It's all in the the char-cloth, folks.
I had many things fall into place today: A pile of embers from a burning brush pile, a tin-box, an old tee-shirt, twine, and an old C clamp from my Pap Mays. After making the cloth, I fashioned a "tinder-taco" out of birch-bark, twine fibers, and oak leaves.
My first attempt ended in failure for 2 reasons: The tinder was not packed tight enough, and I skimped on the char-cloth. After about 3 minutes of hyperventilating I had had enough. The second try I packed the taco much tighter, and used 5 pieces of the cloth.
After about 5 smacks on the flint, I saw small orange rings appear on the cloth. Several lung-fulls later the whole mass of char-cloth was bright orange, and thick with smoke was billowing out. Seconds later, a bright yellow flame popped out. \
I did it a second time to make sure that it wasn't a fluke.
I can cross this one off my list.
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