Stainless steel knives and Firesteels

[Robbo]

Hi I'm new here and i was just wondering if a firestell will work with a stainless steel blade?

I have an old EKA locking folding knife with a 3.5inch blade.

Thanks Andy

 

[scanker]

AFAIK stainless blades are not as good at making sparks from a firesteel as a carbon blade. Certainly my stainless puukko is very poor and my opinel is excellent.

I think it will also depend on the profile of the bit of the back of the blade you're using. A square (sharp edge) profile will work better than a rounded one.

 

[Simca]

It ONLY depends on the profile, it doesn't have to be steel even! It have to be hard enough to maintain a SHARP EDGE against the firesteel, thats all. Try the edge of a broken glass, or a sharp piece of stone for example. Doesn't have to be steel at all.
A solution for your problem is to reprofile a portion of the back of the blade to get some sharp corners. One Hungarian knifemaker's solution is to grind the back of the blade (a portion of it) to some (small) angle, so it's not exactly 90˙, you get a nice scraper edge this way.

 

[dataphage]

It ONLY depends on the profile, it doesn't have to be steel even! It have to be hard enough to maintain a SHARP EDGE against the firesteel, thats all. Try the edge of a broken glass, or a sharp piece of stone for example. Doesn't have to be steel at all.
A solution for your problem is to reprofile a portion of the back of the blade to get some sharp corners. One Hungarian knifemaker's solution is to grind the back of the blade (a portion of it) to some (small) angle, so it's not exactly 90˙, you get a nice scraper edge this way.

What he said!

You will find thast the steel in the EKA knives is easy to file by hand - nothing more than a file needed.

If you don't fancy attacking the spine of your knife with a file a lot of people use a piece of hacksaw blade.