Firesteel Help!

MEJ

MEJ

Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Messages
1,283
Hey,

i have been working on making a fire with my firesteel and cant seem to make one withought bringing along pre-prepared tinder (cottonballs, char-cloth, pre-dried). I live in Washington and while it does rain here we have had a couple dry days. I have tried feather-sticks, dried standing grass, birch bark, resin, and other stuff but cant seem to get the hang of it. I would appreciate some help or tips like technique or other materials. Are there combinations of things that light really well? Also would i be able to go out in the dead of winter and and just using my fire-steel make a fire if i had the proper experience?

thanks for the help!
 
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For me the key has been to process the tender down by rubbing in your hands until you have some fine dust.Make sure the tender is completly dry and practice practice practice.Good luck and God bless.
 
Just ensure your beginning tinder is really fine, and dry. If you've struck out on char cloth your in bad shape. I would say practice at home where conditions are ideal, and refine those to where you can recreate the same conditions in the field. People dont realize how hard starting a fire is even when you have a lighter. Dry grass, fuzzy stuff, dry leaves and just use progressively larger material until it takes off.
 
Fuzz makes flames. Make sure you get your tinder material as fluffy/dusy/fine as possible. Down here in Texas I use Cedar (juniper) bark shredded up into fuzz, lights super quick.
 
Once you have a decent base of tinder I have had good luck scraping slivers of my firesteel off into the tinder. This seems to help when conditions are not optimal. Just scrape slowly as if you are trying to make a feather stick out of the firesteel.
 
MEJ there is some really sage advise so far - follow it!! I literally went thru one entire steel before I truly mastered it. Now I'm consistent 1-3 strikes to get a fire started with 7 on the upper end side in all weather conditions. I also light my wood stove with one every night thru-out the winter to keep my skills current.

Start with ideal materials in your garage or patio. Build up your confidence.

Keep in mind the sparks are advertised as really high BTU which is all well and good but the heat source is extremely short duration. Therefore memorize this: the shorter the duration of your heat source the finer and dryer the tinder. Grass is too course as a primary tinder as are feather sticks until you've really mastered the technique and truly understand the science. You need to line the inside of your tinder bundle with super fine cedar dust as was suggested or learn how to make resin duff/dust. Dry sagebark dust is my personal favorite. Line your tinder bundle with super fine highly ignitable materials and aerate or fluff the fine materials up (they tend to compress down tight) Make some super fine sawdust with a jigsaw and try that as a starter.

Another hint especially if your striker is disturbing the tinder bundle is to hold the striker static and pull the steel toward you. If you hold the steel static and push the striker toward the bundle novices tend to make contact with the bundle disturbing it or knocking it over - do ask me how I know this!!!
 
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MEJ,

Here in WA (at least in the Cascades), pitch wood is pretty plentiful and relatively easy to find with practice. I believe there are a few tutorials in this forum on finding it by river-8 and others that can help.

Good luck!
 
Yeah what they said, I wore out a couple firesteels before I figured out the tinder solution. I still keep cotton balls with petro jelly in my RAT hollow handle firesteel as the ace up my sleeve
 
Should it be impossible to get fresh sawdust from old dried pallet oak to catch a spark?
 
the trouble with sawdust is that it compacts itself, so air can't feed the fire from below. I've never gotten sawdust to burn really at all.
 
Yeah, plain sawdust is tough. The sparks may catch, but they go out quickly. Good fatwood sawdust is a different story.

Grease, see if you can find some douglas fir fatwood. The sample that I have is fantastic stuff.
 
Can you find any dry 'Old Man's Beard'?
That's what I usually use around here when it's available.
 
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