Little DIY project that came out surprisingly nice.
You can buy various size firesteels on ebay, this one is 4mm in diameter and I cut it to size with the hacksaw (1" length). Added ceramic striker and one piece of "tinderquick" and wrapped everything in duck tape (2 independent wraps). I was planning to seal it inside of a plastic straw but couldn't find the right size. I have good experience with duck tape waterproofing and it gave the whole packet a nice flat shape. Last bit is a piece of small bicycle inner tube which have the right amount of stretch to keep everything neat on my watchstrap. So not only I have very low profile firestarter with me at all times, the duck tape and rubber tube gives me strong tinder to start a fire in some bad conditions. This should have enough space to add a plastic handcuff key in the future. A nice side effect of the whole setup is it creates a flat, stiff portion of the watch band which stops the whole watch from "falling back" which annoyed me before.
Best part is that I can now streamline all my EDC and camping gadgets by removing all those backup fire sources like ferrorod toggles and peanut lighters (I still carry my main lighter daily and proper fire kit outdoors). Might give you some ideas.
You can buy various size firesteels on ebay, this one is 4mm in diameter and I cut it to size with the hacksaw (1" length). Added ceramic striker and one piece of "tinderquick" and wrapped everything in duck tape (2 independent wraps). I was planning to seal it inside of a plastic straw but couldn't find the right size. I have good experience with duck tape waterproofing and it gave the whole packet a nice flat shape. Last bit is a piece of small bicycle inner tube which have the right amount of stretch to keep everything neat on my watchstrap. So not only I have very low profile firestarter with me at all times, the duck tape and rubber tube gives me strong tinder to start a fire in some bad conditions. This should have enough space to add a plastic handcuff key in the future. A nice side effect of the whole setup is it creates a flat, stiff portion of the watch band which stops the whole watch from "falling back" which annoyed me before.
Best part is that I can now streamline all my EDC and camping gadgets by removing all those backup fire sources like ferrorod toggles and peanut lighters (I still carry my main lighter daily and proper fire kit outdoors). Might give you some ideas.
