I am an idiot

[Clark]

I bought myself a dremel type tool this week so thought i'd have a go at making a new handle for my firesteel, everything went well and i'd tried the steel in for size and it was a good fit so i took it out again to put the finishing touches to it and guess waht? i went and broke the steel rod clean it half. Just went and ordered myself 2 new rods though. Sometimes i hate myself so much, see what happens when you get excited.

On another note though, i have a couple of old whakle tooths i've had since i was a boy and i'm half thinking about using part of that as a new handle, what do you think?

 

[Seoras]

Hi Clark

Don't despair mate.

I regularly break firesteels in half to make up fire kits.

Put small handles on the broken pieces as you only need to use about a centimetre of the steel to generate sparks.

I use tiny steels with chartubes and a piece of flint. Look at the last couple of pictures in this thread and you will see the tiny steels.

Good luck

George

 

[Clark]

I was going to ask why you needed so many steels but then i read the bit about cadets using them. I am off to get some deer bone tonight(not antler) and i'm going to give that a shot at making a handle. Got some ideas from your pics so thanks for pointing me in the right direction. All is not lost yet it would seem.

 

[mjk123]

I agree with the previous poster, you only need the end bit to get a great spark. Scraping down the whole length tends to get a bit wild and scatters your tinder, in my experience.

 

[KAE1]

Now I'm not really bushcrafty when it comes to making stuff but I did tip me firesteel with a bit of roe antler. I tried it out when I was clearing scrub last week. Making fires is quite addictive.