Knee high flames in 60 seconds using a knife, charred cedar bark and quartz.

One minute knee high flames from the first strike in a damp environment using a knife, quartz, cedar bark, charred cedar bark, drift wood, sticks, dead grass and White birch bark. All items were found after a rainy night on site except the striker knife and small tin used to char the bark. Built a platform with raised back to keep the tinder out of the wet sand. We needed the fire for night catfishing and cooking. The rather large fire ring was already on site.

Cedar bark charred earlier during the trip.



Platform, char and tinder bundle ready to go. The river was running high 10 feet away, the ground wet so didn't want to put my tinder directly on the cold wet sand. Taking no chances the bundle was also on a medium plate sized White birch bark sheet.



Worked out very well.



Here is a short video showing the Knife and quartz fire.

[video=youtube;h3eF9F3nGEM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3eF9F3nGEM[/video]

Thanks for looking.

 

Thanks for the positive comments.

 

The knife was made by Lisa West of Wolf Creek Forge. It is the larger of two striker knives. I think the convexed blade is 3-4 inches. I also used a BHK scandi Tiger knapp for smaller around camp necker.

Here is the rest of the trip.


With opening day trout on the third Saturday in April what better reason is there for heading out and practicing some skills. This time we took along a 9 year old friend of the family who was in need of his first opening day. On the third day we I moved the show to a safer lake therefor picked up my 7 year old nephew. He just turned 7 in March, given the dangerous nature of the river that activity is still a few years away.

My friend left some gear in the bed of his truck which I tossed into my bag. Even the EMR was overloaded with the additional stuff.



Setup camp and did some late day fishing on Friday for small mouth within the year round area of the river. Worked out rather well. Everyone was excited to show me the "wild onions" found on the hike in. Looking like something doesn't always make it so.



Nice small mouth, a minute later the fish was swimming free.



It must have been 75F but something was brewing. A toad stopped in camp to say hi.



The traditional night crawfishing with a stick and fishing net was a success. Boiled them up for a late night snack.





The hammer came down around 10 pm. Lightning flashed all around as the heavy rain moved it. The weather didn't let up much overnight. A rare view from inside my hammock. The sleeping bag was used as a quilt. I think the temps fell from 75 to 38 in a few hours or so it seemed. The shelter was bone dry.



The rain totally killed the river fishing. I think it rose nearly 3 feet. At least the clothesline was dependable.



Showed them what real wild scallions/onion grass in our area looks like.



April showers brings May flowers. Not exactly May but the flowers are starting to bloom.







We even tried some night catfishing with no luck but at least the fire was nice. Not sure the same thing can be said about "turkey bacon". It was a creepy surreal experience. Yea dude, I got the bacon or so he claimed. I place full blame for that outrage on my friend's wife.



I had my neck knife and SAK on my person. The large striker knife with folding saw was in my pack. I didn't even use the saw.



Broke camp at the river then picked up the little nephew for some lake fishing. Caught a few trout and perch calling it a weekend.





Here is a video of the outing for those who prefer that format.

[video=youtube;eeW8UfnWdbU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeW8UfnWdbU[/video]


Thanks for looking.

 

I used local quartz. It tosses great sparks off the 1095 dead hard spine but unlike flint quartz doesn't last all that long before the edge gets totally rounded off. Then again it was easy to find about 10 feet from the fire ring. Thanks for the positive comment and I really liked your bow drill video.