the fallacy of firesteels

I've been thinking about the proposed scenario. Couple of problems. If you have hypothermia you would probably die before your "fire" would warm you. You would be better off with a dry rescue blanket.

The reason is that if everything is wet you would need to process a great deal of wood to be able to start and maintain a fire that would be capable of increasing your core temp. If you aren't we'll enough to process the wood you probably won't make it. The fire you would be able to start with the matches might last you a minute, but certainly will not help your survival situation.

A better option would be a supply of dry tinder which would give you a better chance to dry out some of the larger wet wood, but again you would still need to process wood to keep the fire going for a meaningful amount of time. Look at some of the other posts where people have tries to start fires in the winter and struggled even with optimal tools.

If you have the energy to process wood it makes the advantage between the two options less clear. Matches are easier, but you get less chances. If you have firesteel and tinder it reduces the need to make a perfect nest and an even more enticing option.
 
When I am actually out camping, I take matches, turbo coil lighter, and ferro rods.

Just to cover my bases. I will use the ferro rods for fun. But if I am in a survival situation, I want options!
 
Cougar Allen said:
Cut up bicycle inner tubes to make rubber bands of assorted sizes. Ask your local bike shop for punctured tubes.
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I've got at least a dozen punctured tubes...goathead country around here.

So does the tube burn or is it just to hold other tinder? My experience with bicycle tubes is that they have a VERY short life once they are out of the tire. I suspect it's the UV, but they never seem to hold up well on any of my innovative projects. I guess you just keep changing them?
 
I have to build a lot of fires in damp, tropical conditions. Usually it is because I am cooking something or burning off dead vegetation. I always carry wooden matches and a Bic.
 
No love for the good old Doan Magnesium fire starter?

Ferro rod imbedded in a solid block of magnesium? Magnesium shavings burn plenty hot for fire starting...
 
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It's been raining for days here. It rained an inch and a half last night alone. I got up this morning, looked out the window and thought "what a crappy day to make a fire". So that's what I did, first in the wood stove, then outside in the rain.

Temp: 51 degrees
Dew point: 52 degrees
Humidity: 97%
Raining steady, occasionally hard.
Wind 12 gusting to 24 mph.

I picked a dead pine that was down, but not all the way on the ground. You could break it, but you had to bend it past 180 degrees to do so.

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I used my usual puukko neck knife for eight minutes to shave as much as I could off the top of the tree, staying with a piece that went from about half wrist-thick to thumb thickness at the end.

Eight minutes of shavings:
P1030996.jpg


I put what I thought were the best shavings from deeper in the tree at the bottom and stacked the wetter shavings on top of it. All of the shaving were coarse and wet, both from the condition of the tree and from the rain. The match was also wet from the time it took to photograph it to light it.

One REI storm match inserted at the bottom of the pile and it lit off. Total time from tree to ignition: nine minutes (not including the picture taking).

Twenty seconds after applying the one and only match:
P1030997.jpg


From this point I kept shaving down pieces of the tree and feeding the shavings onto the fire. As the fire got larger and the pieces got smaller, I added them and grabbed the next piece. It didn't take long for the fire to shatter the piece of tile I built it on. Once the fire got to the point that I could add wood without shaving it, I quit.

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What I learned:

Storm matches rock! But I already knew that.

As Mistwalker stated at the beginning, making this work requires some knife skills. I intentionally used the crudest movements to make my shavings: stick braced on the ground and my elbow and wrist locked, using my torso to move the knife against the stick. I wasn't going for pretty feather sticks, I was trying to reduce as much wet wood as I could in the shortest amount of time.

Regardless of what knife you carry, it needs to be shaving-sharp and able to quickly and efficiently make wood shavings. If it can't, what ever other attributes it has may be of little value.

Almost any wood will burn if you can shave it fine enough in great enough quantity. This pile of pine shavings caught fire well from the match, and with some tending it burned hot and built quickly. It was also sappier than some I've come across. Luck of the draw on that.

In the scenario where there is really no small wood available, having your own tinder will ensure a better start to a pile of shavings, but nothing short of a road flare would have a chance of igniting wet, thumb-thickness branches unless you have a knife or ax to reduce them, and even that is NO guarantee. I've seen people use an entire can of charcoal lighter and still be unable to keep a fire lit on a warm, dry summer afternoon, so relying on ignition sources rather than technique isn't a good strategy.
 
Good post, Sutured. If you want to try out vaseline and cotton, it's super-easy to seal it inside short lengths of drinking straw. It's absolutely sealed, waterproof, and won't get vaseline on your other items, plus the plastic will ignite if you need it to. I've been able to light one of these in the past, start a fire, then put the firestraw out and re-use it later.

Old post discussing this: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...firestraws-(lots-of-pictures)?highlight=straw

Link from inside that post showing the process: https://plus.google.com/photos/102986716213629923803/albums/5781544397478486609?banner=pwa

Cheers :)
 
Sutured,

A thoughtful post, but I'm not convinced. I think I'm better off with a firesteel and a small piece of fatwood (either both attached to the same key ring, or the firesteel within a fatwood sheath, or the piece of fatwood glued to the firesteel - I have all three ways, and they're all good). Less space taken up, more combustible material, more fires can be started, more reliable, etc., compared to a few storm matches in a match safe.
 
Evolute said:
Sutured,

A thoughtful post, but I'm not convinced. I think I'm better off with a firesteel and a small piece of fatwood (either both attached to the same key ring, or the firesteel within a fatwood sheath, or the piece of fatwood glued to the firesteel - I have all three ways, and they're all good). Less space taken up, more combustible material, more fires can be started, more reliable, etc., compared to a few storm matches in a match safe.
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How can you not be convinced...maybe you should read it again. Just kidding of course. I've found that my idea of the best way to do something changes with time and experience. Lots of different ways will work, and what's best is pretty subjective. I'm pretty convinced that the matchsafe is the best overall solution for edc fire, but that could change in the future.

DrFish: My experience with the magnesium block is that the magnesium shavings are extremely lightweight and very difficult to utilize in any sort of breeze, much less wind. And much like the firesteel itself, the resulting fire is hot, but brief. It can work, but I've never found it to be ideal.

FoxholeAthiest:
Thanks for the firestraw link. I'll make a few and put them through the paces. If they're secure enough maybe I'll substitute a straw for a match in my matchsafe.
 
We all get into this stuff for our own reasons. For myself, fear was a motivator but 95% of the time I just enjoy this stuff. I used to feel sheepish about using this or that material or fire starter because it wasn"t higher skill. Then one day it hit me that the fur traders would used the latest most efficient technology of the day. They often packed their own little fire kits going to the extra trouble of making char cloth etc and carrying a little tin for it. So I figure that I shouldn't be shy about carrying along some tinder or fatwood etc. of my own. Of course their outdoor skills were stellar and I get that many of you guys strive to gain more of this knowledge, I do also. But I think that there is a practical middle ground that the old traders back in the day would understand and acknowledge.
 
I respect the org posters thoughts but do disagree that the fite steel is the worst on the grounds that if you edc the fire steel then just edc some petroleum saturated cotton balls with it. You would not bring a gun without bullets so why carry a fire steel without a waterproof starter. One could even swap the cottonballs out for a couple wetfire tablets which weigh nothing. I don't think its the best either but geography makes a big sufferance in how well methods work as well

The above may have been mentioned before but I did not read the entire thread so sry if it has and kudos to whomever posted it.
 
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sodak said:
I'll sell you all of my POS storm matches. I'll take a metal match any day with burn times in minutes, not seconds.
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Well, you DO make them sound appealing, but I suspect there might be something wrong with your supply, so I'll pass. Thanks for the offer, though.

I'm really not trying to convince anyone of my system here...just want to show again that even in bad conditions you can build a fire without uber-tinder.

This time I picked a soggy, slimy, partly rotten piece of black oak off the ground. Oak is not good tinder by any means, and this piece was plenty damp. It's the first time I've carved dead black oak and actually gotten shavings, much less gotten the shavings to stick to the log.

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Temp: 52
Dew Point: 53
Humidity: 98%
Raining lightly.

Same drill as before...one oak branch about wrist thickness, one puukko knife, and eight minutes worth of shavings.

P1040003.jpg


This time it took TWO matches...a first for me. In fairness I missed the sweet-spot I'd constructed with the first match because I was trying to take pictures. The second match went where it was supposed to and did the trick.

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Just like before, I keep shaving down big pieces and adding the shavings till the big pieces are small enough to burn. A couple of these pieces are too large to burn but the fire is hot enough to start drying them out while I put more shavings on.

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Picking up the oak branch to fire: ten minutes, less photos.

This situation was a bit more touch and go than with the pine. If it was twenty degrees colder I'm not sure if it would have been successful without more careful prep of the tinder or something to kick it along. Wet oak shavings just don't catch very easily.

Again, it's really the knife that makes a fire possible with these less than ideal materials, but it works. Could I light the same fire with a firesteel and some packaged tinder? Sure. Could I light it with just a firesteel. Nope. Not a chance.
 
sodak said:
never mind.

Last edited by sodak; Today at 06:20 PM. Reason: tired of arguing with idiots .
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Now that wasn't very nice. Personally I carry multiple bics and matches too and reserve the other stuff for play. To each his own.:)
 
Good post, thanks. I carry a fire steel,matches & sometimes a lighter. IMO what ever you feel comfy with you should use. Also you should push your self and learn new skills.
 
Nice technique. Completely agree that it comes down to practicing. You couldn't start it with a blowtorch if you didn't know what wood to look for and how to set it up.

However, I would guess that your technique could be modified for a firesteel if you carry the right kindling. But if you are that good with the matches I'm not sure why you would switch.
 
Great post suture, thanks for sharing your thoughts and processes. It gives me much to think on. Personally, I'm a big fan of a self-lighting charcoal briquette. ;) I've gotten some ridiculously wet wood going with one on several occasions, and not had to cut up much small tinder to do it. But it isn't something I EDC for sure. I like the idea of the storm matches and may have to re-visit them.
 
Love my firesteel too, but I think from now on I'm going to back that up with a lighter and a plastic spoon... you have to try it, just don't breath the fumes.
 
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