Fire sticks and stainless steel knives

[CM Burns]

i have read in numerous books that a stainless steel knife does not produce good sparks when used to strike a fire stick - rubbish!

i have just tested this theory with a VG10 blade and was able to produce as good a shower of sparks as with a carbon blade.

the knife used was a small folder - the Beretta Electra.

interestingly, the Electra has very sharp angles on the back of the blade - the edges are not rounded in any way. maybe the problem associated with stainless steel knives is not so much to do with the metal itself but the finish to the back of the blade....

 

[Tony]

You’re quite correct Mr Burns. If the SS knife has a nice square back it will throw a spark quite nicely. I think that the type of SS can also play a part in how well the sparks will fly, as will the temper etc. But SS cannot be discounted as a spark producer :-D

 

[Gary]

Indeed the only reason Carbon steel is recommended is for its use with flint - the strikers that come with fire steels are undoubtedly stainless.

 

[Allmi]

Hi!

As to my information it has to do with the amount of carbon in the steel. While cheap SS contains very little carbon (i. e. 420 J only .04%) the better ones (440 C or VG10 or ATS 34 etc.) with higher amount of carbon (around 1% and higher) might work better. Not sure if that's true but to me it sounds logical.

Cheers
Allmi

 

[Martyn]

i have read in numerous books that a stainless steel knife does not produce good sparks when used to strike a fire stick

This is a total misnoma.

It comes about because stainless steel wont throw sparks off a flint. That is because when using a flint & steel combination, the sparks originate from the steel, and are infact tiny burning shards of steel. Stainless steel wont burn that easily, so wont throw sparks when struck with a flint.

When you are using a firesteel (ferrocium rod), the sparks are coming from the ferro rod, not the steel. The ferro rod is softer than the steel, so the steel knife blade stays intact. You dont even need to use steel, pretty much any ard sharp edge will trow sparks off a ferro rod. You could even use a brick.

 

[bigjackbrass]

You dont even need to use steel, pretty much any ard sharp edge will trow sparks off a ferro rod. You could even use a brick.

Of course, it would have to be a proper bushcraft brick. I've had my name down for one for a while, but I'm hoping that Wilkinson Sword might produce a cheaper version.

 

[Keith_Beef]

You dont even need to use steel, pretty much any ard sharp edge will trow sparks off a ferro rod. You could even use a brick.

Of course, it would have to be a proper bushcraft brick. I've had my name down for one for a while, but I'm hoping that Wilkinson Sword might produce a cheaper version.

LOL!

The other thing, is that stainless steels take a very good mirror polish, whereas some other steels (D2 springs to mind) are reputed to always be a slightly dull metallic grey. This, I think, leads knifemakers to do much more polishing on stainless blades, which rounds the spine too much to produce good sparks.

I've tried sparking a ferro rod on a few of my stainless and non-stainless knive, and found that I could get decent sparks off one blade, but not off another, made from the same Sandvik stainless(15C27, IIRR).


Keith.

 

[Martyn]

Yep, all you need is a sharp, hard edge. I tried sparking a ferro rod with my sebenza 3" folder, made from S30v stainless. It was absolutely useless. Not a single spark, but that was because the spine was very rounded. I took the knife to my belt grinder and put a sharp, square edge on the spine, see:

As you can see the spine on the knife is now very square. It now throws a superb shower of sparks as the spine bites very well into the ferro rod.

 

[TAHAWK]

At the Fallkniven Forum, their rep has asserted in the past that they deliberately make their knives with very square spines just for striking sparks. Those edges are now 420J.

I wonder if anyone has tried a laminated Fallkniven to see if it works as did the older, solid VG10 models.

 

[bushblade]

At the Fallkniven Forum, their rep has asserted in the past that they deliberately make their knives with very square spines just for striking sparks. Those edges are now 420J.

I wonder if anyone has tried a laminated Fallkniven to see if it works as did the older, solid VG10 models.

I own both old and new, the new ones work better than any other knife I own. The steel just has to be hard enough and square.
They don't work with Helle or some of the frosts laminated blades as the outer steel is too soft.

 

[JakeR]

The best way (and easiest) to get a stainless steel knife to shower sparks is to roughen it. You can do this with anything from a low grit waterstone to a brick or stone that you find in your garden! Alternatively you could use a file!

I tried this with my mora, and it works fine.

 

[woodsitter]

I use the file of my letherman, works great. Its also useful if you have to repair your vacuum cleaner. Looks like martyns sebenza isn’t very good at that.

 

[ditchfield]

Jake,
Yep, I agree. I chucked a rough diamond hone onto the back of my clipper and it chucks sparks like a beaut.

 

[FJS90-91]

I have a piece of "steel saw" when I use my fire stick, I never use matches or lighter.. So when my steel saw blade is getting old I break a 5cm about 2" of it and use it instead of my knife, I don’t like the idea of ruining my knife..

 

[TAHAWK]

I have a piece of "steel saw" when I use my fire stick, I never use matches or lighter.. So when my steel saw blade is getting old I break a 5cm about 2" of it and use it instead of my knife, I don’t like the idea of ruining my knife..

For that matter, 10 cm of hack saw blade, half sharpened and half wrapped with tape, makes a nice little back-up knife.

 

[Kukriman]

I see what you are trying to do...

but why would you ever grind a beautifully rounded edge on a sebenza? That is on of the great custom touches that makes it special. Jeez, go buy a SAK if you need to throw sparks... I just wanna puke when I think of somebody grinding on one of those folders.

Sorry guys you lost me on this one.Chris works too hard on his blades to justify this one.

Square edges suck on any knife meant to be used!
kukriman

 

[Martyn]

I see what you are trying to do...

but why would you ever grind a beautifully rounded edge on a sebenza? That is on of the great custom touches that makes it special. Jeez, go buy a SAK if you need to throw sparks... I just wanna puke when I think of somebody grinding on one of those folders.

Sorry guys you lost me on this one.Chris works too hard on his blades to justify this one.

Square edges suck on any knife meant to be used!
kukriman

LMAO, sorry to make you puke kukriman, but - wake up bud, it's a tool. If I ground a square edge on something else, that'd be something else I'd have to carry now wouldn't it? But that's probably best eh? Leave the sebenza at home in the drawyer where it belongs.

Your comments are what separates a collectors drawyer queen from a user - Terry Primos often says, using his knives hard, are the greatest compliment you can give them.

It makes me laugh how some people manage to sanctify these things. The seb is an excellent knife, but it's a tool, a functional item, not an object of devine worship. I dont believe Chris ever intended that for them.

Now go tell Tom Mayo, that drilling holes in the holly sebenza is sacrilige (or you can pick one up here for $400, but then they are "Tom Mayo" holes, those special kind of difficult to drill holes, that are round and empty in the middle - so I guess that's OK.) - at least there was purpose, rhyme and reason to my "modification". By making a minor change to the aesthetic (square edges suck on a working knife do they? ...please dont tell me the round spine had something to do with structural integrity, ...gosh, now I'm expecting my seb to crumble in front of my eyes.), ...I've added function that I wanted, that was absent before.

Oh, one more thing, I paid for it, I own it, I'll do what I damned well please with it thank you very much. :roll:

Oh, and by the way, 10 minutes finishing on a belt grinder, does not turn a CNC machined production knife into a custom (it's a contradiction in terms), no matter how nice the finished knife.

Cant you collect power drills or something, maybe you could get sanctimonious about those too. "ohhhhh, shock, nooooo, you didn't wrap the handle of the fabulous black&decker 750 variable, with duck tape did you?"

 

[boaty]

Square edges suck on any knife meant to be used!
kukriman

:shock: The square edge on the spine of Scandi knives has been used to scrape for, err, quite a long time. E.g. hides, bark (to make tinder), wood (to smooth the finish) etc etc. I'm not gonna ruin the edge of my knife, yet these are tasks that need doing and a square edge works just fine.

 

[Adi007]

I agree with you Martyn ... it's a tool and you paid for it and you can use it as a doorstop if you want!
This sanctifying of tools is, in my opinion, an odd phenomenon. But I feel that it stems from an insecurity - starting by looking at the knife and building up in the mind how strong, versatile, well made and so on it is so that the purchase is justified.
However, once the item is purchased, things change. Not only do I think that there is a worry about breaking the tool but also damaging it cosmetically. From there it's a short jump to it being a safe queen.
Take a look at the forums and one thing you'll notice ... the number of CR and Busse knives that are sold "unused" ... very odd.

 

[TAHAWK]

Take a look at the forums and one thing you'll notice ... the number of CR and Busse knives that are sold "unused" ... very odd.

IMO not odd at all. If knives were only sold to meet the need for cutting tools, the entire industry as we know it -- manufacturing and retail -- would collapse - especially the custom side. The "want" drives the market, not the "need."