Firesteel, corrosion?

[RAPPLEBY2000]

Fire-steel, corrosion?

Hi a Have a few variations on the Fire steel and other "flints" made by different companies.

2 have started to corrode I think
(another variant split in half and crumbled to nothing:yikes

My oldest Flint is producing grey dust, it is at least 7yrs old and another is starting to do the same, I assume it's a sort of rust

Is it just an age thing?
Is it to do with storage i.e. too damp or dry ?

I know when new they have a coating to preserve them and to look shiny in the shops.

Can i stop the corrosion with a new coating of varnish/oil or something?

cheers

 

[British Red]

Firesteels catch fire by the ability to oxidise quickly they are made of "misch metal" - an alloy of a number of metals. The act of scraping off slivers exposes unoxidised (shiny) metal with a high surface area to mass ratio which allows it to heat up enough to burn. The grey dust you see is slow oxidisation. This will indeed be minimised by keeping the flint dry and another coating to prevent damp and atmospheric oxygen coming into contact with the core will inhibit it

Red

 

[Graham_S]

Make sure the flint is dry, scrape off all traces of the oxidization, then paint it with nail varnish.
That should do the trick.

 

[JonathanD]

They can corrode with even the slightest hint of moisture. I've had a few go and now use ren wax on the exposed parts if not using for a while. That seems to have solved the problem.

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

Thanks for the swift answers!

OK, so I'll have to coat the steels,

I'll give the Nail varnish a miss, I want something a bit easier to deal with.

Ren wax was mentioned,
I don't have any, but I have to hand:
Boot polish
Dubbin(or similar)
Crayon wax (melted)

also I have oils/WD40 etc

could I use any of these to the same effect?
cheers

 

[JonathanD]

I don't see why boot polish wouldn't work. WD40 and oils might soak in and do permanent damage though.

 

[Peter_t]

if you want to store it in a survival kit or as a spair i reccon dipping it in candle wax would be good.

pete

 

[JonathanD]

if you want to store it in a survival kit or as a spair i reccon dipping it in candle wax would be good.

pete

Yeah, that'd be a better idea.

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

aahhh, and relax Job done!

thanks muchly for the advice guys!


I took of the "rust" and have given each flint (about 6) a nice very thin coat of boot polish!
I've tried the flints and they work just as well with the polish on it.

funny really, I carefully ground off some of the rust (the worst case) with a bench grinder....Fireworks!!!

some of it i took off with sandpaper, guess what? sparks!
funny really never tried it before and the sparks aren't really big enough to start fire but surprising and....pretty!

 

[Improviser]

Just read this thread ive had experience of corrosion myself thru chance.

I have a small magnesium rod with two stips of flint on each side (think its called xtreme firelighter) tucked into my leatherman wave pouch which was on my belt at the time.

Had a quick dip in the sea & shortly after came to use the wave noticing white staining and bubbling all over the firestarter.

The seawater had a major reaction with said materials but it still performed the same just appearing acid burnt although if my dip had been longer it prob would have vanished! (wave was fine but rinsed it off as usual).

So lesson learnt ferro/magrods flints ect imo dont get on well with saltwater i suppose like other metals