# Self Sufficiency/Living off the Land or Off the Grid > Making Stuff > How-to Tutorials Only >  How to Make Fire with a AA battery and a staple

## preachtheWORD

This is a pretty neat trick.  You trim back the plastic sleeve on the negative end of the battery on one side - not all the way around.  You pry up the end of the battery slightly, and put one end of the bent staple (or paper clip, or wire, or whatever) in the gap, under the paper insulator.  Then you use a piece of char cloth or high quality tinder to press the free end of the staple against the negative contact of the battery.  If your tinder is good, it will produce enough heat to get a coal.  Here is a link to the video: (I did not make this video, I found it)

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-su...staple-222300/

If you are in the woods you may likely have a camera or other device that requires batteries.  I imagine that this could be done with AAA, C, or D batteries as well.  If you do not have a staple, you are like to be able to come up with a usuable piece "wire-like" metal.  The only drawback I can see, and it is a big one, is the necessity of having char cloth or extremely good tinder on hand.

Let's go try it out.

btw - the guy narrating the video has a peculiar accent (or non-accent) ... I'm guessing somewhere in central Canada ...?

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## Rick

Help me out here. How does touching the negative end of the battery to the negative end of the battery produce current flow?

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## preachtheWORD

> Help me out here. How does touching the negative end of the battery to the negative end of the battery produce current flow?


I have the same question myself.  I haven't tried it yet, but I hope to soon.  Sure looks like it works on the video, but you can't trust everything you see.

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## Rick

Well, If you notice, when he "lights" the char cloth the cloth is slightly off camera. Me thinks this is a game.

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## Justin Case

> Help me out here. How does touching the negative end of the battery to the negative end of the battery produce current flow?


Because the Battery case is Positive,,  the Negitive side is insulated from the case,  Pos is not,  all you are doing is creating a short circuit,

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## Rick

Okey Dokey. I'll await the results with baited breath.

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## hunter63

I have seen other vids like this, using almost any battery, and most any thin metal can be used. need to overwhelm the mass to get hot.

Steel wool, spring from ball point pen, gum wrapper, or cigarette package (tinfoil part)

As far as touching the metal, + to - ,the card board insulator is around the bottom, shortest distance between + and -,  and yes, JC, you are making a dead short.

Use something to insulate your self, gets really hot.

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## preachtheWORD

I tried it, with mixed results.

As it turns out, you can't pry up the negative end of an Energizer battery, but you don't have to.  All you need to do is peel back the plastic wrapper.  If you touch the staple to the exposed side of the batter and the negative end, you get heat - quite a lot of it.  Enough to give you a good burn. 


I pushed the staple down under the wrapper to make contact with the side:
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Then I took some tinder - dryer lint - and pressed the staple against the negative terminal:
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The Result - sadly, no fire.  But I did get a good char going on the lint.  I feel strongly that this would work with better tinder like char cloth.
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(EDIT - Wow, those pics came out huge.)


This little experiment taught me a few things:
1.  Although it did not produce fire on this attempt, I am confident that it could under the right conditions.
2.  I think that a finer wire would work better than a staple because it would get hotter faster.  Something thinner might work like a lightbulb filament.
3.  Very good tinder is necessary.
4.  This method might be difficult if it is really windy or your fingers are numbed with cold.


I would still like to see this work.  Perhaps someone could give it a try, hopefully with more success than I had.

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## COWBOYSURVIVAL

Thanks PTW! Good info to have in the bag!

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## Justin Case

Thanks for the Hands on Test  :Smile:

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## Firecraft

Much easier to just touch a 9 volt battery to some steel wool.

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## Rick

But what if you don't happen to have a 9V battery or steel wool? You probably do have a AAA or AA in your headlamp or flashlight. A little snare wire and Presto! you could have fire. You can get lint out of your pockets or scrape it off your socks or jeans. Some of you have it in your navel. I know you do so don't look like that.

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## BENESSE

> But what if you don't happen to have a 9V battery or steel wool? You probably do have a AAA or AA in your headlamp or flashlight. A little snare wire and Presto! you could have fire. You can get lint out of your pockets or scrape it off your socks or jeans.* Some of you have it in your navel. I know you do so don't look like that*.


If you have enough lint in your navel to start a fire maybe you should consider taking a bath instead of starting a fire.
Just sayin.

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## Rick

Real men don't bathe. We take a dip once a month whether tis needed or not. It's generally unintentional, however. Spring streams can be quite slippery.

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## crashdive123

Just don't be wearing your camera around your neck when you do.

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## BENESSE

> Real men don't bathe. We take a dip once a month whether tis needed or not. It's generally unintentional, however. Spring streams can be quite slippery.


You're just kissin' up to SD. Mrs. Rick don't buy that jive.

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## Rick

Well, okay. She does make me take a flea dip in the spring and a mange dip in July. That dang mange dip stings.

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## paracordist

I just tried steel wool and battery for first time. I had no luck with AA or D cell.  I think this idea in the OP is worth a try since I usually have char cloth. Thanks

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## Rick

You won't get it to work with anything but a 9V or larger and you need to be using 000 or 0000 steel wool. At least I've never seen it work with a C, D or smaller battery. I suppose 00 would work but I've always used the smaller stuff. If you have a 9V and some soft steel wool try it and do it someplace where you can drop it because it will burn.

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## crashdive123

> You won't get it to work with anything but a 9V or larger and you need to be using 000 or 0000 steel wool. At least I've never seen it work with a C, D or smaller battery. I suppose 00 would work but I've always used the smaller stuff. If you have a 9V and some soft steel wool try it and do it someplace where you can drop it because it will burn.


Here's a little vid I did a while back with a 9v battery and steel wool.  http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...-And-A-Battery  Based on the results of this test, I say 0 and finer will work to start a fire with a 9v battery.

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## Rick

Oh, I had forgotten about the video. Good post!

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## paracordist

thanks rick and crash

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## whitis

> Because the Battery case is Positive,


Back in the good ole days, AAA through D batteries were enclosed in a metal can.   Then the manufacturers started crowing that their new batteries had XX% more capacity than their competitors or older batteries.   What they had done was replace the metal case with thin  plastic heat shrink, leaving a bit more room for battery guts and save money on metal.  Maybe there is some foil underneath.  Put the new batteries in old metal battery holders and it could pierce the heat shrink and cause trouble.   This could affect trying to short a battery from one end.

Results are going to vary depending on the "wire" used.

Lithium cells can explode when shorted.

Don't you guys know that you are supposed to destroy a perfectly good flashlight every time you want to start a fire?    :Smile:   (survivorman)

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## killlshot234

i did this and i used some paper instead of lint or something, and it actually set my paper on fire

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## mitchell wade

A 1/8th strip of bubble gum wrapper works very well. Any thing that has a metal foil on one side and paper on the other will work well. It's the same principle as the staple only it will combust into a flame. That is the main way prisoners start fires.

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