survival knife?? fire starting....

M

mo-jord

Joined
Apr 27, 2007
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96
This question is about knife design...and changes that can effect a knifes role in a survival situation.

I have a firestone with it's own scraper....but it sometimes hurts my hands to use it. I inevitably end up using the edge of my knife. IT producing much more sparks than the scraper anyway.

With the coatings/finishes being applied to blades does anyone else have problems crearting sparks form the firesteel?

One of my other fixed blade knives is so well beveled on every edge that it doesn't work very well either (without using the blade....).
 
My friend annealed and resurfaced a piece of file and removed the teeth. Then he put a hard square edge on one side and hardened it again. It's just a little chunk but I've never seen a shower of sparks like that. It's also great for shaving magnesium because of the square edge it doesn't cut in and chatter like a knife edge. Probably a little heavy for smaller survival kits but it's pretty cool.

Sorry I guess this really wasn't your question
 
I use the sharp edge of my izula. I use it with both the rat fire kit, and other ferro rods. If things go well, you're only looking at one pull to do it, and damage to the knife is minimal. I don't usually clean it up at the time, just continue using the knife. It usually takes less than a couple pulls on a honing rod and it's back to form.

With the coated blades, I don't imagine you'd get very good spark. Removing the coating on a bit of the spine is an option. Another thing to do is get a small 4 tool swiss army knife, and use the small blade as a striker. If you've got the proper tinder pile, one pull shouldnt be too hard on the hands with just about anything.

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I guess its good to be prepared and try this stuff before you need it....so you know if you need to make any modifications.

I never thought about it before with one of my favorite knives until I was bored last night and tried it out. Damned if I couldn't get it to spark.

Then I tried the hacksaw blade...no problem there....I tried a bunch of things after that.

Things that make you go hmmmm...............
 
I was also thinking about keeping the things I have to carry down to a minumum...not that the washer would add a lot, but it the knife you carry works fine you can just use it.
 
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