry place helps.


“Moral to the story: Apparently kitchen matches have changed (the heads are much smaller now)…”

My young daughter doesn’t like my paper matches. She likes the wood matches. They’re cheap at Walmart (like $1 for 10boxes). However, I’ve also noticed they’re harder to light because the head is dinky.

I like matches because they’re easier to light a stove with than a bic.

-Barry

Re the lighter--how cold was it? I've discovered that when it's down around freezing or below, my lighter (like the canister for my stove) has to spend some time against my body inside my insulating jacket in order to work properly. For the canister--20-30 minutes. For the lighter, about 5.

Being old enough to remember what kitchen matches were like 50 years ago, I can tell you that the deterioration has been significant! I do like the REI emergency matches, but they are definitely not for lighting the stove, since it's impossible to extinguish them and they burn for quite a while.

I wonder if they changed the recipe so that you can't use them to make meth anymore? The nanny-staters have made it hard to find "strike anywhere" matches and now I've noticed that some don't have the white tip.

I too prefer the wooden matches, just old school I guess. But the heads are definetly smaller these days. Seems also that the "strike anywhere" are getting harder to find.

I've noticed that for quite awhile now. The small boxes of matches do have the small heads. I use the larger matches at home for lighting the woodstove. REI Stormproof matches, I had a young fella go thru three of them, trying to start a campfire last June. Seeing my expensive matches go up in flames, I took them back and with one match got our fire going.:) I was told almost five years ago by Ron,(Sierra Guy), that I was quaint, using matches as he got his Bic out.

It was about 35F when it was fire lighting time. The valve on the Bic was stopped up. After I got home, I exercised the + - tab a few times and it came back to life.
The matches were just weird....like they soaked up paraffin oil during the year and turned to paste. I've paraffin dipped kitchen matches since Boyscouts in the 60's with 100% reliabilty. I guess the days of real kitchen matches is over.

Agreed, today's matches are cr*p and strike anywhere are devilishly hard to find.

Toothpicks too. They all shred into slivers. (IIUC there are no more US-based toothpick makers--who'da thunk?)

That is an excellent idea. I never take a bic lighter that has ever been used. I strike it once just to make sure that it does work and in the pack it goes, "BRAND NEW" without exception. As far as the fire striker or a ferocium rod, I would never go into the back country with out one. All things can fail but the odds of that failing are a million to one. I have used fire strikers for many many years and have never had one fail. As far as the kitchen matches changing I would not know because I have never carried matches with me into the back country. I carry a new Bic lighter (if not more than one) and a fire striker and then I also carry several fire starters all of which are put into my pack "new" before leaving the house. Fire can be a serious issue and I never leave home without the confidence that I can, without fail, start a fire. It could save yours or someone's life in a pinch...sabre11004...

P.S. take fire seriously because it is a serious thing

Dryer
I had matches fail a long time ago and I was very suspicious of BIC, however now I carry 3-4 BIC lighters so I KNOW one will light if I warm them up in my hand.
Jim

I guess I've been lucky - I have never had a lighter fail on me. I stopped carrying matches years ago. Now I have 2 little lighters, one in the bag with the stove and another in my ditty bag. It seems like the lighters last almost forever, since I'm only lighting stoves.

I always have two bics - and I always check 'em both before I
go. I'll also have a backup like book matches or a firesteel
in the winter.

at 35F however, you're at the temperature that butane stays liquid - so unless you warm it up in your hand or a bit, it ain't gonna work if it is at ambient temperature.

Every spring I buy another 4 mini-bics like religion at the
start of hiking season

I try to have about three independent means of starting a fire, as well as good tinder. What doesn't seem to have changed are the paper matches packed in MREs/C rats. I've got some that are at least ten years old and still working fine.

Same here but this is the first time I had two of the three fail. I guess my point was...strike a match and flick a bic before heading out. I also had a sparker (fourth method) but the book matches worked fine. I use trioxane bars, bike inner-tube squares, esbit, paraffin dipped napkins, etc. as tender...but you have to get those started with something...make sure that something works!

I gave up on kitchen matches when the "strike anywhere" became hard to find.

I use a BIC lighter for ESBIT and canister stoves that can be lit from the bottom.

I use book matches for alcohol stoves. The one problem I have had with book matches is when I stored them inside the pot with a damp bandana.

My fire skills are only a shadow of what they once were. I practice on the patio with yard waste, but that really upsets my wife.

I found strike anywhere at the local farm store. I bought a couple of boxes because that is the only place I have found them.

Funny, here is SoCal, they are available in the local supermarket, albeit with substantially diminished heads...

Bizarre. Only thing I can think of is that either 1) the change is related to new regs for haz mat/explosive/flammable products put in place after 9/11 or 2) there is something in the match that is used in the production of Meth.

MNS

Midnight
hey you don't look cold in yer new avatar... are you sure yer in Alaska?
Yep I'll bet they changed the matches so ya can't make match head rockets no more...
Jim

Hahaha, Jim... in the full size version you can tell I'm actually cold This was a photo from a hike in August where it was sunny and hot at the trailhead, but 1,500 feet up and 5 miles back into a dead-end valley surrounded by 5,000 foot peaks it was cold and cloudy.

MNS

I have some of the strike anywhere matches, 250 large kitchen matches to the box for use with my woodstove. Just recalled yesteday that folks could not find them. I have a Safeway here and for years now they have them with the charcoal briquets and such. May have to ask.

Oh, we can still buy them here in grocery stores in the big boxes. Problem is, they are different. I can't consider them reliable anymore...and you sure can't "strike anywhere" as once was the case. They fall apart.

Good point. It has been quite a while since I have struck them on anything except the convenient match box....

I did a little research on matches. wow they,ve been around a long time. The basic chemistry hasn't changes a lot with two exceptions, replacing the potassium perchlorate with Phosphorous sesquisulfide made them non-explosive, and by international convention between 1905 and 1915 the red phosphorous was replaced with white phosphorous which is less poisonous. I can't find any reference to the EPA or any any agencies getting involved and changing modern match chemistry to make it safer. The manufacturers do have control over the binders and other elements that they use as well as the materials of the match sticks and the amount of material put on them so there are probably changes in manufacturing technique to make them cheaper as they are suffering from the prevalence of inexpensive butane lighters.
Jim.

I used to use the Ohio Bluetip Strike Anywhere and they worked great. I still have some that are about 20 years old and they have never failed. I can't get them where I live, don't know if they went out of business or just aren't sold here. Instead everyone sells the Diamond brand. I can get the full size, strike anywhere but they don't work as well. Forget about the little ones. They only work when new. After a year or less they just fall apart instead of lighting when you strike them.

Going back to "Tom Sawyer" we may recall this passage:

"All right. We want some bread and meat, and our pipes, and a little bag or two, and two or three kite-strings, and some of these new-fangled things they call lucifer matches. I tell you, many's the time I wished I had some when I was in there before."

So yeah, ninteenth century tech, done less well in the twenty-first. Hooray for us.

Rick