Well, in my opinion your after white hot sparks not red and the more the better so what ever steel used for the sole, that produces this, is the way to go !
Personally i go for long term use rather than short term term solutions.
Compressor guy’s attention to detail is superb in his resole of the frizzen, because of the practices and procedures he applied to attach the 1095 shim. That frizzen will last a very long time, and probably outlive any other Indian made frizzen.
A well through hardened frizzen in 1095 or a case hardened frizzen in another steel will provide consistent sparking. You can carburize with compound over and over until the frizzen is paper thin to produce sparks that look like fireworks, but that will only last so very long because the hard ending process applied only penetrates so deep. Thats what would end up happening on compressor guy’s indian made frizzen. Indian made frizzens are a mystery steel too, not knowing what you’re looking at or working with is frustrating. Maybe you’ll get lucky and have an Indian frizzen that has a higher carbon content, however most do not.
We had that issue with 8620 frizzens back in the 1980’s, it’s just a very low carbon steel that didnt spark well but it was very easy to drill and assemble, however it takes a nice case if you pack harden it with bone charcoal and cyanide mixtures. This creates a very high quality consistent sparking steel, not a new concept at all, it’s been around since the 18th century or before. Wallace Guster makes mention of that in his video documentary.
The Resoling concept has been used since people began building flintlocks. The Spanish actually dovetailed on higher quality steel to an iron battery, it’s not a new concept. Wallace Gustler in his video takes a dull used file and forge welds it to a piece of wrought iron, same concept as Resoling just a different approach.
Modern steels are higher quality such as 1095, yet we still have companies casting frizzens in lower quality mild steels. sometimes we think we’re smarter than our predecessors with things like cherry red however, what they did still works better.