Fire starting with knife

[matthew rapaport]

An article in the most recent Tactical Knives by John Larson about the Mora knife had a little parenthetical paragraph about making sparks by striking a flint with the back of a carbon steel knife. The author says it doesn't work and tells of a number of knives he tried to do it with, yeilding no sparks...

That didn't seem right to me, so I tried a bunch of my knives too. I tried the spines, the bottom (or tops) of the ricassos, etc., and like Mr. Larsen, I didn't get a whole lot of sparks, though some knives gave me more than others...

There were two exceptions though... My CRKT Commander, and my BM/Crawford Leopard have blades that both appear to be machined with the same technique. This technique leaves a spot just in front of a small choil in which the blade flattens out into a little triangular section. In one way, this little spot is a waste of blade space. In effect, you loose an eighth of an inch or so of blade on the CRKT, and even more on the BM! Not to be discouraged however, these spots on these two particular knives (and note they are both stainless, not simple carbon steels), produce an enormous shower of sparks when struck on a flint, as much as any of my dedicated flint strikers.

So what is it about these spots on these blades? I inspected them under a little magnification and the only thing I could see was that they are left rough, not polished or rounded like the spines of most knives. I'm going to go hunting for an appropriate file and try to roughen up a small section of spine on another knife or two that doesn't produce sparks and see what happens, but I was curious about what others have discovered about making sparks with your knives.

 

[the4th]

From what I've read on Newt Livesay's forums, NATURAL flint and carbon steels can have some relationship problems. Newt eluded to a heat treat process for flint that made it easier to spark. Someone else responded that they thought the heat treat was for knapping. Let me see if I can find the thread......

Nope...it's gone.

I have had no problems working my synthetic "flints" with my Woo or my ICU.

 

[Michael Bennett]

The general concensus on the Liveasy forum and on the Randall forum was that the knife needed to be high-carbon, higher Rc. Not every knife works.

Mike

 

[Brian C]

You might also want to post over in the Wilderness Survival forum. You're sure to get some good insights there.

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Cheers,

--+Brian+--

He who finishes with the most toys wins.

 

[Tobse]

In the very old days, when there were neither Zippos nor Bic lighters and matches were very likely to ignite in Your pocket (Is that a fire in Your pants or are You just happy to see me ?

), a special breed of pocket knives was quite common - they had either a blade or a part of the spine made from very-high RC carbon-steel, which could be used together with a stone to produce sparks and start fires. The steel was so hard and brittle that it could shatter when dropped onto a hard surface.

Take care,
Tobse !

 

[Hoodoo]

When I got my metal match from Greg Davenport I discovered that the striker was the end of an old hacksaw blade. Nifty 'cause it has a hole in it and can be attached to the match by a piece of string.

So I made a few of my own strikers. I just cut the last 3" off an old hacksaw blade and ground the teeth a bit. It seemed like the more teeth material I left on the blade and the sharper the edges, the more sparks I threw.

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Hoodoo

No, I do not weep at the world--I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
Zora Neale Hurston

Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt.
Lao Tsu

 

[dogboye]

I've got a magnesium fire starter with the flint imbedded in the back. I have had no problem getting that flint to spark with several Buck knives, all of their standard stainless variety (carbon content? Your guess is as good as mine). I have used: Buck Special, Buck Vanguard, and I think a Buck Caper. In all cases, I used the spine of the blade, tilted slightly so that only the corner of the blade contacted the flint.

Now, actually getting the fire to start with the magnesium was another matter. After a few times of actually proving to myself that I could ignite the magnesium shavings, I put the starter away and have never used it again. Bics and Zippos work much better, followed by the standard match. I bought one of the Gerber firestarters with the parrafin blocks, and they work much better. But, I just take the block out and light it with my Zippo

.

So, to make a short post long, I don't know why one would be having trouble, unless there is some technique to it, and I just stumbled into that technique on my first try. Stranger things have happened....

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"Absolute safety is for those who don't have the balls to live in the real world."

 

[Steven Dick]

What John Larsen was talking about was natural flint, as in a metamorphic form of quartz. Synthetic "flint" it not even close to natural quartz. It is also much easier to make a fire with but there is very little chance you are going to pick up a chunk off the ground out in the wilds.
Sorry about the confusion.

 

[dogboye]

Oooop! Boy do I feel stupid now!

I remember making sparks with rocks when I was a kid, but it has been so long, I had totally forgotten about it, or that it could be done. I always used two rocks back then, and never got much of a spark. Certainly not enough for a fire.

Hmmmm... maybe I'll have to try that again sometime. Lots of quartzite where I grew up, but I doubt that any natural flint will be available around here, though.

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"Absolute safety is for those who don't have the balls to live in the real world."

 

[Stryver]

Primary difference between flint and steel firemaking, and the 'flint' rods made out of ferrocerium is that with a steel striker and natural flint, you knock off small bits of the steel, which ignite, as your sparks. With the other example, the ferrocerium rods produce the sparks, and can be scraped with any hard, somewhat sharp object, from a piece of glass, to a natural flint/agate/petrified wood/quartz, to the spine of a knife, a hacksaw blade, or (Heaven forbid) the actual _blade) of your knife.

I do not know how high the carbon has to be to get a good striker, but I do know it needn't be extremely hard. The one that was made as I watched was made of a steel with a lower than superb carbon level, though still workable, and the smith said he made it somewhat better by some method he used which imbedded more carbon in the exterior layer of steel. Do not ask me what he did or why it worked, I have no idea.

But try a knife that rusts. An old razor should do a decent job...


Stryver