A bit of encouragement, I posted these replies up a while ago and thought that they might be useful as reference, just copying them into this thread;-
Thread was discussing firelighting with damp wood,
Once a log has died, it'll be effectively dry wood - even if it rains heavily, only the outside of the wood will get wet. If it is laying on damp ground, however, it's likely to get "wetter" because there is no let-up from the effects of moisture.
So you have a log that can be wet on the outside
- saw it into a smallish log, 8 inches to a foot long
- with your knife and another piece of weighty wood, batton through it to make quarters or eighths,
- then cut very thin slivers of wood from the dry inside wood so that the slivers curl up and stay attached to the stick.
It takes a bit of practice but you get the idea soon enough.
Eventually you'll get the featherstick which will take a spark from a firesteel and burst almost immediately into flame.
Have a search for feathersticks and battoning, if you want ai'll ty to get some pictures posted over the next few days.
then;
First some hanging dead wood - not the best as I think it was maple but fine to demonstrate an idea.
Next, a piece of that wood cut into sticks and feathered - note the smallest curls on the bottom stick, they are the ones that will catch light from a spark.
Finally, and admittedly after a few attempts, flame. My firesteel is in the bottom of the picture, struck with the spine of my knife.
Not a serious attempt at lighting a fire, but showing that you can get a fire going just using feathersticks and some well placed sparks.
And finally;
The secret in using sparks, is not to disturb the material that you are trying to light.
Arrange everything to suit the task, have your left palm facing forward with thumb to the left - it feels unnatural to begin with but I've found it works most times.
Hold the firesteel in your left hand, top of the steel grasped in little finger. The back of your index finger lightly holds the tinder in place and braces the tip of the firesteel. Then your thumb is the digit that pushed the striker down the steel, with the right hand controling the force that the two are being pushed together. With a slow, controlled action you get big fat sparks that fizzle and crackle for several seconds as oposed to one bright flash and its all over.
The situation that you want to avoid is;-
1, scattering your tinder as you strike the spark, and,
2, worse - smothering the sparks that you've just made by covering them with a large cold piece of iron!
As to taking a file to the back of your knife, great if you can keep the 90 degree edge but if not, try an oil stone used like a spokeshave with the knife held in a vice.
ATB
Ogri the trog
Going for the big one now 
