kershaw fire steel, not for me

A

anomad

Joined
Nov 21, 2003
Messages
247
I picked up a kershaw fire steel on a whim awhile back. A few days ago I thought I would practice in the backyard in an attempt to further procrastinate yard work. I gathered my material, some leaves, a dry spruce branch. I shaved a big pile of shavings from the center of the branch, laid out a bunch of leaves and started sparking. Nothing.....kept sparking, shazed some really fine shavings, kept nothing. Finally after my arm was sore I started a puny fire.

"Now I know what to do. I'll try again", I thought. Same results, better half decides its time for a ride and brings me her steel (a gift from Sweden). Two strikes, whoosh! A nice little fire.

I tried a third time this weekend, gave up. So, I may be using this thing wrong, but the other steel worked just as it should. After grinding away half of that little bastard it has no place in my survival kit. the time and energy expended I would have been better off making a fire plow.

I might get a couple other brands to see if its just me or the tool.
 
Hmm, here I thought it was the swiss model scout firesteel and was being distributed under Kershaws name. My wife ordered a couple of them for us and I asked her to start a fire before I placed one in her pack. She started the BBQ using the Kershaw firesteel and a small piece of Spark-lite tinder. Two strikes and it was in flame and a short time later, the buffalo was tasting good. ;)

Heck, after using the BSA Hotspark with good results, the Kershaw firesteel performed great.
 
It is the same manufacturer as the Swedish Firesteel. I just got some of those in, and compared them to the new Firesteels i got direct from Sweden. Different strikers is all.
 
Is it a smaller diameter firesteel that is less forgiving of marginal strikers? Could it have been from a bad run of material? Could it have partially oxydized? I am really curious what the difference between the 2 firesteels, one working easily and the other not, is.
 
Haha, I had buffalo last night too. Starting a propane grill is never a challenge with the ol' aim n flame

I wanted to use natural tender, stuff from outside. I may just need more practice. With some pre-made tender (I don't know exactly what Spark-lite is) it wouldn't have been a challenge.


robert,
Its definitely not the same manufacturer as the swedish steel I used. The amount of material that came off with one scrape was night and day between the two.
I'll see what you've got on your website.
 
grommit, I am thinking this particular steel is a little too hard. I'm going to buy a couple various brands just to make sure its not operator error......
 
I got to playing with the steel I have here and discovered that the striker is lousy. :rolleyes: It digs into the steel and takes off an excessive amount of material. :eek: I replaced both of them with the strikers that came with the BSA Hotsparks, which are attached to SAKs. The spark is much better and the wear and tear on the steel seems to be considerably less.
 
I also have a firesteel. To make a really effective striker, get a hacksaw blade and cut/grind it to around two and a half inches long. Using an exacto blade as a pattern, trace the mounting end to the hacksaw blade, grind it to shape, then mount it to the exacto knife handle. I also shaped the hacksaw blade (butterknife shape), for the hacksaw blade tip. I also cut the exacto handle to around two inches long. I then drilled the end of the handle to attach a lanyard to the firesteel. The handle gives a larger bearing surface allowing for a more effective strike, and it doesn't dig into your hand like the blade only shaped striker that comes with the original firesteel.
 
I forgot to mention: grind the teeth off the hacksaw blade, that allows you to use either side.
 
That sure seems like a lot of work compared to what I did. I broke off the last 5 inches of a hacksaw blade, wrapped 3 inches of it in duct tape, and voila! Striker!
 
I did something similar for a striker. I took a worn out jigsaw blade, ground off the worn out teeth flat and square, and cut a V notch in the edge at a slight angle. This is much stiffer than a hacksaw blade and the V notch gives 2 faces being scraped at the sme time for additional sparks without digging gouges into the rod like the teeth did.
 
TPU said:
I forgot to mention: grind the teeth off the hacksaw blade, that allows you to use either side.
Click to expand...
Why do you need both sides?
seems to me that if you keep the hacksaw teeth, you can use it to saw as well.
 
"Melancholymutt" Like "Grommit" said, "The hacksaw teeth gouge into the rod."

"Foxhole Atheist" It only took about 30 minutes to fabricate, but it sure is pretty! LOL. I'll try to post a picture of it in the near future.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top