Buy these magnifying glasses here: https://ebay.to/2Eem3R2
Wikipedia describes A magnifying glass (called a hand lens in laboratory contexts) as a convex lens that is used to produce a magnified image of an object. The lens is usually mounted in a frame with a handle. A magnifying glass can be used to focus light, such as to concentrate the sun’s radiation to create a hot spot at the focus for fire starting.
The earliest evidence of a magnifying device was a joke in Aristophanes’s The Clouds from 424 BC, where magnifying lenses to start kindling were sold in a pharmacy, and Pliny the Elder’s “lens”, a glass globe filled with water, used to cauterize wounds. (Seneca wrote that it could be used to read letters “no matter how small or dim”). Roger Bacon described the properties of a magnifying glass in 13th-century England. Eyeglasses were developed in 13th-century Italy.
In Canada, magnifying lenses were often carried by earlier fur traders known as the “Courier De Bois” and the Voyageurs, men who transported fur by canoe across the country.
On any bright, sunny day a magnifying glass can be a simple and fairly easy way to start a fire.
Please be careful trying these techniques as you will have the opportunity to look directly into reflected and focused sunlight. This can cause permanent damage to your eyes.
Magnifying glasses can be acquired from many sources as they are commonplace. For this video, Wolfmaan went to a local junk yard and go the lenses out of an old projection TV set which were quite popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
Located inside the television, behind the main viewing screen are a set of three black pipes, or posts which have a set of lenses. Once removed, these lens housing can be easily disassembled and the thick, high-end magnifying glass can be extrapolated from the units. Usually there are three. One for Red, Green, and Blue, however the lenses themselves are almost always clear. Normally the centre lens, as pictured below is the heaviest and thickest, and will provide maximum magnification.
COTTON BALLS: A favourite of the bushcraft and survival community, cotton balls make poor tinder for magnifying lens fire starting because its fluffy. The fluffiness will break up the beam and reduce it’s focus. This makes it very challenging to start a fire.
JUTE TWINE: Another favourite of the bushcraft and survival community, jute twine will start to smoulder, and burn, but will not catch fire. Again this is often because of it’s fluff qualities. It is possible to start a magnifying fire with jute twine, however not as easy as char cloth.
CHAR CLOTH: is a material that is used in fire making. It is a piece of fabric made from vegetable fibre (such as linen, cotton or jute) that has been converted via pyrolysis into a slow-burning fuel of very low ignition temperature. Char cloth starts to smoulder almost instantaneously with the magnifying glass. This allows the char cloth to be placed in a pre-prepared tinder bundle of cotton balls, jute twine, or other locally sourced natural materials and create full ignition.
Preparation Is Key: as with any more primitive fire creating method it is important to prepare properly. Ensure that you have enough shavings, small sticks, medium sticks, and everything prepared before you ignite your tinder. This ensures you will get your fire right the first time and not have to start the preliminary fire multiple times.
Always remember fire is your baby. Its young fragile, and needs constant attention to survive. If you leave it unattended when it’s little it will die. You have to foster it, love it, care for it, and help it grow to be a big strong “adult fire” which will be self-sustaining.
Source: Magnifying Glass on Wikipedia