Hello, I see videos on youtube of people carving feather sticks and lighting them with a firesteel. I have never been able to duplicate this. What do I need to do?
A) Feathers need to be paper thin
B) Feathers need to be fine like string
C) Use a specific type of wood
D) Keep throwing sparks till the sucker catches fire
E) None of the above
Great questions buddy ! I went out today and did it myself so I could maybe give ya some tips !
In all the video's I have posted in the past my Fuzz sticks have been made from Fatwood. Igniting a regular wood fuzz stick with a ferro-rod is IMO very difficult, heck even Ray Mears used a match to light his in one of his episodes !!!
Where I live everything is usually wet/damp so any wood I pick off the floor is going to be no good. Any branches high up in trees are going to be living and thus no good for fire-starting. What I have to look for are low dead branches such as this one on a Cedar tree today. I could tell it was dry by the crisp crack it made as I broke it off~
By
pitdog2010 at 2011-06-28
When it comes to the curls the main aim is to make them as thin as possible. I don't really think the actual shape matters too much although I find tight curls seem to catch and hold the spark easier.
I made this fuzz stick from the branch in the previous pic~
By
pitdog2010 at 2011-06-28
Now to lighting it. I find the best way is to have the ferro-rod as close as possible to the tinder and to strike many times in quick succesion till you see a flame. I'm guessing it took me maybe 20 + strikes before this fuzz stick caught !!!
By
pitdog2010 at 2011-06-28
* Don't believe everyone on here when they say they lit their fuzz stick etc with one strike !*
For the record it usually takes me 1 strike to light a cotton ball, 1-2 strikes to ignite dryer lint, 1-4 strikes to light Fatwood and as I mentioned a hell of a lot to light regular fuzzy's !!!!
Here is an old vid of me making and lighting a fatwood fuzzy, you will see how much easier this is to do~
[youtube]UOL7aiNjMTw[/youtube]
Hope this info helps ya !