Firesteel - Natural Tinder Oak Scrapings Spark to Flame

A quick vid using natural tinder wood scrapings to make a fire (or flame in this case). Used an Oak branch, a regular Swiss Army Knife, and a mini-firesteel (bought at firesteel.com). The penny in the vid is to show size reference.

I purposely left this vid un-edited to show typical effort involved.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• natural
• tinder
• firesteel
• wood
• scraping
• bushcraft
• survival
• fire

[MrJoeyBoombotz]

I don't get it. 30 strikes with a firesteel is a lot of strikes to get a flame. If a rod has 3,000 strikes that is a 100 fire-firesteel. Carry 2-3 mini-bics and you have 100s maybe up to 2,000 flames with no tinder, go right to small kindling. I don't get the firesteel thing except for the final backup. An 10x7 flexible page magnifier will give you a flame and it can last forever. Coghlans has a flint/striker permanent match that gives 1000s of flames on wick and 1/2 oz of light fluid, too.

[gundog5]

@MrJoeyBoombotz Yes, there are many other fire-starter options. The firesteel is preferred by many because of its reliability, such as, countless sparks, no moving parts (could break or corrode), and it works when wet. Matches, lighters, magnifying lenses, etc... have more room for error as they can have more problems (get wet, break, weak Sun, etc...). This vid was to simulate no ideal tinder was readily available. If better tinder was used there'd be less strikes necessary to get flame.

[topguntin]

Your ruining the edge of the knife. There is a slot at the base of the blade, you're suppose to use that for striking a firesteel.

[gundog5]

@topguntin Yes, you're right! It's an old Swiss Army Knife that I use as a 'beater' knife (I abused it as a teenager). I designated the smaller blade to be the scraper so I'm not worried about the care of the blade.

That's a good suggestion. Also, the back of the saw blade or the edge of the awl tool work pretty well too.

[blackbat1339]

to all commenting on how long this took(time or no. of strikes) leave video responses of you doing it, but this is a demonstration of a last-resort tinder, solar ignition would create an ember, but if you have to use this method you don't always have bright sun shine, but fire steel can create an ember too and does not need sun shine. He did a good job demonstrating oak scrapings as tinder, the reason for the video.

[GWNDFM]

great thanks a nice thing to know Gwndfm

[gundog5]

@icychap I'd think using the blade would give you the best results as you can get good thin flakes. It would depend on the knife, though. The saw on the Swiss Army Knife could also work to make saw dust. Give your idea a try (with a bigger knife) and see if it'd work. Maybe compare between using the spine and blade. If you can get reasonable results using the spine then it might be the way to go if you don't wanna risk dulling your knife.

[icychap]

@gundog5 Thanks for the quick response. Could you use the spine/jimping of a thicker knife to make the scrapings, or will they never be as fine as when you use the edge itself?

[gundog5]

@icychap Believe it or not the Swiss Army Knife blade is quite resilient. It stays pretty sharp. Doing the scrapings like this with the blade will dull it after awhile. A couple swipes thru one of those hand-held sharpeners works pretty well. This demo was to show tinder could be made if it couldn't be found (like in a survival situation). So, probably not the best thing do with a blade if you have other options. Worst case, use the tip end of blade for scraping so base of blade stays sharp.

[icychap]

Does making the scrapings ruin your edge?