I made a fire steel out of an old file the other day and it doesn't through many sparks at all. I hardened it by getting it red and throwing it in the snow. Could it be too hard now? I made one years ago that worked really well but can't remember if I hardened it.
Fire steel
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Robert Egler
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Generally if the file is a good quality you can just snap it off in a vice to make a fire steel. (hit it with a hammer just above the vice. Wear gloves and face protection.)
Its already hardened.
Some cheap files seem to made too soft to make good sparks.
Using pieces of file is the simplest fire steel I know of to make.
But if you heated it to red, I think that will actually soften it. It needs to be hotter than that. When I make fire steels from carbon steel rod (not the steel rods you get at the hardware store) I get them orange-ish to almost yellow before quenching them in water.
There are a lot of people on here that know more about steels and heat treating them than I do. Hopefully someone who actually knows what he's talking about (as opposed to me :grin: ) will answer.
Its already hardened.
Some cheap files seem to made too soft to make good sparks.
Using pieces of file is the simplest fire steel I know of to make.
But if you heated it to red, I think that will actually soften it. It needs to be hotter than that. When I make fire steels from carbon steel rod (not the steel rods you get at the hardware store) I get them orange-ish to almost yellow before quenching them in water.
There are a lot of people on here that know more about steels and heat treating them than I do. Hopefully someone who actually knows what he's talking about (as opposed to me :grin: ) will answer.
Throwing it in the snow to "quench" it won't cool it fast enough, nor even enough to work much. You really need to quench it in water or oil.
And, some of the more modern files are made from soft iron and then Case Hardened. So only the teeth layer outside have enough carbon in them, while the inside just doesn't have enough carbon to heat-treat hard and work well as a striker.
You need to heat it up to that critical temp - where a magnet will no longer stick to it. Then quench. It should now be as hard as you can get it, and should work well as a striker. But it can also be kind of brittle. I have some info on how I heat-treat my flint strikers over on my web site www.angelfire.com/journal2/firefromsteel
Yes, a quick/simple striker can be made from a file just by snapping a section off, and then carefully grinding the teeth off along the thin edge. But keep it cool. If it is getting too hot to hold in your fingers, then cool it right now. You need to get down to solid metal. Those teeth get in the way of striking sparks. I also grind/bevel back the teeth along the sides a bit as well. I clamp an old file in the vice with about 3 inches sticking up. I then drape a shop rag over it, and smack it on the side flat right above the vice. This should snap off that 3 inch section pretty cleanly. The shop rag helps control any small bits of "shrapnel", and helps you find that 3 inch piece back from where it flys across your shop and under a bench! When you snap it off, look at the metal grain where it broke off. The "grain" should look real small/fine. And after grinding off the teeth along the edge, it should make a VERY GOOD striker. Yes, you do have to use the "pinch grip" with it. The Boy Scouts used to teach this as a Troop project years ago - make your own flint striker to then use to start your fire. Nowdays it's considered ... too dangerous.
So use water or oil to quench. Snow might look/sound "romantic", but it doesn't cool the steel fast enough or well enough. Even setting it on ice will end up giving you an inconsistant heat-treat, and might also give you cracks in the steel because of the uneven cooling.
Hope this helps. Have fun tinkering.
And a word of caution: blacksmithing is ADDICTIVE!
Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
p.s. A flint striker works best when it is heat-treated as HARD as you can get it! But that also tends to make it as brittle as you can get the steel. So some extra steps need to be taken to reduce that brittleness, while still retaining the hardness. Thermo-cycling is one way. I explain it on my web site. It is borrowed from the knife makers. Basicly you heat the striker up to that non-magnetic point, pull it out of the heat, and let it air cool till you see no color. Then repeat twice more. Then do your final heat and quench. This releaves internal stress in the steel from the forging, and it "refines" the metal grain structure - making those metal grains smaller. When you heat it up to the yellow stages to forge it, the metal grains expand in size. The smaller grain structure makes it less brittle, and tougher - while still remaining hard.
And, some of the more modern files are made from soft iron and then Case Hardened. So only the teeth layer outside have enough carbon in them, while the inside just doesn't have enough carbon to heat-treat hard and work well as a striker.
You need to heat it up to that critical temp - where a magnet will no longer stick to it. Then quench. It should now be as hard as you can get it, and should work well as a striker. But it can also be kind of brittle. I have some info on how I heat-treat my flint strikers over on my web site www.angelfire.com/journal2/firefromsteel
Yes, a quick/simple striker can be made from a file just by snapping a section off, and then carefully grinding the teeth off along the thin edge. But keep it cool. If it is getting too hot to hold in your fingers, then cool it right now. You need to get down to solid metal. Those teeth get in the way of striking sparks. I also grind/bevel back the teeth along the sides a bit as well. I clamp an old file in the vice with about 3 inches sticking up. I then drape a shop rag over it, and smack it on the side flat right above the vice. This should snap off that 3 inch section pretty cleanly. The shop rag helps control any small bits of "shrapnel", and helps you find that 3 inch piece back from where it flys across your shop and under a bench! When you snap it off, look at the metal grain where it broke off. The "grain" should look real small/fine. And after grinding off the teeth along the edge, it should make a VERY GOOD striker. Yes, you do have to use the "pinch grip" with it. The Boy Scouts used to teach this as a Troop project years ago - make your own flint striker to then use to start your fire. Nowdays it's considered ... too dangerous.
So use water or oil to quench. Snow might look/sound "romantic", but it doesn't cool the steel fast enough or well enough. Even setting it on ice will end up giving you an inconsistant heat-treat, and might also give you cracks in the steel because of the uneven cooling.
Hope this helps. Have fun tinkering.
And a word of caution: blacksmithing is ADDICTIVE!
Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
p.s. A flint striker works best when it is heat-treated as HARD as you can get it! But that also tends to make it as brittle as you can get the steel. So some extra steps need to be taken to reduce that brittleness, while still retaining the hardness. Thermo-cycling is one way. I explain it on my web site. It is borrowed from the knife makers. Basicly you heat the striker up to that non-magnetic point, pull it out of the heat, and let it air cool till you see no color. Then repeat twice more. Then do your final heat and quench. This releaves internal stress in the steel from the forging, and it "refines" the metal grain structure - making those metal grains smaller. When you heat it up to the yellow stages to forge it, the metal grains expand in size. The smaller grain structure makes it less brittle, and tougher - while still remaining hard.
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Thanks. Actually snow was all I had available at the time. I didn't think very well ahead of time. I ran over to our shop at work during lunch to make it and they had the water shut off because the pipes froze. 
paulvallandigham
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Mike: Thank you. That is a terrific explanation of thermal-cycling, and why it is done. A lot of ruined work will be saved by people who read your comments here. :hatsoff:
Could a railroad spike be used?
smo said:
It depends upon the quality of the steel in those railroad spikes. They tend to be made in two major groupings - soft low carbon ones, and high carbon ones. Those with high carbon content steel should work for a striker. But that is a whole lot of hammering to get them down to a more "usable" size as a flint striker.
Although, I did have one guy order a striker made 1/2 inch wide/thick and 5 inches long overall! That was one large hunk of steel to pack around! But that extra weight really did help when striking sparks. The extra weight evened out the swing of the striker, and the "mass" helped chip out little bits of the steel when it did hit that sharp edge on a piece of flint. But carrying that weight around would get to me eventually.
But there was an early French military "camp" fire striker that was just about as heavy and large (1400's to early 1600's). It was kept by the Cook in charge, and used by him or one of his assistants to start the cooking fires for all the army when out in the field. It looked like a stubby/wide/thick knife blade with the tang bent up 90 degrees, and the bent back towards the point of the striker. (the striker was triangular shaped, and the handle formed another triangle on the other side.)
SO if you have a high-carbon railroad spike, it should work to make into a flint striker. Just a lot of work to do so. Hmmm .... I just might have to "play" around a bit....
Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
p.s. What you are doing with a flint striker is using a sharp edge on your flint to chip/dig out little bits of hardened steel from the surface of your flint striker. The force/energy put into chipping/digging out those little bits of steel (and severing the molecular bonds) heats those little bits of steel up enough that the Carbon in them burns. That's the sparks you see - the carbon burning. A dull flint just won't dig in enough to chip out those little bits of steel. And if your striker is TOO SOFT, your flint will dig in TOO MUCH, and the bits you chip out will be too large to heat up to the burning point. So that striker needs to be almost as hard as you can get it.
The little "details" along the way do add up. The rest of a striker is just ... decoration and fashion. But THE MOST COMMON style/shape of flint striker across all the centuries from early Roman times B.C. up to the present is that C striker. The earlier ones tended to by pretty symetrical - either with a little extra curl on both ends, or with both ends left straight. Those with a little curl on one end and the other end straight came into general use/fashion in the early 1800's and mostly with the western Rocky Mountain fur trade.
Thanks for the reply Mike ,It just made me wonder if anyone had ever made or used a striker out of a rr spike ?I just thought that they would have all been made out of some very hard steel. I know they are easy to come by & would be a cheap source of steel.
Regarding RR spikes for steels: from another board where the subject of using RR spikes for knives has been studied to death -
A good friend, who is one heck of a smith, has done extensive test hardening RR spikes for knives and axes using Super Quench and other methods and about the highest Rockwell hardness he's gotten is in the mid 40's on the C Scale. OK maybe for a knife or axe, but IMO well below the hardness needed for a striker.
Others who have investigated HC spikes have found them to go no higher than .35% carbon and often have copper included, whether marked or not. RR Spikes if too hard would be counter to their intended job, while they need to ne hard enough to increase wear they also need to be flexible to take the strain. FWIW - High carbon steel is generally considered to be .50% and above when used for knives, axes, and tools. so HC spikes are only HC in comparison to standard spikes.
A good friend, who is one heck of a smith, has done extensive test hardening RR spikes for knives and axes using Super Quench and other methods and about the highest Rockwell hardness he's gotten is in the mid 40's on the C Scale. OK maybe for a knife or axe, but IMO well below the hardness needed for a striker.
