How to Use a Firesteel

E

Evolute

Joined
Mar 19, 2001
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Hi, Everyone,

I'm starting to add some articles about survival skills to the set of articles about emergency wilderness survival, on my website. I just added an article about how to use a firesteel. I thought some of you might enjoy it or find it useful, so...

http://www.mikespinak.com/articles/Essays/e994firesteelhowto.html

It's still in an only semi-finished, very rough draft form. I'll probably add more to it. I certainly need to edit it into better writing. Any thoughtful feedback, whether positive or negative, will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Mike
 
I kept waiting for you to show what you use for a striker. :)

Otherwise it was a very good article. I see that I need to work on my striking technique a little bit now.
 
Very Nice article, :thumbup:

I have neve heard that duct tape techniqie before, That would have helped me with one Windy day fire.
 
I myself use the back of my Fallkniven F1 and it works really great.
All models from Fallkniven have very sharp spines. I wouldnt be surprised if the designer thought from the beginning.

There is another person to add to your list of survival instructors, namely Lars Fält, the Swedish survival instructor who introduced survival training in swedish armed forces.

With the firesteels from Fireflash (english instructions http://www.fireflash.nu/indexeng.html) comes a metal piece that looks like the one you are using and its much better than those fancy ones.
 
Just an observation I did when drilling through the firesteel. Either do it VERY SLOWLY or do it underwater. I had drilled a nice hole through one of mine and the very last turn made a spark that lit the small pile of drilled out firesteel. It smelled :(.
Next try i did underwater, it works much better.
 
Great article. I've been doing some fires with the smaller keychain versions lately with whatever I find in my car. I use the WSI keychain version for a zipper pull so I always have one on me.
 
Great article. I learned the hard way (and several firesteels later!) to use a slow, deliberate stroke on the fire steel to get my fire going. Indeed, when you see Ray Mears using his, he seems to make only the slightest, slow strike along the steel with the spine of his knife.
 
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