magnesium and ferro rod question.

bikermikearchery

bikermikearchery

Joined
Jan 18, 2007
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I found some magnesium/flint fire starters at HF. they are only $2.49 each so I picked up a few. Now normaly I'm a primative skills type and don't use modern fire starters, but these were cheep and I thought I'd get a few for family and friends. I gave one a test try and thought the mag-bar was very hard. It took a lot of effort to make shaveings and so much pressure that I keep scatering the shavings. The ferro/flint worked OK and got a spark to ketch fine wood shavings just fine.
SO the question is, has anyone had experience with magnesiun bars that were to hard to be usable?
 
Took me a while to find this video.


EDIT ... in the comments under the video they say that the current ones from HF are different than the one tested and work better.

[video=youtube;frDMAOlIGaY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frDMAOlIGaY&feature=plcp[/video]
 
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I've ran into a few that don't work or cut well. For the most part I stick with Doans, which are the same the government issues or issued whichever the case may be. The TOPS emergency fire starter has the easiest to shave magnesium I've run across, the only down side is there is less magnesium to work with.
 
I bought a dozen of these to hand out to friends and their teenage kids that don't carry a thing. They are also great for leaving in the tackle box and other vehicles that you hope to never use. They have been great for teaching the teenagers that hunt with us how to build a fire. You would be amazed at how little they know even though they get out to hunt. Hand a kid one and then show them how to use it and they are hooked and become more self aware. They may be made off-shore which I am not a fan of, but they are worth the $ to help a FNG into the understanding of self- reliance.

To get these to work well you may need to spend a lot of time shaving a minimum quarter size pile into a piece of paper(hunting license) and be ready with tinder. I found once someone understands this it drives home the "have your tinder ready" aspect of a fire build. Once a kid fails with what they think is an easy task, but then see you do it with a little more preparation they gain a better sense of accomplishment when they do it themselves.

Again, not the best and I carry a much better fire steel from firesteel.com, but these are great starters kits for someone who has nothing.
 
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I've tried the Doans Machinery and the HF. The Doans works much better. For me, it seemed to give a better spark as well as having softer magnesium.
 
I messed with these a bit more last night. Seems like there is a harder "skin" on these blocks. Once I got a bit off of it, it was considerable easer to get shavings to curl. I made a quarter sized pile on a aluminum coke can and burned a hole in the can. That was fun. :)
 
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