Firesteel protection
- Thread starter TLM
- Start date
I didn't try it, but shrink wrap or especially shrink tube should work if you put it around in bone dry conditions.
The shrink tube presses out the air if it contracts.
If you have enough time you also could ask these Austrian guys here what they recommend. I guess they have the most experience in this case.
www.treibacher.com
The shrink tube presses out the air if it contracts.
If you have enough time you also could ask these Austrian guys here what they recommend. I guess they have the most experience in this case.
Flints | Treibacher Industrie AG
Dr Carl Auer von Welsbach invented the flint in 1903. Today, Treibacher produces flints from Cereisen, also known as Original-Auermetall®.
www.treibacher.com
I have a few with some suspicious coloring. So that Exotac is the Rolls Royce, what is the Lambo?
I didn't try it, but shrink wrap or especially shrink tube should work if you put it around in bone dry conditions.
The shrink tube presses out the air if it contracts.
If you have enough time you also could ask these Austrian guys here what they recommend. I guess they have the most experience in this case.
Flints | Treibacher Industrie AG
Dr Carl Auer von Welsbach invented the flint in 1903. Today, Treibacher produces flints from Cereisen, also known as Original-Auermetall®.
Shrink tube won’t stop water ingress unless you use glue lined stuff but then you won’t get it off your fire steel easily.
I have used plenty of shrink wrap making automotive looms over the years
Last edited:
I have a feeling it would actually hold the moisture increasing corrosion.
Having never noticed corrosion myself, is this a surface kind of thing that scrapes straight off, or will it be entirely eaten up in short order once it starts?
Wouldn't the exotac stuff be ally, so would just corrode shut if left in a moist salty pocket anyway?
Wouldn't the exotac stuff be ally, so would just corrode shut if left in a moist salty pocket anyway?
Looks like Cerium and other rare-earths would corrode first slightly protecting the Iron. So it might lose some of it's pyrophority before iron starts rusting.
Salt water do the ferro rods no favours,and sweating does contain a miniscule amount of salt,don't think enough to wreck a ferro though.Also there doesn't seem to be an industry standard,so who knows what really goes into them,perhaps it's the cheap and cheerful ones that are corroding.
I pinched some particularly garish pink-ish nail varnish from my wife and used that. Helps spot it if I drop it on the ground - that and the blaze orange paradors loops I put on them too.
They can need protecting, depending on the environment, how they are carried, or how they are stored and for how long. I have had rods corrode while sitting in a wooden drawer in my house. My friend who does jungle trips says that they all but dissolve in that environment, unless stored in a sealed container.
The corrosion isn't rust, it is pitting with a grey powder residue. They definitely corrode more than plain magnesium.
I see someone thinking that "cheap and cheerful" might be linked to corrosion. This isn't right. The reactive ones corrode. These are the ones that are easy to get a spark from. The ones that you can scrape and scrape and scrape with ever increasing pressure until you eventually coax out a massive hot spark (and scatter your tinder) are the ones that are less likely to corrode, and those tend to be the cheaper ones. Cheaper because they have less of the rarer, harder to work with, more reactive metals in the alloy.
I use clear nail varnish on mine between trips, but then I am not carrying mine all that often.
The corrosion isn't rust, it is pitting with a grey powder residue. They definitely corrode more than plain magnesium.
I see someone thinking that "cheap and cheerful" might be linked to corrosion. This isn't right. The reactive ones corrode. These are the ones that are easy to get a spark from. The ones that you can scrape and scrape and scrape with ever increasing pressure until you eventually coax out a massive hot spark (and scatter your tinder) are the ones that are less likely to corrode, and those tend to be the cheaper ones. Cheaper because they have less of the rarer, harder to work with, more reactive metals in the alloy.
I use clear nail varnish on mine between trips, but then I am not carrying mine all that often.
Similar threads
