tips for flint & steel

[Nicklas Odh]

I'm too lazy to find it just now but after reading your other post Mike, I remembered seeing a video of a Swedish guy who was making a series of short bushcraft/survival videos. In one he got a fire going with his Fallkniven F1 and a bit of quartz - though I seem to remember he said it took a hundred or more strikes to get a decent spark!

He did not use the quartz on the F1. That is pointless. He used a carbon steel Mora and quartz.
http://www.bushcraft.se/

 

[British Red]

Might help a little webbie - this is an old post of mine

I thought a quick thread on using real flint & steel as opposed to ferrocium rod (Firesteels) might be interesting..........

Here goes

To do this you will need some high tech ingredients:

A piece of flint with a sharp edge,
A piece of high carbon steel (an old piece of file works well),
Some charcloth (we've done making charcloth on another thread)
A leather pouch to keep it in and look authentic



Okay I confess, thats a proper "steel" - it is forged from an old file though!

First, before you get going, prepare your self a "nest" made out of bone-dry tinder. A good double handful of dry (and I mean dry) grass is great. For the demo I used some wheat straw - because it was handy. When using course tinder like straw, rub and crush it to break the coarse stems up into finer fibres. Make a ball when doing this and then open it out into a ball shape.



Next, take your flint shard in your left hand. You do have flint round you yes? We have tons (literally) - the ploughs keep dragging 18" nodules out of the fields. Did you know that flint comes from sponges? It does really...sorry, rambling. Your flint needs to have a sharp edge like this



Next step is to tear a piece of charcloth and clamp it on top of the flint with your thumb - like this




Next take your striker, piece of carbon steel, old file etc. and hold the flint pointing upwards. Imaging you are trying to shave the edge of the steel with the flint being a knife. However you hold the flint still and bring the striker down sharply just grazing the edge of the flint. Sparks fly and will catch on the charcloth.



Blow a little on the cloth to get it going



Drop your charcloth into the nest now




Next gather the nest in both hands, closing the nest so the charcloth is loosely surrounded by tinder



Raise your hands towards your mouth, blow on the cloth through the tinder in a long steady puff. Lower the nest, breathe in then raise the nest and blow again. Repeat until you get a flame





Make sure your tinder bundle is well alight....then place in the fire and add fine twigs and build the fire




I hope thats interesting....if anyone likes the fancy steel - I claim no credit - Jason made it for me

http://www.jasonbhall.freeserve.co.uk/

Hope that helps

 

[-Switch-]

You can use a high carbon steel knife, but I'd only try it in an emergency or with a knife I didn't mind trashing...

I've managed to get a cramp ball smouldering a few times using flint on the back of my carbon Mora. I was just messing about at the time and didn't realise it was regarded as such a difficult thing to do otherwise I would've posted something up about it on here.

It takes a while longer to get a good spark than when using a purpose-made steel but it's definately achievable. And obviously, the crampball has to be perfectly dry.

You hold the knife still and strike the spine of it with the flint, with the tinder held underneath rather than on top in the traditional manner.
And have a first aid kit handy - It's very easy to cut yourself while getting the hang of the different technique required with this method.
You can't strike as fast and vigorously as you might with flint and steel because of the risk of cutting yourself, particularly on the upward stroke of your hand when returning it to start a new strike. It helps to set the tip of the knife into a log to steady it and to cover the point, although that does affect your follow-through when striking.

You'll only be striking the back of the blade so you won't do any functional damage to your knife. But striking sparks from your knife does smash it up quite badly, so don't try this if you're worried about messing up the look of your tools.

 

[Martyn]

He did not use the quartz on the F1. That is pointless. He used a carbon steel Mora and quartz.
http://www.bushcraft.se/

Was just gonna say the same, the F1 is made from VG10 - a high vanadium stainless steel. It will never throw a spark. Whatever, it's one thing making a knife spine spark in an emergencey, but good luck finding a tinder that will take the spark - that's the hard part.

 

[Martyn]

Well a success would be an under statement, the char cloth took a spark first time, much to my surprise. Many thanks for the excellent advice!!

I can get charcloth to catch a spark easily, but I have never had any success with any other tinder at all - even saltpetre impregnated amadou. Ferro rods are a different matter obviously, you can set fire to just about anything with those things, but real flint and steel needs carefully prepared tinder - in my experience, the only thing that works reliably is some kind of pre-charred material.

 

[-Switch-]

I can get charcloth to catch a spark easily, but I have never had any success with any other tinder at all - even saltpetre impregnated amadou. Ferro rods are a different matter obviously, you can set fire to just about anything with those things, but real flint and steel needs carefully prepared tinder - in my experience, the only thing that works reliably is some kind of pre-charred material.

Pre-charred materials like charcloth work best but then you have the paradox of needing fire to char the material but needing the charred material to start the fire.

Cramp ball fungi do work but as I said in the last post I made they have to be absolutely dry. Even the sweat from your fingers can dampen it too much when handling it. Proper preperation can make them as reliable as charcloth.
My advice would be to find the cramp ball, dry it out then, when it's perfectly dry, split it and rough up the inner surface slightly with the tip of your knife without touching it with your fingers. This should then take a spark from flint on the back of your knife, although it's alot of work, and definately from flint and steel.

Careful handling, perseverance and a lot of patience are definately required

 

[Martyn]

Pre-charred materials like charcloth work best but then you have the paradox of needing fire to char the material but needing the charred material to start the fire.

Yeah, that's the problem I have when people say you can use a knife to get a spark and start a fire in an emergency. It may be technically possible, but it's practically impossible.

I think it'd be a complete waste of effort and the only thing you would succeed in doing is damaging your knife. You'd be much better off trying friction methods. Granted, if you happened accross a bone dry cramp ball first, then it does open up the possibility of starting a fire using a spark from your knife, but without the aforementioned bone dry crampball, you are on to a loser.

Actually, I've never tried geting an ember with a cramp ball - must look out for one and give it a go. Also wanted to try cattail fluff, but again, I suspect that would be a bit of a dark art too.

I love using flint & steel and have about 10 of em now, in various shapes and sizes - they're great - but I would not consider them "emergency" items by any stretch of the imagination. For me, charcloth and charred rope "match" are the best things to use with a steel - in fact they are almost the only things.

I'd love to hear from someone who has had success finding wild material to use as a tinder with steel, that needs no preparation? Aside from a lucky drop on a dry cramp ball - is there anything else that could be used?

Just for show, here's some of my collection...

Some historical reproductions, some just fun.

 

[-Switch-]

Unfortunately, as you said, there are pretty much no natural tinders that can be used with flint and steel that require little or no preperation.
As I'm sure we're all aware, people used to go to great lengths to prepare their materials for fire lighting when flint and steel were the main source of fire - much as we do today when using flint and steel. The method and technique has evolved very little over the last few hundred years mainly because the materials used as tinder haven't changed.

I would totally agree with your comment Martyn about friction fire-lighting in an emergency rather than flint and steel. The available tinders for friction fire-lighting are much better and easier to prepare than the available tinders for flint and steel.



I have stumbled across an 'alternative' tinder though - which probably requires a thread of its own - involving denim jeans and a knife. I want to experiment a little more with it before posting up but I'm hopeful that it will provide a good emergency tinder, providing the person in question is wearing jeans and has a knife of course.

 

[John Fenna]

If you "shave" cotton trousers, removing the knap, you get a fluff very much like tumble dryer fluff - this will take a spark from flint and steel - but you need to shave a lot of trouser to get a good amount of this tinder!

 

[-Switch-]

If you "shave" cotton trousers, removing the knap, you get a fluff very much like tumble dryer fluff - this will take a spark from flint and steel - but you need to shave a lot of trouser to get a good amount of this tinder!

Yeah, that's pretty much what I discovered but I wanted to experiment a bit with it because I think it might work with wet trousers too. I'd be interested to see if the 'scraping' of the trousers/jeans removes enough moisture from the small fibres to enable them to catch a spark. Once the spark has caught the heat should dry the rest of the tinder out - same sort of principle as Rich59's wet tinder method.

I'll have a play and post what I find on here.

 

[brancho]

Also wanted to try cattail fluff, but again, I suspect that would be a bit of a dark art too.

Tried this with a Ferro rod with little success even when dried at home. It catches easliy but does not burn long enough to ingnite anything else but maybe thats just me.

 

[Mike Ameling]

The only natural material that I have had experience with that will catch a spark from a traditional flint-n-steel WITHOUT any prior "charring" or other preparation is the Tinder Fungus (Innonotus Obliquus). It is a fungus that mostly grows on the paper Birch tree. It is a black nobby ... lump ... that grows right on the tree bark, and into the tree. It is a fungus, and will eventually kill the tree.

But the Tinder Fungus is amazing. You can take it directly off of the tree, bust it open to get to the orange insides, and they will catch that spark without any other preparation. And once it does catch a spark, it will be almost impossible to put out without drowning it in water. It just keeps smoldering and spreading throughout the whole chunk you have. It also has a slight "incense" type smell to its smoke.

But not everybody has access to areas where the paper Birch tree grows, and to trees that have that disease/fungus growing on it.

I have also heard that there is a puffball type fungus that grows on some pine trees that works just like the tinder fungus. Several friends have worked with it, and like it. And for them it is easier to find than the Birch tree fungus.

And every once in a great while, you can find a punky/rotted tree where the wood will catch a spark pretty easily without any other preparation. It happens rarely. A friend found a maple tree that did work. But the punky/rotted maple tree right next to it would not work - until charred first. He had collected some chunks from both trees and brought them home to test out. But only the one worked. And now he can't find them back! He was a bit rushed when he collected the samples, otherwise he would have tested them both out right away. Years ago he did this and found one small punky/rotted maple sapling that worked, and he drug home as much as he could. But he finally used it all up (giving lots of chunks away to other friends to play with and use). So he continues his search to find another punky/rotted tree that will work - or to find back that one from 2 years ago. One of the ... hazzards ... of rambling through lots of woods. You can loose track of what you saw and where.

So Tinder Fungus from paper Birch trees is all that I have had experience with.

Hope these humble ramblings help.

Mikey - yee ol' grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[-Switch-]

I've just had a look and I've got no flint in the house. This is irritating - I was really looking forward to sitting outside in the sun and experimenting with a few things when I got in from work.

 

[Mike Ameling]

Most any stone that you can get a sharp edge on will work to strike sparks with using a traditional flint strikers. Flint just works better.

With flint, you can get a thinner/sharper edge, and that thin edge will be stronger and hold up longer than with other stones.

It's kind of hard to get a sharp enough edge on a piece of granite, but it will work. But that thin/sharp edge will crumble back fairly fast in use. Same thing happens with chert/chirt, slate, fossilized wood, agate, quartz, etc.

Many fancy "gentleman's" flint strikers in the 1700's and 1800's had a cut/polished piece of agate attached to the striker with a short chain. The sharp edge was often cut/ground/polished to shape.

So check out the other rocks around you. Some will probably work. And if you have crushed limestone "gravel" on the roads, look in it for hard white chunks of chert. The pieces will be pretty small, but many will have good sharp edges on them.

Hope this helps.

Mikey - yee ol' grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
(and cursing these "infernal machines" - my isp has been having "modem databank issues" since last Thursday - rah rah - but it's up at the moment)

 

[Mike Ameling]

Another possible option came to mind. Do you have a grindstone or sharpening stone with a sharp corner/edge on it? They should also work to strike sparks from your flint striker. The sharper/thinner the edge/corner, the better it would work. I just tried it with a little rectangular pocket-sized knife sharpening stone. It works, but not that well. Altho, my stone is fairly worn with mostly rounded corners from use. But it works.

Mikey - yee ol' grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands