Matches are an essential part of our go bag but that doesn’t mean that they are always going to be flawless. In fact, there are many things that could go wrong with the matches and leave you high and dry, without any fire to burn.
Since we are going to be in a strange situation when we find ourselves running for any reason, we never know whether we will be wet or dry. The same is also true of our go-bag, and try as we might to keep things dry, a little bit of water is going to ruin the matches on the inside.
That is what makes this survival tip so important. It’s something that you can do at home with regular matches and a few candles. In the end, you will have a match that is perfectly waterproof.
In addition to being waterproof, the match itself can also be used as a candle. It may burn a little more quickly than a standard candle, but it burns much more slowly than a regular match.
The first step of the process is to cut some paper towels in strips. You would want the strip to be the same width or perhaps slightly wider than the length of the match. Get the paper towel cut as accurately as possible to keep things neat and tidy.
In the next step, you will light a few smaller candles. Any type of candle will do but it’s best if you use some of the teacup candles that will burn and melt inside of the little metal container. That will give you easy access to the candle wax.
While the candles are melting, carefully roll the match up into the paper towel strip. The point is to have the wood of the match completely covered with paper but you would still have the head of the match sticking out.
Now comes the fun part. Blow out the little candles and carefully dip the match along with all of the paper into the candle wax. You may need to do it in stages but the key is to have the entire thing coated in a layer of wax.
You can clean things up along the way to keep the wax from clumping but you really don’t need to be neat and clean about it. The whole point of the exercise is to completely cover the match with wax.
It doesn’t matter if these get wet or not, when you need to light a match, simply scrape the wax off of the head and fire up the match. It will burn slowly as the wax melts around the paper.
Watch it for yourself in the following video:
