fire starter, then dull knife?

S

saylorbrand

Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
338
how bad does striking the esee fire starter with your blades edge dull it?
I strike with a small gas station blade or some thing like that.
 
There's a thread with some discussion on this 2 posts down.

It dulls it. Striking metal with metal is never good. I'd use a dedicated striker and the knife as a last resort as I hate sharpening.
 
I can guarantee you you could walk the gutter of two city blocks and find a piece of high carbon steel like a washer that you can spend 2 minutes with a bastard file on and make a comfy, convenient fire striker....
 
I use the squared off spine of blades when striking a firesteel. Works perfect and no damage to the sharp edge...
 
I just use the cutting edge closest to the choil; my reasoning is I just dont find it to do a significant amount of damage to my edge. I dont depend on my firesteel for every fire I make, one fire if properly taken care of in a campsite can be made to last.
 
At SHOT show earlier this year, I took a new in the package Izula and firesteel and used them to demonstrate the firesteel a few hunderd times daily for the 3 days of the show. It did very little to damage the edge aside from slight dulling. Same Izula is in my pocket right now and I didn't do anything dramatic to resharpen it when I got home. Few light passes on a diamond hone and its a razor.

I do prefer a dedicated striker though. TTD gifted me one from Goinggear.com that's the best one I've used.
 
I never touch a blade to a firesteel, and wouldn't unless I absolutely had to.
It can be done with not much edge damage, but I just don't see a point in using the knife blade when a striker is available. Just my 2 cents.

Kyle
 
Using tin-snips, cut 2" of the end off of a hacksaw blade and just up from the mounting hole in the blade wrap a few turns of electrical tape around it for a grip. This will leave you with a full inch of blade to scrape with and it works PERFECTLY every time. ;)
 
scrape the coating off the spine of your blade at at about the end of your serations[forward towards the point] rest your thumb on the side of the serrations,place the rod near the ant[or izula name] and stike away. and if your worring about a spot of no covering about a half an inch long on your spine leading to make it a pile of rusty pulp. dont.
 
I use a Strikeforce firestarter and it has a striker attached to it. If I use a different firesteel then I use either the spine of my knife, or a little blade I was given as a PSK knife that I use for a dedicated striker.

I never use my cutting edge to strike from.
 
ans7812 said:
Why are people using the knife edge??? That's torture.
Use the spine
It works fine
Click to expand...
That rimes :p

I found a small hacksaw works great too. Just didnt think of cutting a piece from a large sawblade, good idea. Now just to find and old sawblade :)
 
Recon1 said:
Using tin-snips, cut 2" of the end off of a hacksaw blade and just up from the mounting hole in the blade wrap a few turns of electrical tape around it for a grip. This will leave you with a full inch of blade to scrape with and it works PERFECTLY every time. ;)
Click to expand...

+1 that's where I was going with this. I just used a bench grinder to cut the end off, then round it off. Has a nice pre-drilled hole to attatch it to whatever. I have a tiny key ring throug the hole of mine, and a pice of para cord through it. The other end of the para cord goes through the hole in the wood handle of my firesteel. Just how I do it. BD

Here's a little update on the hacksaw blade striker;

I found that while the hacksaw blade is functional it does not make the kind of sparks that a knife blade will. My solution wat to replace my hacksaw blade with a carbide paint scraper blade. It throws sparks like nobody's buisness, and has pre-drilled holes also for a keyring or what have you. This may be a better option than a hacksaw blade but they cost about 5 bucks. Luckilly I'm a painter and have a bunch of them already. Have fun. BD
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top