Percussion Firestarting

[storm]

I'd like to share with you something I've been doing and want your input if you have experience with it. I spent the day making fires with an iron file striker and various rocks and minerals. I wanted to see what would actually ignite char-cloth (and then get to flames). I was able to make flames using the following in conjunction with char-cloth and an iron file striker:

Basalt
Tourmaline
Granite
Gneiss
Quartz--Milky
Quartz--Clear Crystal
Quartz--Iron-Stained
Quartzite
Quartzite--with Rhodonite Layers
Chalcedony
Chert
Georgetown Flint
Knife River Flint
Ft. Payne Flint
Francisco Flint
Sandstone
Tecovas Jasper
Metasediment
Rhodonite-Spessartine Garnet-Quartz Mix


Although the next four minerals generate sparks, I couldn't get them to work:

Actinolite
Spessartine Garnet
Obsidian--I suspect it will work eventually
Opal--I suspect it will work eventually


I was very impressed with the "one-hit wonders," the rocks and minerals that required only one strike in order to ignite the char-cloth:

Granite
Chalcedony
Chert
Georgetown Flint
Knife River Flint


I hope to find the following to use in place of the iron file. I'm not sure if all of these would work, but I hope to find out someday:

Chromium
Nickel(ine)
Iron Pyrite
Marcasite
Iron Meteorite
Banded Ironstone
Pyrrotite
Pentlandite


If you have successfully used any rocks and minerals other than what I've posted here, please let me know. Thank you!


storm
www.stoneageskills.com

 

[storm]

I also want to show you the method of arranging the char-cloth that works best for me thus far:

Wrapping the char-cloth around the leading, or striking, edge of the flint allows sparks that shoot out above and below the flint to hit the char-cloth. I think this arrangement allows me to get ignition of the char-cloth with only 1-2 strikes more often that other ways of holding the char-cloth.

 

[rich59]

You are always thorough Storm!

Just to say that I did have a go with marcasite and flint. I got low quality sparks that did not travel well or seem to light my char cloth. I am told it is easier with true tinger fungus.

 

[Northern Giant UK]

I'm just amazed that you got sandstone to work! I would have thought it to be far to soft.
Well done.


Kev

 

[Mike Ameling]

The key to all this is understanding what you are doing when striking sparks.

A traditional flint striker is a piece of high carbon steel - iron which has a bunch of carbon mixed into it. It is then heat-treated HARD. What you are then doing is using a sharp edge of your flint to chip/dig out little bits of that steel by striking a glancing blow of one against (along) the other. The energy you put into chipping/digging out those little bits of steel heats them up enough that the carbon in them burns. That's the sparks you see. The harder your steel is heat-treated, the easier it is to chip/dig out more and smaller bits of steel. But that also makes the steel much more brittle and likely to crack/break. The softer you heat-treat your steel, the less brittle it is, but it is harder to chip/dig out those tiny bits of steel. Your flint tends to dig in more, and chip out much bigger bits of steel - and those are harder to then heat up enough to burn. It's something of a balancing act when you heat-treat a traditional steel striker.

So the purpose of the flint, or any other rock, is to have that sharp edge to strike against. Flint tends to hold a sharper and harder edge better than other minerals. When you use other minerals, you have to deal with their ability to produce a thin sharp hard edge.

Granite can work great, but it's grain structure is fairly coarse, and it is hard to get a sharp/thin enough edge to work well. Chirt/chert tends to crumble too fast - too soft. Obsidian is way too brittle to work well - it's volcanic glass. And slate is too soft to work well. So any mineral that is fairly hard, has a fine grain structure, and that you can get a thin/sharp edge on, can work well with a traditional steel striker.

Other types of steel can and do work, but it's that Carbon content you need. That's the stuff that actually burns (sparks). The other metal alloys can potentially get in the way - depending upon how they affect that final heat-treat.

Congrats on your trial-n-error investigation. Theory is great, but hands-on experience still is the best. And you learn a lot of "other" info along the way. Now, I still need to dig up some quartz and check out that "soft iron and quartzite" fire starting method mentioned in the 1926 Byant and Mayes Museum of Fire-Making Appliances. They said it was a popular method in the Scandinavian countries.

Just my humble thoughts to share. Take them as such.

Mikey - out in the Hinterlands

 

[Galemys]

Hi all,

I've tried only flint, quartz, some unidentified broken pebbles and hard/sharp shellfragments with my traditional firesteel and the flint & quartz worked quite well as expected. The broken pebbles did give the occasional spark but I couldn't get them to light charcloth. The shell-fragments did nothing whatsoever (too soft?).

I have a piece of special 'Temiang' bamboo (sent to me by BOD, see this thread: http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10517), a species (probably Schizostachyum blumei) that was used by South-East Asian tribes for percussion firestarting and it only sparks when struck with flint, glass or quartz. Some sources also mention that a piece of crockery/china, a piece of iron or another piece of bamboo will give sparks. I tried this bamboo with a sharpish piece of iron (an old pair of scissors) but could not get it to work.

I presume that the sparks of this bamboo are caused by its high silica content but am clueless off how they are exactly produced as they do not consist of hot pieces of iron.

Still struggling to get anything to light with this method as the sparks are very shortlived and do not 'travel' enough to get my tinder to light.

Other bamboospecies can give some sparks as well but the difference with the Temiang bamboo's sparking ability is astonishing.

Tom

 

[rich59]

My current thinking about bamboo striking of sparks is that it is very similar to flint on flint sparks and it is the silica that is producing the feint sparks. In the dark, striking flint on flint will readily produce instantaneous dull sparks that don't travel at all. I wonder if it is actually little bits of silica just heated by the friction without any burning.

In order to make the method to work it seems to me that you would need to get your silica particles layered almost microscopically like in a multi decker sandwich with an excellent char like material. Now this is just an idea, but what if your temiang was to be rotted till punky. Would it then become a microscopic silica/ punk multi decker sandwich and the heat from the silica might just ignite the surrounding punky wood?

 

[Galemys]

Now, I still need to dig up some quartz and check out that "soft iron and quartzite" fire starting method mentioned in the 1926 Bryant and Mayes Museum of Fire-Making Appliances. They said it was a popular method in the Scandinavian countries.

Mike,

there's a brand new thread about sparks from soft iron over at paleoplanet:
http://p081.ezboard.com/There-is-an...lanet69529frm65.showMessage?topicID=222.topic

I's just theoretical at the moment but maybe there will be some new information added by others.

Tom

 

[Stuart]

great thread you've started here storm

 

[rabsyboy]

I've gotten sparks from Rose Quartz, and also by striking Iron Pyrite with the metal striker.

I've tried glass as well, but its no good.