Suing The Turkeys At TOTW

[slowpokebr549]

Many thanks from a puzzled half *** wanna be blacksmith, I could get em hard but they were brittle as hell. I am going to try that trick asap. I have a whole box of strikers that an aquaintence made for sale. They were way too soft and I took them off his hands thinking I could just harden em up.

 

[Stophel]

Eh, if you can't work a flint and steel without bleeding to death, you probably don't need to be playing with fire anyway....

 

[Bob Riegl]

:bow: I dunno but if the gentleman has problems with a flint & steel why suggest a bow drill approach :shake: ? F & S is stressful enough to learn but the bow-drill has increased the use of Prozac by Mountain Man neophytes. Talk about frustration, my only problem is that I cannot get a good enough chunk of flint but rose quartz has been my mainstay for a few years now :thumbsup: .

 

[RC]

Eh, if you can't work a flint and steel without bleeding to death, you probably don't need to be playing with fire anyway....

:rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :surrender:

 

[pichou]

Yup, cave men knew how to make fire. We are a lot smarter now. So after the fourth or fifth "OW! Dangit! :cursing: " well... maybe check Youtube for a video how to? :rotf:

 

[wetpowder]

Yeah, wet(blood soaked) tinder won't light. :hmm:

 

[Glenfilthie]

That's the one I have Carl but without the glass porthole in it. Is that a magnifying glass for starting fires?

And for all you Weisenheimers having sport at my expense - I am going to sue you too!!! :cursing:

All I need is a slimy lawyer with no ethics to prosecute the case! I can't imagine where I will find one of those... :haha:

I am going to make char cloth on the weekend but I am wondering how in heck that stuff works...how can it burn when it is half burnt already? It seems like it would be like starting a fire with black old cinders...

In any event, I know I have the basics if the book is to be believed...all I need now is the technique. It feels backward to me to swing the striker and not the flint... :youcrazy:...but that's what the book says...

 

[musketman]

Is that a magnifying glass for starting fires?

Yep, lenses were sometimes used to start fires during the day light hours, there was a draw back to the lens system, most didn't work all that well during the night.

Can't see a mountain man being so bored that he'd lay around burning ants with it, however I can vividly recall a few long summer days of my childhood with the aroma of fried ants wafting in the air.

I too bear the scars of flint across my knuckles, on both hands to boot.

 

[pichou]

"The Burning Glass" :nono:

:rotf: :rotf:

 

[J.D.]

"The Burning Glass" :nono:

:rotf: :rotf:

Now that brings back memories...not that I have ever burned anyone with a burning lens. :nono: :nono:

 

[ameling]

I am going to make char cloth on the weekend but I am wondering how in heck that stuff works...how can it burn when it is half burnt already? It seems like it would be like starting a fire with black old cinders...

When you make charclothe, you are basically making "charcoal" out of it. You are burning off all the volatile elements/gasses and chemically bonded water in the cloth - leaving just the carbon and a little ash remaining. So the process is similar to turning wood into charcoal.

And that charclothe then does catch a spark very fast, and then that spark will quickly spread throughout the rest of the chunk of charclothe that you are using - especially when you gently blow on it. As more of it burns/glows, the heat increases. With it in your "bird's nest" of fine tinder material, that heat then transfers to your tinder, and eventually gets it hot enough to start burning with flame.

If you take some punky wood (half rotted) like elm or maple, and then "char" it like you would making charclothe, those bits of charred punky wood will also catch a spark fairly fast. So the older method used before charclothe was to strike sparks down into those charred bits of punky wood. When a spark caught, you then took that chunk and put it into your "bird's nest" of fine tinder just like you would with charclothe.

A "tinderbox" before the mid 1800's was a container to hold those charred bits of punky wood. And the earliest written accounts of using charclothe only show up right before and during the Civil War - mid 1800's. For various reasons, they knew about charred clothe for catching sparks well back into the 1700's, 1600's and earlier, but no written accounts have showed up so far. But there are accounts of using charred bits of wood, charred bits of fungus, true tinder fungus (inonotus obliquus - off of birch trees and it will catch a spark all by itself without any prior preparation or charring), and amadou (layers of fungus soaked in potassium nitrate). Just not charclothe until the mid 1800's.

So your charclothe is the same as turning wood into charcoal - just using cotton/linen clothe. And you end up with almost pure carbon left.

The rest is all a matter of technique and practice. And watching out for your knuckles.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. DO find a buddy to show you and talk you through using flint/steel. That one-on-one instruction really does help.

 

[Glenfilthie]

I have no problem with a regular modern flint and steel...but this old fashioned model has me fuzzbared.

Do these flints wear out Mikey? Do they have to be sharp to work? As the guys were talking about...I have to pound that flint to get the feeblest of sparks...

My wife is having much better luck with this than I am. I fear I am a slow learner... :grin:

 

[Robert Egler]

Flints have to be sharp to work well, so you need to occasionally knap the edges.

If the edge is sharp and the steel is hard enough then you should get sparks if you hit the steel against the flint at the right angle, not much force is necessary, just a glancing strike.

What you're trying to so is shave tiny pieces of the steel off of the striker, these are the sparks that you see. So if you're not getting sparks I suspect its the angle of impact that's the problem.

 

[ameling]

I have no problem with a regular modern flint and steel...but this old fashioned model has me fuzzbared.

Do these flints wear out Mikey? Do they have to be sharp to work? As the guys were talking about...I have to pound that flint to get the feeblest of sparks...

My wife is having much better luck with this than I am. I fear I am a slow learner... :grin:

First, FORGET anything/everything about how those MODERN ferro-cerrium "fire steel" rods work when you try to use a traditional flint/steel. They are two completely different critters.

SHARP edges on flint wear out. The edge cracks/crumbles/dulls with use. Simple fact. You NEED a sharp edge. So sometimes you need to "knap" that flint edge to get it sharp again. And that means working it a lot like you would when flintknapping an arrowhead.

What you are trying to do is use a sharp edge on that flint to chip/dig out little bits of steel from the striking surface of your flint striker. Scraping the flint along the steel usually will not work. It requires a little more force to chip/dig in. So you use a gentle/light glancing blow along the surface. Just compare the angles involved to the flint and frizzen in your flintlock. A light ticking/glancing blow is involved. The energy you put into chipping/digging out those little bits of steel, combined with breaking some molecular bonds and chemical oxidation of the steel, heats up those little bits of steel hot enough that they start to burn. The twinkling you see in those sparks is the carbon in them burning.

So it should only require a light glancing/ticking type hit to get good sparks. You should not have to POUND flint against steel to get a few poor sparks. Just that light ticking/glancing hit. And your flint edge needs to be SHARP to do that. With some experience, many people can get good sparks from a fairly dull flint, but SHARP is best. Just think about it like that flint in your flintlock, and how well it works when it is sharp compared to when it gets dull.

And I often use a common musket flint. A large chunk/chard of flint does help you hold it. But it is not necessary.

Plus you can use other types of stones. Like agate, granite, chert, quartz, etc. Flint just holds a sharp edge better, and allows you to get a thinner sharp edge.

Hope this helps answer some more of your questions. And DO find a buddy to help show and talk you through flint/steel fire starting. It really does help to have that one-on-one tutoring.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[Walks Alone]

Eh, if you can't work a flint and steel without bleeding to death, you probably don't need to be playing with fire anyway....

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Don't know, but it sure sounds like there are a lot of gents who have to pick their nose with their elbows because a finger is simply too sharp and dangerous for them.

 

[Harold1950]

Maybe all the cavemen bled to death trying to make fire, I only know of a couple and they are on TV doing insurance commericals............. :rotf:

 

[pichou]

Og make fi... OUCH!

Og make fi... OUCH!

Og make fi... OUCH!

Og make fi... OUCH!

Og make fire!

Oh, Og make finger fall off. Only feel like fire.

:rotf:

 

[bingo1952]

The cavemen didn't have the steel to go with the flint. They were relegated to friction methods, found fire, or if they had nice neighbors they could borrow a coal or two.

 

[RC]

The cavemen didn't have the steel to go with the flint. They were relegated to friction methods, found fire, or if they had nice neighbors they could borrow a coal or two.

or steal it...

 

[ameling]

Aaaaah, the QUEST FOR FIRE.

Hey, didn't somebody make a movie about that?

Those cavemen and neanderthals did have another method of fire starting other than friction. It involved flint and iron pyrite. The "flint" was shaped much like a short dagger. It was struck(pulled) down through a groove worn into a chunk of iron pyrite. This produced sparks - few and dull/cool, but still sparks. The Iceman found in the Alps had such a fire starter amongst his gear - along with some grass/bark "tinder" and some pieces of fungus to catch those sparks.

For years, those archy experts couldn't explain why they kept finding flint daggers with one edge well worn and dulled. And they couldn't explain those rusted pieces of iron pyrite found nearby, with a groove in them. Then some ... non-conformist ... tried it out and got sparks - eventually leading to starting a fire. Mystery solved.

And there still are other methods of fire starting that don't rely upon steel, friction, or compressed air. They just aren't as quick/simple/easy as flint/steel - which is why flint/steel took over so fast and remained the primary fire starting method for all those centuries after the discovery of iron/steel.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. Still hard to beat a Willie Pete round/grenade to start a good fire quickly!