Fire Starting w/ Knife...

M

mtnsct

Joined
Jul 31, 2006
Messages
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I am trying to find out what knife steels allow one to start a fire i.e. "flint and steel" method.

Simple carbon steels work fine but what alloy steels have you had success with? Stainless is pretty much a no go I would assume.
My inquiring mind would like to know.:confused:

Thanks for the help.
 
I have a "surgical stainless steel" blade from Seki City Japan. It's on a Frost Grizzly Skinner that a bro-in-law gave to me for Christmas one year. It will strike a spark on my Doans, but it's very weak.

On the other hand, my BM975 and Nimravus will spark all day.... nice hot sparks. They're ATS-34 and 154CM respectively. My only D2 blade does a pretty good job of sparking too.

Stainless steels will spark but, the lower the content of carbon in them, the less efficient they are. I've read that a blade with a sufficient amount of carbon alloy in it will only spark if it's hardened to 58-60RC. I've seen this in more than one place, but there's no way I can verify that. Theoretically then, a 1095 carbon blade, if hardened to say 57RC, would not spark off a flint...at least not very well.
 
mtnsct said:
I am trying to find out what knife steels allow one to start a fire i.e. "flint and steel" method.

Simple carbon steels work fine but what alloy steels have you had success with? Stainless is pretty much a no go I would assume.
My inquiring mind would like to know.:confused:

Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...

You mean with a real peice of flint stone or a ferrocerium rod--- a "firesteel"? Stainless works fine on a firesteel. I've payed with a little flint and steel kit I picked up at Williamsburg years ago and it has a peice of wrought iron or mild steel. I never tried stainless on the flint. I can't remember where I put it (I hate that---too many toys)
 
Last night the SciFi channel had a movie "Gryphon" .In it a guy struck a flint with his sword just once to light a torch...Why do you all have so many problems ???
 
Hey Guys..

mtnsct Is talking about Flint and Steel..

Not Ferrocerium and Steel...

Fire Steels, Doan tool and such, don't count..

The steel has to be the proper hardness...

With Flint and Steel,, the flint is harder than the steel, and when they are struck together, the flint shears off a piece of steel and the heat produced ignites the steel (spark)

I'm not sure what the ideal hardness is though...

I've done this with a file and a rock,,as well as a large rusty steel bolt and a rock..

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
 
Mete, I better git me one a' them Gryphon long knives! The bigger the...tool the bigger the spark, right!?!:D:p

DaleW, yes the fire made by striking the spine of your knife blade with a hard sharp rock, quartzite flint etc. to send a spark into tinder, when you don't have access to your ferro rod, matches etc.

I am trying to get an idea as to how much alloy content one can have in a finished blade steel before you're unable to strike a usable spark/s.
 
Normark said:
Hey Guys..

mtnsct Is talking about Flint and Steel..

Not Ferrocerium and Steel...

With Flint and Steel,, the flint is harder than the steel, and when they are struck together, the flint shears off a piece of steel and the heat produced ignites the steel (spark)

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
Click to expand...

I think Eric is correct in the question. The flint being chert, quartz, etc... basically a rock with a high glass content and a sharp edge - which as he stated is harder than the steel. Most high carbon steels such as 1095 and O-1 are capable of being used as a "fire striker" like you see the mountain men use, stainless steels are too hard. The problem with this method is that alot of the tinders you are used to catching with a ferro rod spark will not work. I pretty much limit this method to char cloth.
 
the use of chert or quartz for spark based firestarting is based on a pretty hard piece of high carbon steel and the quartz actually causing a piece of the steel to strip off and catch fire, these sparks are of a fairly low temperature, unlike the ferro rod sparks which are much hotter. that is why you need to use char cloth to catch the spark with quartz and other tinders can be used with ferro rod. i think a file is much better than a knife for this use. i think that when jeff randall tried to make his fire strike knife the plan was to have a knife with a bow drill bearing handle and also a spine that was hard enough to strike natural quartz to make sparks, i think that the heat treating was too much of a problem and the project kind of fizzled. it is possible to use a knife for this but it is not the most ideal steel and hardness.

alex
 
Hey Guys...

I agree with alex...

A file is a very good tool for this type of fire lighting..

I also remember the Fire Strike Project..
Awesome idea,, they just had problems getting a consistant heat treat on it that was good for fire making with this method..

I believe other natural tinders can be ignited with the flint and steel,,such as milk week fluff,,and some other fuzzy types of plants,, however the char cloth works the best...

Theres something that is really satisfying with striking a spark on a piece of char cloth and blowing a birds nest of grass or jute into a flame...

If you are going to look for a file,, look for a small file with a rounded handle.. These are very comfortable to hold...

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
 
Thanks for the replies gentlemen. However it appears I need to explain a little further where I am going with the original question.

If you were required to strike a spark using the flint & steel method to start a fire and the only steel tools you were allowed to use were knives of varying steel types from low alloy to high alloy (1095 to CPM s30v for example) where would the stopping point be( no usable sparks)?

The heat treat of the steel, as long as it remains within the parameters of practical "knife" hardness, isn't really at issue so much as alloy content is, as far as I can tell. Files are pretty hard on the RC scale, thats why they work so good at cutting steel. The two steels I am using to make knives is A2 and O1. I have gotten very good results from O1 (sparks that is) but the A2 is does not produce a consistent spark. I may have already answered my question but since these are the only steels I have personal experience with I am trying to gain knowledge from you guys without having to buy a bunch of other steels to experiment with.

Any help is much appreciated.
 
I recently started my first flint and steel fire. I bought a striker, some chards of flint, and some char cloth all together on ebay for twelve bucks shipped. It took no time to make fire with the proper setup. Maybe 20 minutes total. It was very rewarding too.

Somewhere in the makers section last week I read that the hardness was most important. They weren't discussing stainless steels though. I personally very rarely carry a SS knife.

Good knives are not hard at the spine. So, where would you try. To stay warm would you be willing to ruin your edge??? Tough choice, and sounds like a bad cut waiting to happen to me. Better carry a striker too rather than relying on your knife this way.
 
Normark said:
Hey Guys..

mtnsct Is talking about Flint and Steel..

Not Ferrocerium and Steel...

Fire Steels, Doan tool and such, don't count..

The steel has to be the proper hardness...

With Flint and Steel,, the flint is harder than the steel, and when they are struck together, the flint shears off a piece of steel and the heat produced ignites the steel (spark)O/ST
Click to expand...


Everyone keeps saying that you have to have carbon steel to strike a spark. There is not completely true. I have used 2 pieces of flint and a piece of char cloth to start fires before. Find a piece of old scrap iron like a file it will work fine most of the time
 
Hey Guys...

Aproy..

It's pretty cool Eh!!

ash...

Yes,, A piece of steel does work as well..

in a previous post I said that I had started a fire with a field rock and an old large rusty bolt..
Works just the same..

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
 
It was pretty cool Normark. I was very pleased with myself. I had it built up in my mind as something terribly hard to do. Not so. Today I got in some nice soft pigskin to make a pouch for my kit. Hehe.
 
Hey Guys..

Aproy...

Yaa very cool dude..
It's a good feeling...

Now for your homework assignment, weather permitting...

1. Perfect the flint and steel
2. Subsitute any prepared tinder for natural tinder
3. Don't bring the flint, only the striker and char cloth
4.Only bring char cloth, find both steel, rock and tinder in the field

Theres something to work towards. I've made it up to #4, however making #5, wouldn't have been possible if it was the right time of year. I did it in the early spring and there wasn't much available...Difficult,, but possible..

5. bring nothing,,find what you need and make fire..

Heres a couple pictures of my fire kit..

It is large,, however I teach out of it as well...

firekit1.jpg


firekit2.jpg



ttyle

Eric
O/ST
 
I enjoy starting fires this way... and it always impresses the outdoorsy girls ;)

I use a piece of an old file I found at my grandparents 100+ year old house,

I usually keep charred cotton and a flint with it, I've got a nice small sharp shard of flint so its not big.

biggest problem I have is the charred cotton self destructing into dust if I dont keep it in a tin.
 
Hey JS...

Are you using Char cloth or something else ??

Yes,, if you don't keep char cloth in a tin, laying flat,, you will have problems with it, while it bounces around and that..

If a small tin is too large to carry with you,, trying keep several pieces inbetween a folded pice of cardboard.. This will protect it somewhat better..

I always carry some type of tin with me in case I have to make some in the field...

A small pellet tin with a screw on lid works very well, as does a small altoids tin....

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
 
A few days ago I was grabbing various knives out of my case and using the spines on a steel to see what would spark, I grab my SpyderCO Perrin and ran the jimping down the steel, holy spark show. After making sure my floor wasn't going to ignite I checked the steel, took the round right off of it.

Helle
 
Thought you'd like this. Still a couple of odds and ends to add to this firekit.
 

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