striker steel

[skunkskinner]

Hello all, I want to make a striker for my fire kit,my question is what kind of steel should I use? Thanks

 

[blacksmithshoppe]

I use Springs or old Files, both make good Strikers. Do you plan on forging it? I'm not sure how else you would do it.
Jeff

 

[skunkskinner]

Thanks,
Yes I'm going to use a double lung bellows and coal table that I built several years ago.I have some old trailer springs,I'll give them a try. I'm pretty sure that I will be asking more questions as we go through the process.
Thanks again

 

[LRB]

Use an old file. Trailer springs are going to be a tad short on carbon. They will work, but file steel is much better.

 

[blacksmithshoppe]

I have never used Trailer Springs, but have used a lot of coil springs from cars with mixed results. Older ones seem to work better. I have real good luck with the coil springs from industrial overhead doors.
Jeff

 

[ameling]

You need to use high carbon spring steel - preferably without other metal alloys in it (ea. stay away from stainless). Springs from cars and trucks work well, but are usually pretty thick and you have to cut the up a bunch to get smaller pieces. Garage door springs work well, as do some farm machinery springs. A good source would be lawnmower blades. They are usually 1080 to 1095 carbon steel or 5160 carbon/alloy steel. Both work very well for making fire steels, can usually be picked up for free, and require less cutting to get down to workable sizes.

One of the simplest steels to get would be from the local Farm machinery/supply store. Pick up a modern hay rake tooth. They are high carbon spring steel, and are usually 1/4 inch round stock. You get around 2 1/2 to 3 feet from each rake tooth. The local Farm Fleet sells them for $1.09 each. Pretty good deal for new spring steel. Tapering and curling the ends of a 6 to 7 inch section makes a very nice C shaped striker, and you can either flatten/square it or leave it in the round.

Some used steel can have hidden internal problems - cracks, splits, brittleness. And some newer files are soft iron that has been case hardened - just the outside has a thin layer of high carbon steel. They won't work for a striker.

Good luck on your smithing adventure, but beware: blacksmithing is addictive!

Just some humble thoughts to share.

yhs
Mike Ameling

 

[BillinOregon]

Mike: Thanks for the tip on the hay rake teeth!

 

[tx-hunter]

howdy yall, i got a problem with my striker. maybe you could help me out.

i forged one out of a rake tine and it doesn't get much of a spark on flint. a file skates across the surface. i did not temper it after hardening.

when i strike it to the flint, i get about 5-6 sparks that fly off. is this right? i was expecting showers of sparks like a ferro rod?

Any suggestions?
thanks

 

[Joe Yanta]

Skunk Skinner you cant find a finer coach than Mike Ameling. Mike helped me out maybe a year or so making fire strikers. One of things we talked about then was thinner strikers. Since then I have been making mine about 1/8 inch thick.

It seems to me that thinner ones make a larger and hotter spark. :hmm: Here are my thoughts on why. I know that this will be bassackwards for some, but I strike steel to flint. Thicker steels have more area for the flint to strike on and tend to spread the force of the strike over a wider surface. When you strike a thinner steel the force of the strike is more concentrated allowing the flint to dig a little deeper thusly taking a larger chip.

I welcome that if my thinking is not sound that someone will explain it to me.

Good luck! Smithing is addicting.

:hatsoff:

Joe

 

[blacksmithshoppe]

I have to agree with that, I always get better sparks from thinner strikers.
Jeff

 

[skunkskinner]

well I used an old file.It was going so good right up to the time I was in the hardning stage, and left it in the coals to long then it melted in half.I will make another try later this week, when I get another file.

 

[ameling]

Those modern fire starters use a ferro-cerrium rod for sparks. That rod is the same thing that is used in a cigarette lighter. No carbon steel flint striker will ever produce sparks like that. It's one of those "modern wonders".

If you have high carbon steel to start with, then the rest is in the heat treat. The harder your striker is, the better it will throw sparks. But that also makes it more brittle and subject to breaking. After heat treating your fire steel hard, some people heat it back up just a bit to make it a little less brittle - like baking it in an oven at 400 to 500 degrees for an hour. But it will still be brittle and can break - that's just one of the known hazards.

Be warry of anyone offering a "lifetime guarrenty" against breakage on a striker. The only way to do that is to make a striker from some modern alloy steel, or you end up with a striker that is too soft and you have to POUND it against flint to get a few small sparks.

I get around most of the brittleness problem by borrowing a tip from the knife makers - I Thermal Cycle my strikers before doing the final quench. After you forge it to shape, it has internal stress in it from the forging. So you heat it up to critical temp (where a magnet will no longer stick to the steel) and then pull it out of the heat to air-cool till you see no color. You do this two more times, then heat it back up and quench it. This releaves the internal stresses, and refines the grain structure of the steel. Since I started doing this, most of my problems with brittleness/breakage have gone away. They can still break if you drop them on a rock, but they stand up real well - and throw good sparks.

So, don't expect sparks from a proper flint striker to ever throw sparks like those modern ferro-cerrium rods. Modern magic vs. historical reality.

Just my humble thoughts to share.

yhs
Mike Ameling

 

[blacksmithshoppe]

Must be you haven't been Smithing too long, otherwise you would, like me, have a box full of old worn out files. I was thinking about looking into the Chemical Sharpening process for worn files, has anyone else ever used this? I know it cheaper but I question how long they will last.
Jeff

 

[LRB]

I have resharpened files by letting them sit in muriatic acid for 3 or 4 hours. It does work, but the resharpening will not last as long as a new file. Muriatic acid, pool acid, is cheap, so it can be worth the effort.

 

[Old Charlie]

I have a store bought striker That won't throw sparks. I read some where that you could wrap them in leather, put them in a tin ,throw it in the fire and put some carbon in the steel and make it work. Anyone know about this? I can't find the link any more.
Old Charlie

 

[rich pierce]

Case hardening can be done with any natural charcoal. Pack the striker in a can with charcoal and put in a fire with a draft- a campfire may not do. If you have one can that will slip over another loosely as a lid, this is good. Hold at bright red to orange for an hour. Take from the fire and dump the works into a large bucket of water. use goggles and gloves and a leather apron. Should be glass hard. It may spark better if you now soak in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour.

 

[blacksmithshoppe]

I have resharpened files by letting them sit in muriatic acid for 3 or 4 hours. It does work, but the resharpening will not last as long as a new file. Muriatic acid, pool acid, is cheap, so it can be worth the effort.

Do you use tha Muriatic Acid uncut? If so I have some and may give it a try, As I see it I have nothing to loose.
Thanks,
Jeff

 

[LRB]

Yes, uncut. It is already diluted by the manufacturor for safety concerns. To get a noticable improvement with the files seems to take a few hours. If you have some really favorite files, there is a company in WV that sharpens them with some sort of directional acid wash. Their prices are very reasonable last I saw. Boggs Tool Company, or something like that.
Nitric acid would probably be faster than muriatic, although more costly.

 

[Norskie]

BTW, muriatic acid is the old name for hydrochloric (HCl) acid. One commercial use for the stuff was cleaning mortar off brick, so if you can't find it as pool acid, check a contractor's supply store.

 

[Wanders]

While the steeel is excellent, I've had problems using old hay rake tines. They tend to just fall apart or burn off. It might be the tines I've tried. We had an old hay rake burn in a fire and the tines were made available to us. I wouldn't think a wood fire would get hot enough to effect the steel. On the other hand, a hundred years of use might have created a lot of micro-cracks & fissures. Anyone with hints on how to work with this?
Wanders