Striking Which For Fire?

[Ohio Rusty]

I try to not set my charcloth on the wet ground ort on top of the snow, and try to drop glowing embers into it. I prefer to set my char on top of my flint, and stike the iron striker against the flint shooting the sparks onto the charcloth. My char is already in my hand at that point, all I have to do is drop it in my tinder and blow the whole thing into a flame.
Ohio Rusty >

 

[MFP308]

Ok this may seem silly but I have never started fire with flint and steel. Is there a place to learn the technique? Book, web site, instructions with the steel or flint?

Thanks.


Mike

 

[Ohio Rusty]

Nothing to it. Just take your piece of flint with the sharp edge up, and scrape your steel against the sharp edge in the quick/fast motion. You'll see the sparks jump from the flint. That is it. To start char cloth glowing, just put the piece of char on top of the flint, hold it with your thumb and do the srtiking motion to make a spark. The sparks will jump onto the char. Now blow on it !!
The char will start glowing and burning brightly then 'WHOOSH' ...it turns into a flame and burns up.
Ohio Rusty >

 

[Robert Egler]

Like Rusty said, it isn't hard, but I'd suggest that you practice a bit at just getting sparks before you try to also use char cloth. Just my suggestion.

 

[Big Sky Trapper]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7OU8j9rmTs[/youtube]
(the required you tube haha)
works either way for me....

 

[crockett]

Mike F- I'll tell you how I do it although there are several ways. If you are right handed wrap the flint in a little bit of soft leather around the back if that part of the flint is sharp. On top of the flint have your small piece of char cloth. Hold the striker in your right hand and strike at the flint- BE CAREFUL that you don't cut your fingers. You should get a spark or two and hopefully one spark landed on the char and caught. If no spark caught- strike again.
Once a spark catches you should blow on it a bit to enlarge the ember. Now put the char cloth with glowing ember in a "bird's nest" of tinder. For tinder, cut about 4" of jute twine and shred it up into fibers. Flatten these fibers into a "Bird's Nest" put the char on top and then fold the nest over the char. The fibers should be loose or far enough apart for you to blow through the nest. You have to huff and puff and VOILA! it bursts into flames. At this point it is your "match"- put it on the kindling, etc.

 

[Robert Egler]

You have to huff and puff and VOILA! it bursts into flames. At this point it is your "match"- put it on the kindling, etc.

Also, an important thing to remember is to have your kindling and at least some firewood ready BEFORE to get the tinder going. Trust me, I remember when I first learned to use flint and steel having to scramble to grab kinding as my tinder burnt out.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The mistake being made by the man in this video is not compacting his tinder close enough, and doing nothing about it once he saw that his blowing air on the embers was NOT lighting the tinder. He should have taken his hand and quickly pushed the tinder tighter around the embers, and then blown again. He did the blowing, several times, but with the same result.

He could have chosen better tinder to light. Hay and grass are okay, but often contain water because the fibers are very thick. In the snow and cold this is especially true. Thinner fibers, such as milk weed down, or finely shredded cotton or linen fibers, hemp rope that is unraveled, or even Jute string that is unraveled make a much faster igniting tinder to use in these conditions.

When I use straw, I create a good size bundle, and then fold it in half to make a pocket for my charcloth. Once I blow an ember into a good size ember in the charcloth, I simply pin wheel the bundle with my arm making a circular movement over my head and down to my side, like a ferris wheel, to light the bundle of straw. I find that with straw, this gets the job done fast, as the amount of air that is fanned into the ember, and then to the bundle of straw is much faster with this movment, than anything I can do with my lungs.

It was nice to see a guy experienced enough starting fires to pick the bundle up and put it above his head to blow into it from the bottom, rather than blowing down into it, as many people do, only to get smoke in their face! I have seen far too many singed eyebrows over the past 40 years, and its nice to know that someone has demonstrated the correct position to use when blowing an ember into fire. :grin: :thumbsup:

 

[bigbore442001]

Whatever you do, don't add any gunpowder to the tinder. I learned this the hard way when I was a teenager. I started a fire but left a couple of blisters on my hand.

 

[bnail]

Mike I think maybe one of Mark baker's videos might have a demonstration.
all the advice you've recieved is spot on.
The char held with the flint catches the spark the quickest. One thing I might add is that you want to concentrate on using your wrist for flicking your steel instead of your elbow; this will provide a quicker, sharper strike than you get from the fuller arc of your elbow.
I'm lacking my left hand and I still can knock out a fire in most any condition. It's not that I'm that good, it's just that it's that easy :grin:

 

[Twisted_1in66]

After watching the video (Thanks Big Sky Trapper!), I noticed I do things slightly different.

First thing is that I go out, gather some wood, and put it into three different piles from smallest to largest with the largest being about an inch in diameter or so. I use the smallest twigs to make a small tee-pee shape with an opening on one side (don't get too fancy here).

I only use a small piece of charcloth about 1" square set on top of my flint and I hold it in place with my thumb. Usually within a couple of strikes the charcloth has caught an ember. I blow on it once to make sure it is burning, and then I put my flint and steel back into the can I carry them in and close the lid. If you have decent char cloth, there is no need to hurry, it will smolder along just fine while you put these away.

Then I put them into the nest of tinder I have waiting close by, close the nest around the charcloth and blow into it from the bottom of the nest. Contrary to the video, when you have a tightly compacted nest around your charcloth, it will usually smoke heavily and then literally burst into flame. So you really need to be right over your little tee-pee of wood when you start blowing on it. I think Big Sky Trapper's nest burned much slower because it wasn't tightly compacted around the charcloth.

Also note that you need to hold it above and slightly away from your face when you blow on it or it will burst into flames in your face and you may get singed. Naturally inclination is to blow down into the pile and you can get burned doing it that way (don't ask me how I found out about that).

The burning nest will catch your first bit of twigs alight right away. Add the rest of your twigs to it to get the fire going and then keep feeding progressively larger pieces to it until you have placed your largest wood on the fire. The fire should be going pretty well at this point and you can place arm sized logs on the fire. If you really want a big fire, wait until the arm size logs have caught and add any bigger size you want. Just remember the bigger the fire, the more effort it takes to put it dead out, and you don't really need a large fire to cook with.

Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:

 

[Bartek]

hahaha :haha: Great movie Trapper ! Thanks a lot !

 

[daven1834]

Nothing to it..... I have been doing the bp thing since 1968, but only really got into it in the last few years. I have tried until I froze to death, back several years ago, and never have been able to make a spark with a flint and steel...I have changed flint,I have changed and used I don't know how many different steels, I have a dozen anybody want to buy some? I can make char cloth, got that down to a fine art. Just cant make sparks with a flint a steel...Bought a package of bp accesseries from a guy the other day because he was getting out( gas prices )and guess what I have more of? Yep a new fire kit, flint and steel..There has to be a secret.

 

[bnail]

HT, It's easy as breathing. I've got a tradition of getting my kids their own Strikalights when they make their first fire. I'm not going to waste your time explaining how I do mine, there's over 12,000 members on this board, so you know that means there's an equal number of techniques/opinions:yakyak: suffice it to say that, once the proper ingredients are in place, it's just a simple flick of the wrist. you'll get it soon enough, and when you do, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about for so long! :grin: