Fire steel & blade temper

[Old Ross]

Just curious, given the temperature of spark from a fire steel, if I use my blade edge to strike a spark will the temper of my blade edge be damaged?

 

[texastonydobbs]

I would not think so being a quick motion and spark but I use the supplied striker or hack saw blade ,never the blades edge. just my opinion .

 

[Cpl Punishment]

Don't ever use the blade's edge. You won't have to worry about the temper because you'll be grinding the edge away faster than you'll ruin the temper. If the edges of the spine are sharp, you can use that. But I just keep the striker that comes with it handy.

 

[Old Ross]

oops, I won't do that again, many thanks for the warning.

 

[Mad_Maxx]

tried once (cheap kniofe, you never know...)and the edge said goodbye, use the back or the included saw, it's better
i use the back of an opinel 8 that's in my survival kit or the back of the saw of a sak or small folding saw

Maxx

 

[R.A.T.]

I figure that you are super heating the edge, even if it is a brief period of time, when you strike a ferro rod so it's probably a bad thing. With that said, in a real survival situation if I need to shower a pile of sparks and don't have a regular striker / saw blade, I will use the edge of my knife. Done it many times and it only screws up a small amount next to the choil.

 

[hot blade]

keep the striker with your knife thats what i do

 

[Cpl Punishment]

Jeff, have you tried using the spine of the knife?
I get good results that way. Although if it came down to it, you're right,, 'tis better to have to regrind the edge than to die with a purty knife.

 

[R.A.T.]

On some knives the spine works really well. What I have found though is if the tinder is a hard to light then I want to throw all the sparks I can on it at once, the edge works better for this that anything I have found.

Speaking of this, our last trip to the jungle had us using a first-aid prep pad as the initial tinder to catch the spark since the Wet Fire tinder would not light from a ferro rod. I've had this problem before with Wet Fire tinder. Anyway, an alcohol pad works every time as long as they have been sealed and then the Wet Fire will take off from that.

 

[Old Ross]

I did try to use the spine of my RC4 but even after scraping off some of the coating I only got a very poor spark. Will the IZULA come with a striker?

 

[tjiscooler]

i cant seem to get good showers from knives. I used a pair of scissors once and it worked great, maybe it was the larger angle scraping more than cutting in? I keep all the strikers anyway.