The key to the Going Gear ferro rods

[KuRUpTD]

KuRUpTD...

Do their raw (handle-less) ferro sticks come with a hole drilled through one end like in your pic, or did you drill one through yourself?

I drilled the hole myself, if you go that route make sure you drill nice and slow or the sparks will fly

 

[Loosearrow]

Great thread, especially since this topic comes up often enough. I think it is unfortunate that some people get dissuaded from the going gear types based on rumours of their difficulty at striking. Yet in other ways they are much more versatile for the globben metal blobs they produce. When the chips are down, I think I might want a going gear rod and decent striker. Then again, if I don't have a striker, I feel like I could get an LMF to work with natural materials better, like a rock or glass or mussel shell (See Rotte's contest thread on this).

Also lets not forget that a bunch of makers here will produce little scrapers for the $25-$50 range.

I received two of these from Bryan Breeden. His warncliff shape works perfect for this application because there is no belly to cause slippage when scraping down the firesteel. He also puts a one sided chisel grind that, while not as great for cutting, does what it is supposed to do perfectly - strike sparks very well with a minimum of edge wear. The blaze orange G10 makes it easy to spot. In a striker this is critical, because once you get your flame to take the first thing you do is toss your fire steel and striker on the ground and try to nurse your fire. Eventually you gotta look around for your gear.

Bryan is most talented.

 

[Loosearrow]

I just recieved a few the other day. I noticed that the striker did make a difference, I glued one into a piece of fat wood and it's pictured with a striker I made from a piece of old bandsaw blade that throws off great sparks.

Good idea on the fatwood handle and striker.

 

[hushnel]

Good idea on the fatwood handle and striker.

Thanks, I used your idea from the cabinet scraper thread and put different radius on each end of it. I can scrape curls off the fat wood and spark the rod with one tool, and smooth out any gouge carving I do, the teeth of the bandsaw blade are fairly dull they won't snag on stuff but are sharp enough to scale a fish, try that with a pencil sharpener

 

[Loosearrow]

Thanks, I used your idea from the cabinet scraper thread and put different radius on each end of it. I can scrape curls off the fat wood and spark the rod with one tool, and smooth out any gouge carving I do, the teeth of the bandsaw blade are fairly dull they won't snag on stuff but are sharp enough to scale a fish, try that with a pencil sharpener

Outstanding. Should be quite a multi tool.

 

[Mistwalker]

I just went upstairs and got one of the ferro rods that I have from LMF. Their ferro rod works O.K. every time. The difference has been noted before. Lots of flash and little gas.

Not knocking Going Gear or anything, so far I really love the Badger i just got. But the LMF firesteels are pretty consistent. The sharper edged the striker (a sharp piece of flint works great!) and the more pressure applied during sparking the bigger and hotter the sparks will be. I can throw large hot sparks using just the end 3/8 of an inch or so of my LMF Army model and pretty much control exactly where I want them to go, I have yet to be able to make that happen with any mischmetal firesteel....but the studies do continue.

 

[kvaughn]

The back of the saw on my SAK works better than anything I've found for the mischmetal rods.--KV

 

[newadventure]

I like the back of the SAK saw too. On the Farmer, can keep the saw closed and use it that way - the front of it rides high enough over the scales and other tools.

Corona works great for me, but use it at home and haven't carried it as the Farmer seems to handle it.

I have been able to square off some knife or tool spines, but not consistently successful. Have been using hand tools (files, sandpaper, diamond files, etc.) Still need to experiment / learn to do this better.

Will have to try the GG striker - like the compact size.