Anybody know the answer? :)

1) Toss a bar of sodium in.
2) Use electrolysis, harvest the hydrogen and cause a spark.

Nope. Using just water. ;)

Make a lens out of a piece of ice and use that. You need some tinder, though.
Wait! I remember one article which shown how to use plastic bag/Saran wrap with a water like lens to make fire.
Did I win the contest?

Note: making fire using just water is impossible as far as you are not able to use water as fuel without any modifications. You need water, a tinder and a fuel.

intereseting point  but got to ask why??

If you make a big lens out of ice, and warm up some water with the lens and sunlight untill it goes over to gas (some thousand degrees), and then if you can get the water as hot as that, it wont be any problem to put the gas in fire.  ;D

Gard

Piece of cake!  >:(
Image being in middle of carving huge lens out of ice and being interrupted by some uninvited summer! ::)

Water is H2O.  There are ways to seperate the hydrogen and oxygen (I think this can be done by using electricity to polarised the water).  Once that's managed lighting the hydrogen is easy.

Oh wait a minute, Tumakas mentioned it earlier.......Duh...... :P

You guys are too good. You do indeed take a piece of ice and form it into a lens, then PRESTO! With a little tinder you have Fire :)

Yeah, but i magine you would need a pretty clear and flaw free piece of ice to do it. The question then would be could that be found when you need it?

Can't remember where but I have seen on somesite an experiment with an ice lens, did not work on that occasion, not impossible though.

TLM

But surely the problem with ice is it needs to be cold enough to get a alrge lump of solid ice, but hot enough to light a fire with it.  Whenever i've done this with a magnifyign glass it has o be pretty hot, ie melting ice temperature.  And Gard, when you turn water into a gas it turns into steam...
I think you can electrolise it with paperclips and a 9V bolt battery.  Interestign thing to try, take a wire scrubbing brush used for washing up and tape a 9V battery to it

actually it can be freezing cold and very bright sun at the same time. the problem would be getting pure enough water to make a clear enough lens.

If water is at boiling temperature then frozen it will freeze extremely clear...but to do that you'd need to make a fire to boil the water...

hmm so then next time i want to start a fire with water i need to take my zippo? :-/

Only if it's cold outside ;D ;D

ok so lets look at our starting a fire with water tools youll need
lighter so start the fire so you can boil the water
water
something to hold the water in
someway to freez the water
and tinder.....
allright off you go!

Would a clear plastic bag filled with water do the trick?

Willeke

hey theres an idea! :)

It could work if you could form the water in the bag into a stable lens shape.

maybe a clear plastic box then? but what would the point of the water be then you could just use the glass..hmmm

If the bag was a sphere in shape then you could probably start a fire with it. Something like a clear water balloon would do.

One website shows how to do it with a piece of Saran wrap and water. Something like www.trapperstrail.com or so. It worked for them, but then again, they made it with the ice lens as well, so they are probably really good in firemaking.

I just read another article about how a drop of water placed on the convex lens of a wristwatch can be used to start a fire. Haven't tried that one yet though

I one time found burnmarks next to my watch, which had been in the sun during the day. Its plastic 'glass' had worked as lens. I was lucky not to get fire then. (I have never left that watch out in daylight afterwards.)

Willeke

if you let a drop of water sit on a plant leaf it burns it.

http://trackertrail.com/survival/fire/water/index.html

I heard of a neat way to make fire using the bottom of an aluminum can and a chocolate bar. You use the chocolate to polish the bottom of the can and use the reflected light from the bottom of the can to set fire to a small piece of tinder on a stick which can then be used to light the fire. The can bottom can also be used as an emergency reflector in a pinch, I imagine.

See also the thread on fire making:http://www.slinging.org/forum2/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=other;action=display;num=1114448636;start=

Willeke