Fire piston
It uses the principle of the heating of a gas (in this case air) by rapid and adiabatic compression to ignite a piece of tinder, which is then used to set light to kindling.
This is hot enough for the tinder in the piston face to ignite with a visible flash that can be seen, if the cylinder is made of translucent or transparent material.
The ember is then fanned or blown upon vigorously to create a flame, at which time various stages of larger kindling can be added until built into a full-scale fire.
Ancient and modern versions of fire pistons have been made from wood, animal horns, antlers, bamboo, or metal.
Do-it-yourself designs have become available using wood dowels, PVC and copper pipe, and rubber O-rings, to build versions costing less than $2 USD each.
The fire piston is made deliberately narrow so that unaided human strength can exert enough force to compress the air in the cylinder to its fullest extent.
[3][4][5][6] Fire pistons in Southeast Asia were variously constructed of bamboo, wood, metal, ivory, bone, and horn.
They were reported to be known as lek phai tok in Thai; and gobek api in Malay (literally "fire mortar and pestle).
[8] The antiquity of the fire piston in Southeast Asia is unknown, but it definitely pre-dated the Austronesian colonization of Madagascar (c. 100-500 AD).
These piston bellows could pump sufficient air into a furnace to produce temperatures high enough to melt metal, which led to the independent development of sophisticated bronze and iron metallurgy in Southeast Asia starting at around 1500 BC.
Particularly in the development of bronze gongs (e.g. from the Dong Son culture) that were then exported in the ancient maritime trade networks of Southeast Asia.
[5][12][13] The first known documented fire piston in the West was made in 1745 by the Abbot Agostino Ruffo of Verona, Italy, who was making a pair of air guns for the king of Portugal, John V. While Ruffo was testing a gun's air pump for leaks by plugging its outlet with a scrap of wood, he noticed that, after he had pressurized the pump, the wood had been scorched.
It is recorded that the first fire piston made its wider debut in front of scientists in 1802,[15] and it was patented in 1807 simultaneously in both England and France.
