a little fire problem

actually stingray i understood you perfectly when you wrote it, but like you said...a video is worth 10000 words. i will say this. it is so simple and easy to understand, and one of the more useful things for survival that i think it should be stickied. jsut so everyone can view it atleasst once. will give newbs like me a good understanding, and maybe even some of the older people will learn something new. but yeah. thanks for taking the time and shooting the vid. really has helped me understand alot. ill let you know how it goes tomorrow when i try again.
 
Excellent video and helpful suggestions posted so far, not really a whole lot I can add here other than to echo PsyOps and say that practicing your technique really helps. You CAN light shavings that thick and big, and it's not that difficult really(granted it's more difficult than finer whispier materials or those soaked with accelerants) but it does require a more refined and perfected technique.
Once you have the technique in your muscle memory though, it's a time saver being able to light less than ideal tinders as easily, or almost as easily, as the ideal stuff. Good luck with the pyrotechnicalities :p


Gautier
 
bwilson and evolute, i jsut saw your guys post. i never thought to break apart the curls to make em smaller and easier to light. good stuff there. and thanks for teh reference site evolute.
 
Mike/Evolute,

Excellent and superbly written article as always! It's very difficult to communicate pictures with words, but you do that just as well as you take the actual pictures! :thumbup:

Good to see you here.
 
Evolute, thanks for posting that article!
I can never find it when I need it, so I bookmarked it.
 
You guys are great. I have made a down draft wood burning stove out of cans like I found on this site and others. Tried to light it using some oak branches that I have in the yard without much success. I made some fuzz sticks yesterday and tried again, also without success. Now that I know to use smaller shavings to start off I may have better luck. On most of the Youtube videos of the stoves being lit, the guys are using some lighter fluid or alcohol to start the fire. I also wanted to light my fire without use of a catylist in case one would not be available such as in a survival or disaster scenario.

thanks again,

John
 
crbauhs said:
hey guys so i am holding the knife steady. and the wood is dried out. hard to cut with a folder. here is jsut a quick example i did with my mora.



so i can do thin curls of thick curls. i jsut dont get it. adn there was no wind blowing at all either. and im not sure what wood it is. jsut random stuff i found driend in my yard. has been there for a few days. and the hot florida sun dries it out fast.
Click to expand...

looks like on alot of those, your curls are thin enough but to wide ( i dont if that makes any sense when worded this way though)
 
ok well i figured out what kind of wood this is. pine as far as i can tell. i can smell it. does that make a difference? and it is dried cause it is a pain in the rear end to make nice curls in. just wondering. and stingray, i took a file to the spines of ym knives, flattening em, but i cant make those little curls you did. does it work on all types of wood?
 
It should work on all wood, or at least it has for me so far. You may have to play a little with the angle at which you hold your spine to the wood, and you're going to have to put a little strength behind it. Start with the spine perfectly perpendicular then cant the knife down very slightly. If that doesn't work, cant down a little more, etc. There should be a certain angle were it will shave real nice.

Also, be sure that your spine is nice and flat. Try scraping a Sharpie pen, you should be able to get nice little plastic curls if your spine is sharp enough.

Keep playing with it, you'll figure it out, if all else fails, get a cheap beater or kitchen knife and use the edge perpendicular just so you can see how the curls should be.

Also, maybe just try some different wood, but pine should be great though.

P.S. You may have problems if your knife is laminated or differentially heat treated. In other words, if your spine isn't as hard as your edge, it may dull too quickly to get any good shavings, and it won't be able to get sparks from the firesteel.

I sure hope you get it figured out, because it's a real joy to be able to start a fire with just your knife and a firesteel.
 
ok thanks for the suggestions stingray. ill check it out on a marker and the go from there.
 
crb,

Check out this vid from our fellow forumite "pict" - it was just linked in the recent machete thread but will give you some good pointers:


[youtube]PVHeKNbRXgc[/youtube]
 
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Excellent video Stingray.

Reference your site all the time Evolute - great stuff.

What is great about this site is the knowledgable people who can raise the bar of possibilities for others.
 
stingray4540 said:
I'm glad you liked the video. I hope it helped.
I just taped it real quick, because I didn't think I was articulating what I was trying to say very well, and figured a picture is worth a 1000 words.
Click to expand...

I'm new in this forum. That video is why I get into these forums, so I can learn. Thank you so much for it. Now I understand things I had heard about, but never saw first hand. Life will be easier now with new knowledge.:thumbup:
 
EdD270 said:
I'm new in this forum. That video is why I get into these forums, so I can learn. Thank you so much for it. Now I understand things I had heard about, but never saw first hand. Life will be easier now with new knowledge.:thumbup:
Click to expand...

That's what these forums are all about, and what I love about them the most. I've learned a lot from these forums, so it makes me happy if I can help someone else. Heck, I didn't even know what a firesteel was before I came to this forum. There's so much knowledge here it's ridiculous.


P.S. Welcome to the forum, and enjoy your stay!!!
 
Try a piece of jute twine instead of the sticks. Untwist a 5" length of twine into a bird's nest pile. Individual fibers of jute, not twisted strands. Scrape your sparks into that.... All you need is one spark to sit on the pile and with a bit of air, should start to flame. Even better if you use some char cloth as we use when we are using a flint and firesteel striker. Most modern folk don't bother with the 'whole kit,' thinking that the sparks from the steel will be enough. Ya gotta have something finer! :)

I carry a small striker, a piece of English flint about the size of a gun flint, a foot of twine, a cotton ball sized piece of char cloth, and a few matchstick sized pieces of fatwood in a small tin box in the bottom of my pack.

Those rectangular blocks of magnesium with a ferro rod on the side will do you just as well. But you have to scrape a LOT of shavings off the block first so that they will ignite and give you a flame that will start your fuzz sticks.

Stitchawl
 
Great thread. Very informative. I've been playing with my fire steels trying to get more proficient with them and this will really help. I particularly love the idea of setting up the Ontario machette with four or five different edges on parts of the blade.
 
A couple of observations from today's fire steel practice in the BBQ grill. Whoever suggested holding the striker stationary and moving the steel accross it, that is a big improvement. Saving my knuckles from getting slammed into the metal grill surface too!
It may have been explained before but when I slowed down the striking stroke, that caused a more sustained and intense shower of sparkes into my tinder. I'm using wood curls and shredded cedar bark as tinder. Its a dry day and 100+ degrees, but by golly I'm getting some consistancy now.
One more note: I took my 3" piece of hack saw blade striker and squared up then burnished a hooked edge on the spine of it like you'd do with a cabnet scraper and that really produces some fine wood shavings for tinder. I'm using dead pencil sized branches from a cenizo bush that is close by. Other woods might work better.
 
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