Contest

[dawsonbob]

Oh, I figured it would be hard. But then survival situations are, by definition, never easy.

I think KGD made it look too easy. At least Hector had the decency to complain that his arm became sore.

Dawsonbob -- that was going to be my approach too. Use a rock to scrape up some tinder. Nice work. We'll see if I can do it outside with some wind though. I'm looking forward to making an attempt.

Rotte — it's definitely doable outside: I know, because I've done it, although last time I used different tinder, and used a knife to make fuzz sticks. That would have been a no-no for this test though, so I only used the rocks I had.

A couple of tips for you and anyone else who wants to try this method.

Rock: You need a sharp edge to do the scraping with. You may find a rock with a sufficiently sharp edge, but the chances are you won't. My suggestion is to break a rock yourself, which pretty much guarantees you a nice, clean, sharp edge. What I look for is a rock that's been broken in the past and has maintained a fairly sharp edge. That is an indication that the rock you've found probably will be able to produce a good new edge. Find a bigger rock (hammer stone) and smack the smaller one close to, but not on, the edge. It may take a few tries. If you do it right you should flake off a nice edge. Remember; you don't need a scalpel — a crude edge is fine.

Tinder: Find a piece of wood that you want to work with that's fairly straight. You can use your stone edge to scrape away the bark. Once the wood is exposed just use your sharpest stone edge to scrape it. With a crude stone edge you're not going to be cutting it, so just use a scraping motion. I was somewhat surprised to see how fine the shavings were. They were nice, tight, small curls. That may have been because of the wood (palm) that I was using, but I suspect that any good, dry wood will do the same.

Spark: I found that different portions of my rock edge produced different sparks. That may have been due to different parts of the stone having different sharpness at different points along the edge. Oddly, I found a notch that seemed to work best.

Good luck, and have fun!

 

[Rotte]

Outstanding day to be outside today!

Went up to Vedauwoo park--my local favorite--and hiked up to a beaver pond.

Found lots of mulie and elk sign, but didn't see any critters.

I had a couple of small bags with me and filled them with tinder and fuel as I went. I found an open area of rock with a
natural depression and set up my fire. It was pretty open and exposed to the wind, but I liked the little rock bowl.

Tinder was easy too come by: cattails, dry ribbon grass, and pulverized wood. But finding a sharp rock was more difficult. I tried using a very sharp sand stone, but it wouldn't throw a spark. Finally I found some small granite pieces that had an edge that would throw sparks.

Here is my stuff: Top in a bag is cattails, top right is a bag with dry grass and very small twigs, lower right is the stone I used to pulverize some of the punk wood, center is spruce and pine needles with some twigs, lower center is my ferro-rod and striker rocks, left is some more dry twigs.

I fluffed half a cattail and tried to capture the down with the dry grass. The cattail seeds were blowing everywhere in the wind. I just made a big bunch of cattail, pine needles, pulverized wood, and dry grass. I did try to break up the grass and pine needles as well. The bundle was set on a small platform of twigs to keep it off the rock.

The cattails caught fire with every strike, but would also extinguish instantly. I had to find a side of the pile where the cattail could light and then get the ribbon grass lighted. It took about 7 strikes to get the tinder pile to light.

After that it was on fire and I was good to go.

In many ways this was easier than I expected. I will say that I took the time to collect good dry tinder as I walked
and the cattails were a huge help. I collected a half-dozen and used only 1/2 of one, maybe less.

The ferro-rod got pretty chewed up by the rock, but will live to spark another day:

All in all a great day to be out playing with fire!

 

[Any Cal.]

Very nice! I have been checking back here all day just to see how you made out.

 

[Rotte]

Very nice! I have been checking back here all day just to see how you made out.

Like a house on fire!

 

[dawsonbob]

Outstanding day to be outside today!

Went up to Vedauwoo park--my local favorite--and hiked up to a beaver pond.

Found lots of mulie and elk sign, but didn't see any critters.

I had a couple of small bags with me and filled them with tinder and fuel as I went. I found an open area of rock with a
natural depression and set up my fire. It was pretty open and exposed to the wind, but I liked the little rock bowl.

Tinder was easy too come by: cattails, dry ribbon grass, and pulverized wood. But finding a sharp rock was more difficult. I tried using a very sharp sand stone, but it wouldn't throw a spark. Finally I found some small granite pieces that had an edge that would throw sparks.

Here is my stuff: Top in a bag is cattails, top right is a bag with dry grass and very small twigs, lower right is the stone I used to pulverize some of the punk wood, center is spruce and pine needles with some twigs, lower center is my ferro-rod and striker rocks, left is some more dry twigs.

I fluffed half a cattail and tried to capture the down with the dry grass. The cattail seeds were blowing everywhere in the wind. I just made a big bunch of cattail, pine needles, pulverized wood, and dry grass. I did try to break up the grass and pine needles as well. The bundle was set on a small platform of twigs to keep it off the rock.

The cattails caught fire with every strike, but would also extinguish instantly. I had to find a side of the pile where the cattail could light and then get the ribbon grass lighted. It took about 7 strikes to get the tinder pile to light.

After that it was on fire and I was good to go.

In many ways this was easier than I expected. I will say that I took the time to collect good dry tinder as I walked
and the cattails were a huge help. I collected a half-dozen and used only 1/2 of one, maybe less.

The ferro-rod got pretty chewed up by the rock, but will live to spark another day:

All in all a great day to be out playing with fire!

Good stuff, Rotte, and good pictures, too. Really nice scenery up there.

It looks like taking the time to collect good tinder really paid off. Much better stuff than scraping a piece of wood with a rock. One uses what's at hand, I suppose, but then, that's the idea of a survival situation: to use what's at hand.

Not much at hand in the middle of San Diego that isn't man made (sigh).

Good work on that.:thumbup:

 

[gungho]

Nicely done there Rotte. You get a :thumbup: my friend. I concur with dawson, that's gorgeous scenery. I've been up in a few mountains out in Arizona (Sedona), and I love the air up there. You go for a long enough hike and it actually feels like you're out in nature.

Whereas here in Michigan, you can be out in the woods and here farms tractors and cars driving by all the time. Kinda cuts into those peaceful retreat moments I look for when I go to just sit out in the woods and watch the beauty of life.

 

[mechtec]

Hmmm... I'm thinking of giving this a try. I'm still really new to outdoors/survivalism and I don't have a ferro-rod. Never even used one. If they're relatively inexpensive I'll go to my local outdoors shop and see if they have any. If so, I'll try and start a fire for you folks.

I'm going to give it a shot also even if the contest is over, a great way to learn and I like to see what other people are doing. I've used firesteels many times but never without a striker.

 

[hector81]

I agree - I want to know more about how you got a pile of pine needles to light like that. The sparks for me just fall through - what did you use, that you did not use a blade to prepare that you got to light like that.

I am always anxious to learn.

TF

Persistence! i guess.
since there was nothing else around, I had to use just the pine needles.
everything else was damp and there was no better material for me to use.
If I had a knife I would get a bamboo and scrape it to get some really fine shavings, I did tried that with the rock, but I wasn´t working. so I had to rely on just the pine needles.
I have used just pine needles to light many fires before. and they do take some time to catch a spark even using a regular striker, so I figured I could keep trying until the damn thing caught fire. and it did eventually but it took me almost an hour to get a fire going. my arm was killing me for the next 2 days it took it´s toll on me.
doable? sure, but I now value having a blade with me much more.

 

[hector81]

hey guys, I got some time to try light a fire with a rock again.
but this time I took the time to look for better tinder with no luck. I couldn't find anything better than the pine needles, so the best I could do is to crush them a bit. see if this would make things easier.
it did! I got the thing lit in half the time of my first attempt.
here's what I started with.

flame on!

extra shot with some nice green flames.

that's it! it's getting easier each time I try it!