Natural Amadou - TINDER SHEETS - Assorted Sizes & Weights (85-4051)

Sheets of Natural Amadou Tinder - Horse Hoof Fungus - Various Sizes  

• The perfect all natural fire lighting tinder
• Creates an ember from the smallest spark
• It has an amazingly hot ember!
• Ideal for use with:
• Traditional Flint & Steel
• Fire Pistons
• Primative Pyrite & Flint
• Ferro Rods
• Solar Lens
• Patabolic Mirrors
• Ideal Packing Tinder Tinderboxes
• Premium Quality
• Eco-friendly
• Made from a Sustainable Source
• Prices: See Drop Down Menu
• Please note this product is not fit for human consumption.
• Should you need a specific size that is not listed or for bulk buy, please email us directly. 
• One of our best selling Tinders

Amadou is fantastic form of natural tinder that is ideal for all spark, solar and compression based of fire lighting, such as with Traditional Flint & Steel, Tinderboxes, Pyrophoric Alloys, Magnifying Lenses, Parabolic Mirrors and Fire Pistons. Since you only need a small piece of Amadou to create an ember for fire lighting, our PREMIUN QUALITY Amadou Sheets, which have been specially processed for fire lighting, should last the longest time ... depending on how may fires you make obviously!!! See the video, below, of Mark using a small piece of Amadou to creating an ember with traditional Flint & Steel.

Amadou is one of the very best forms of Natural Tinder there is. It will catch a spark, with surprising ease, from any type of pyrophoric alloy fire starter (Ferro Rod). Amadou will not disintegrate should it become damp, or wet, and makes an ideal packing material to stop your fire lighting equipment, such as Flint & Steel, Solar Lenses and Matches etcetera from rattling around in your Survival Tin or Tinderbox. If a single 5 gram bag of Amadou will last you many hundreds fires, imagine what a full sheet of our Premium Quality Amadou will do. Just select what weight and size you want from the drop down menu. Each Amadou Sheet is individually priced. Please note no other items are included in this listing.

What is Amadou?

Amadou is made from the Horse’s Hoof Fungus (Fomes fomentarius), which when processed has a fine, velvety layer resembling suede leather. This suede-like layer, called the 'Trama' layer, is sandwiched between a tough nut-like, outer, layer 'Cuticle' and the 'Pores', which are thousands of tiny tubes all packed together which allow the fungi's microscopic spores to be released. The Horse’s Hoof Fungus, Latin name 'Fomes fomentarius' , is mainly found on dead or dying trees such as the Birch and Beech, and resembles a horse’s hoof – hence its common name. Amadou is very hard to source, and even more difficult to make well. 

Amadou was used by our ancient forefathers and theirs before them stretching back hundreds, if not thousands of millennia, because it makes one of the very best forms of tinder that can be found in nature. Amadou is able to catch even the vaguest of sparks created from the ancient fire lighting technique 'Flint & Pyrite'.

When processed properly Amadou has a beautiful velvet feel and is as resilient as suede leather which can be stored indefinitely. Amadou has been used for fire-making for thousands of years, and would have been found in virtually every traveller’s tinderbox or tinder pouch due to its great reliability.

The Ember

The ember that is created from the smouldering Amadou is VERY HOT, which makes it an outstanding tinder for ALL primitive fire making techniques such as in Flint & Steel.

This amazing tinder is ideally suited to be used with traditional Flint & Steel, modern Sparking Flints, Fire Pistons, and Solar Ignition, like Parabolic Reflectors or Magnifying lenses. 

Once your Amadou has caught a spark, it will begin to glow and gently smoke. This newly formed ember is very hard to extinguish since it burns so INCREDIBLY HOT. Any wind or breeze that blows on it will cause it to get even hotter!

Once the ember has become established, to your satisfaction, you have more than ample time to place the Amadou ember into the centre of a previously prepared tinder bundle – and then blown into a flame. Whilst Amadou burns very hot it burns at a steady and slow pace; a small piece, about the size of your thumb nail will burn for a good minute or so, or you can create a direct flame in just a few seconds with one of our Traditional - Hand Cut - Sulphur Matches.

Short Video on how to use Amadou Tinder with Flint & Steel 

Click here if you want to see how Amadou is made?