S
Shadow
Guest
Hi
It took me six months but I've finally refined my technique to the point where I can reliably light birch bark with a firesteel. I have been using a Light-my-fire Scout model.
My technique is to take some birch bark of a dry dead tree. I cut it off with a knife so I get a fairly thick piece with both the inner and outer bark. I then scrape the outer bark to produce a pile of shavings. It took me a while to figure out that the direction of scaping is important. The bark has a horizontal grain to it and you need to scrape in the direction of the grain. I scape it either with a knife blade (Opinel works well) or with the saw edge from a (smaller NATO) firesteel. I dont find I need a bit pile of shavings, a thimble-full is enough.
The second bit of my technique that I've recently changed is how I 'shave' the firesteel. Rather than running the edge down the whole length I pretend I'm sharpening a pencil to a point and I only use the last centimeter of the steel. I hold the edge close to the shavings and pull the firestick backwards by puching in the edge with my thumb to generate the sparks. Thus the stick moves but the edge does not. I usually have to do a few practice scrapes to clean the oxide layer off the firesteel before going for the 'real one'. I find this gives me good sparks, a good well controled aim and (in theory) means that my firestick will gradually shorten over its life rather than wear dangerously thin and risk breaking. I also rotate the firesteel every few stikes to sharpen it into a four-sided point.
Once I've set the shavings alight, and I now seem to be able to do this reliably within 5 stikes, I feed the pile with a few thin stips of birch bark t get it to the next stage.
Finally, I have found it is important to have the shavings on a bark or wood base rather than on bare ground - no idea why.
With this new technique I have been able to light paper too.
I have had no success with the much smaller (NATO fireset) firesteels.
I hope this helps.
It took me six months but I've finally refined my technique to the point where I can reliably light birch bark with a firesteel. I have been using a Light-my-fire Scout model.
My technique is to take some birch bark of a dry dead tree. I cut it off with a knife so I get a fairly thick piece with both the inner and outer bark. I then scrape the outer bark to produce a pile of shavings. It took me a while to figure out that the direction of scaping is important. The bark has a horizontal grain to it and you need to scrape in the direction of the grain. I scape it either with a knife blade (Opinel works well) or with the saw edge from a (smaller NATO) firesteel. I dont find I need a bit pile of shavings, a thimble-full is enough.
The second bit of my technique that I've recently changed is how I 'shave' the firesteel. Rather than running the edge down the whole length I pretend I'm sharpening a pencil to a point and I only use the last centimeter of the steel. I hold the edge close to the shavings and pull the firestick backwards by puching in the edge with my thumb to generate the sparks. Thus the stick moves but the edge does not. I usually have to do a few practice scrapes to clean the oxide layer off the firesteel before going for the 'real one'. I find this gives me good sparks, a good well controled aim and (in theory) means that my firestick will gradually shorten over its life rather than wear dangerously thin and risk breaking. I also rotate the firesteel every few stikes to sharpen it into a four-sided point.
Once I've set the shavings alight, and I now seem to be able to do this reliably within 5 stikes, I feed the pile with a few thin stips of birch bark t get it to the next stage.
Finally, I have found it is important to have the shavings on a bark or wood base rather than on bare ground - no idea why.
With this new technique I have been able to light paper too.
I have had no success with the much smaller (NATO fireset) firesteels.
I hope this helps.
