The material used to wrap the piston and act as a “gasket” can, apparently, be made from anything that works. In some of the early specimens leather was used, Mel uses thread.
“I’ve put thread around the end to form a tighter seal. So this makes it tight, otherwise this (the piston) would just slip up and down. And in the end of the piston, the cup is filled with tinder from the palm tree. And on this end I have grease from the pig, the wild pig in the jungle, which is used to lubricate the piston so it will slide better.
“The old man in the jungle says only the pig from this part of the jungle, but sometimes you have to evaluate it, because I know that particular pig was somewhere else yesterday.”
The illustrations show many combinations of materials and variations of form. For example, in Burma the cylinders were mostly made of bamboo, wood, or horn and the pistons were either wood or horn or made of a combination of both. In the Malay Peninsula elegantly lathe-turned and slightly engraved cylinders were made of horn while other examples collected from the area were of bone and ivory. A specimen from Sumatra was made of buffalo horn.
In the writings of F. Boyle, Adventures Among the Dyaks of Borneo (1865, p.67), he described the fire piston and expressed much astonishment at the method of procuring fire used by some of the Dyak tribes. Although he admitted to never having seen it actually in use, he said the “officers of the Rajah seemed acquainted with it.” He refers to lead being used as a material in making the instrument and added that “the natives say no metal but lead will produce the effect.”
Apparently the use of lead as a material is peculiar to Borneo and may be a character developed in the island itself, unless the Malays used the metal themselves and introduced its use with the fire piston.
A report in the Journal of Anthropology, (XV, 1886, p. 426) quotes W.M. Crocker. “The fire piston is found among the Saribus Dyaks only. Here we have a small brass tube lined with lead; no other metal, the natives say, would produce the same result. A small wooden plunger is made to fit the tube, the end of which is hollowed out in the shape of a small cup, in which is placed the tinder.”
Dr. Balfour reports that there were two specimens from the same district presented to the Pitt-Rivers Museum in 1894, both of which have cylinders of lead-lined brass and pistons of hard wood. One specimen has a bamboo box attached to it for tinder, the other has a tinder holder of nut shell and also a small cleaning rod of cane and a metal spatula for grease.
A specimen from British North Borneo is wood and the concave end capped with lead. A sunken groove near the end of the piston seemed to be designed for holding packing. According to Mr. Beaufort, “fire pistons were becoming very difficult to obtain in British North Borneo, where they are confined to the west coast.” He added that “the better ones are made of wood.”
Fire pistons once ranged over a wide area of the island of Java. They were always made from buffalo horn. Dr. Balfour describes a specimen in his possession which came from Buitenzorg in the west of Java as being “made from black horn and carefully polished, with a cigar-shaped cylinder with two bands of ornamental engraving. The piston terminates in a large rounded head, which is fixed to it with a horn rivet. The knob or piston head is hollowed out, and serves as a receptacle for tinder, which consists of a brown palm scurf.”
In Gems of the East (1904, II. p. 334) Savage Landor reports that the fire piston was restricted to the wild non-Negrito tribes of north central Luzon in the Philippine Islands, where it was used by natives of the so-called Indonesian group. “This instrument, called “bantin” was generally made of caribou horn.”
In 1901, Mr. Bailey is reported to have sent a specimen to the Pitt-Rivers Museum whereby the cylinder was cast evidently in a two-piece mold of bamboo, and is composed of a mixture of lead and tin. The piston is of wood. Attached to the cylinder are a tinder box of catada bean full of palm-scurf tinder and also a brass-wire pricker.
A fire piston was given to the Pitt-Rivers Museum in 1889 by Mr. S.B.J. Skertchley which included half of a bamboo casting mold. According to Mr. Skertchley the “total of the cylinder is composed of two parts lead to one of tin. It is cast in a bamboo mould. The mould is a thick piece of bamboo, split lengthwise, on the interior of which the ornamental bands are incised. A piece of flat wood, plank by preference, has a hole made in it the size of the bore. Through this hole a rotan is pushed, which also passes through a lump of clay, tempered with sand, stuck on the upper surface of the plank. The rotan projects beyond the clay to a distance somewhat greater than the length of the cylinder. The mould, bound together with split rotan is placed centrally and vertically over the projecting rotan, thus forming a box closed below with clay, open at the top, and having a rotan in the center. Into this the molten metal is poured. When cool, the rotan is withdrawn, the mould open and the cylinder is complete. A good mould will make three or four castings, but as a rule, the first destroys it. The measurements of the cylinder are: Length, 3-1/4 inches; width 1/2 inch, bore 3/8 inch. this is the average size; larger ones do not work well; smaller ones are of no use.
Technique
Learning to operate the fire piston is the easy part. Ideally, you would “practice” with a proven model, experiment with different materials, then go on to make your own. Unfortunately, there are so few working models available it seems that we are destined to start from the other end of the spectrum and first experiment, then practice. Alas, the question will be whether a model does not work due to improper materials or technique.
I asked Mel Deweese, who is the only fire piston “expert” I know personally, to explain the technique he uses to make his fire.
“The Negritos in the Philippines call it sol pop, sol ‘pop’ because of the noise it makes,” he explained. “It has to be one action, it has to be in and out. In and out, ‘pop’.”
“And then we will pick the coal out with a sharp piece of stick and then put it into our nest.”
I asked if withdrawing the piston has anything to do with the overall success. “I don’t think so,” he responded, “but sometimes you can lose the coal down inside. Or it’ll fall onto the ground.”
Although many early travelers and scientists reported seeing the fire piston work, with the exception of Dr. Henry Balfour, few actually mention trying it themselves.
Charles Brook in Ten Years in Sarazuak (1866, p. 50) writes, “There is a method used by the Saribus and Sakarang Dyaks for obtaining fire, which is peculiarly artistic, and from what direction such a practice could have been inherited is beyond my ken. The instrument is a small metal tube, about 3 inches long, closed at one end with a separate piston, the bottom of which fits closely into the tube and when some dried stuff answering the purpose of tinder is introduced, and the piston slapped suddenly down, the head of it being held in the palm of the hand in order to withdraw it as quickly as possible with a jerk, fire is by this means communicated to the tinder in the tube. The Dyaks call the instrument ‘besi api.’”
A. Gantier (Etude sur les Mois, Bull, de la Societe de Geographic Commerciale du Havre, 1902, pp. 95 and 177.) reports that “the native moistens the end of the piston in his mouth, so as to lubricate it and also to make the small piece of tinder adhere to the cupped hollow.”
According to John Cameron, when used, the cylinder is held firmly in the fist of the left hand: a small piece of tinder, generally dried fungus, is placed in a cavity on the point of the piston, which is then just entered into the mouth of the bore; with a sudden stroke of the right hand the piston is forced up the bore, from which it rebounds slightly back with the elasticity of the compressed air, and on being plucked out, which it must be instantly, the tinder is found to be lighted.” It is obvious from Mr. Cameron’s report, that he did not understand what made the device work, and that the “technology” was completely new to him.