New in oh so many ways

[sez]

Hiya, there don't seem to be many women on this site, except to complain, I can't be that unusual, surely.

Anyway, here's the thing, I am new and I'm here for two reasons, I've been fascinated by this sort of thing ever since I read 'Swallows and Amazons' when I was a kid, I haven't had much real practice at it, I haven't even managed to go camping for the last couple of years 'cause where ever I go my daughter goes, and she's developed a habit of getting ill.

The other reason is that the book I'm working on includes bush craft to a large degree.

Right then, there aint much flint down my way, but my mum lives in Norfolk and I brought quite a selection back with me when I visited, but I cannot get a spark from any of them, and I'm marking the back of my knife something awful, which I wouldn't mind if I had something to show for it. A friend told me that not all flint is good for fire lighting, is this true? Yes, I know stuff can be bought, which is handy for me, but not for my characters (a duel reason, you see, for asking this).
Any ideas?

That's a long winded simple question

[Ed]

Hi sez....

If you are using a stainless steel knife you wont get a spark. The sparks are produced 'not' by the flint but by the carbon in the steel.... ergo you will need a high carbon steel blade ;-)

Modern processed flint / ferrocum (sp?) rods are designed to shower sparks and therefore can be used with a good stainless blade.

Hope this helps... but I may be on the wrong track entirely if you are already using a high carbon steel blade.

Ed :-D

[sez]

You see this great light bulb over my head? :-D I HAVE been using a stainless steel blade! Well, this info is great for me, not for my story, back to the drill then.

Thankyou muchly

Sez

ps - should I be feeling stupid?

[Ed]

Use the search facility on the forums (top of the page)... you will probably find there are much better explainations already here.

Ed

[Gary]

Sez, carbon steel works best with a flint shard but also try to ensure the flint has an edge and that the two are brought together in a glancing blow.

Any tool steal will work - blacksmiths in th e1800's used to make steels for trade with the native americans out of old worn out files.

Another interesting trick is IRON Perities (is that spelt right?) - fools gold which can be struck together although I find I get better sparks using steel here too.

As for stainless steel - well good if your near the sea alot but in the bush leave it for the kitchen.

[Ed]

I never knew about the trick with the Iron Pyrite (Fools Gold).
Cheers for that gary... I'll give it a go :-D

Ed

[Gary]

your welcome - try two piece together and try steel against one - works best with char cloth btw

[Tony]

sez - another thing to keep in mind for your story side of things is that they (depending on your story :mrgreen: ) probably would not have stainless blades, or even stainless steel at all. If you give the guys here an idea of the time period they will point you in the right direction for the sort of equipment/tools/technologies from that period, your a lot lees lightly to slip up then and more likely to give the authentic feeling to your writing....Although I may be telling you to suck eggs.... :rolmao:

Hope it helps

[Martyn]

Sez, ed is spot on. The sparks are tiny pieces of carbon that are burning, when you chip them away from your knife or steel. The flint is used, because it is sharp and harder than steel, so when the two are bought together in a glancing blow, tiny pieces of carbon steel are shaved off the knife and ignited by the friction of the blow.

Stainless steel is an alloy of many metals, although it may contain a high percentage of carbon, it's alloyed to a relatively large percentage of other metals (chromium) that prevent it from burning or igniting in the same way.

High carbon steel works best, because it has, well, a high carbon content, but also little else to spoil it's sparking properties. Like gary says, old files were a good source for high carbon steel, as well as making fire-steels, they were often re-forged into knife blades.

[sez]

Blimey! You guys are amazing!

The story is set slightly in the future - not because it's sci fi but because the penal colony on which it's set doesn't exist. The heroine does have a swiss army knife, or similar, thanks to a lucky encounter, other than that, on the island nearly all tools are napped flint or made out of old tins. I have some knowledge - especially when it comes to plants - but I'm relying heavily on the SAS Survival guide, which I'm in love with and am boring the pants off everyone with information only I seem to find interesting.

Gary - what's the sea got to do with it?

Does a higher carbon content make the steel softer?

I'm going to nick my daughter's pyrite! (she's got a stone fetish)

Thanks a lot every one. And thanks for giving me the whys as well.

Sez

[ESpy]

Salt water is a little inimical to carbon steels - it causes them to rust. Quickly. Stainless steels (with a high proportion of chromium in them) are better at resisting rust, but are invariably much more difficult to sharpen.

The higher the carbon content in a steel, the harder it can get - although there is a tradeoff between hardness & toughness - the harder a steel is, the more brittle it is.

[Martyn]

The story is set slightly in the future - not because it's sci fi but because the penal colony on which it's set doesn't exist. The heroine does have a swiss army knife, or similar, thanks to a lucky encounter, other than that, on the island nearly all tools are napped flint or made out of old tins.

Does the community have access to fire, and are there any bits of old metal (car springs, railway tracks etc) lying around? If so, it's likely such a community would be forging their own steel tools within a very short time. It's pretty easy to set up an improvised forge, you just need fire, a set of bellows and some old rough steel to re-work into tools. Such a community would be making knives, axes, hammers and such in no time. If you want to keep steel out of the equation, then you'll have to keep pretty much all machinery out of it too. Just a thought

Seawater - well, rusting is actually an electro-chemical reaction, it requires the presance of oxygen and an electrolyte. Seawater has a high sodium (salt) content and sodium (Na+) is an electrolyte. So, steel rusts much faster in the presence of saltwater. The high chrome content of stainless steel slows this electrolytic reaction down, so stainless steel rusts at a much slower pace (it should be noted, that all steels will rust to some extent, even stainless - it isn'r rust-proof, it's rust resistant).

[sez]

The community has access to fire, yes, no machines though. This is an island in the middle of no where, it's whereabouts is known by a select few, apart from food tins, one or maybe two axes & a pocket knife (smuggled in) the only metal comes from the sea, a boat crashed there a few years ago for example.

Most blades and weapons are made from flint, glass or food tins.

I should have figured about the salt water.

Sez