firesteel tinder

[mattw4466]

I recently go a swedish fire steel and have taken into the woods a few times. I cant seem to get any natural materials to lights such as dry grass, pine needs or anything like that. Is this possible to do? I know u can use charcloth but i would rather use natural tinder. Any advice on technique or anything. Thanks.

 

[Backyard Bushcraft]

i usually get flame from feather sticks with real fine shavings under the other "feathers"

 

[bushyboo]

yea feather sticks work for me too
ive also used birch bark

 

[Pignut]

Well scraped birch bark works very well!

Cramp ball fungi is also good! though this smoulders and does not burst into flame!

The downy heads of great reed mace is also good though this tends to just flash with flame and should be mixed with other tinder...

very dry grass will work but needs to be teased into a fine bundle!

hope this helps

 

[leon-1]

Try scraping up the inside of the bark from Western Red Cedar, this works pretty well (thanks Dave + Rich).

With most of this stuff you will have to shred it and buff it up to make it fibrous and fine. The finer it is the better chance that it will catch, use as large a bundle as is practical.

Don't trust to one strike, try and get a few in rapid succession (that's not to say that It cannot be done with a single strike, it can), but better safe than sorry.

 

[rich59]

Hi Mattw,

There are a number of arts to the use of the fire steel. The size/ power of the spark produced can vary a lot between magicians and novices. The biggest sparks seem to be produced by mages who grind down a sharp 90 degrees edge in quality steel of the back of their knife. Then again there is the issue of concentrating the sparks on the target. Many novices soon learn to drag the fire steel over the "striker" that is virtually touching the target tinder.

Paper thin birch bark peelings are a good target. Then anything you can rub up into fine fibres - willow and lime inner barks are a couple. Charcoal from the night before's fire is probably a legitimate target.

Dry punky wood, cramp ball fungi and razor strop fungi all easily start glowing from a fairly poor fire steel spark.

As your sparks get more impressive so the range of tinders increases.

 

[dommyracer]

Another useful tip if you are using a suitable tinder (eg a fluffy mass that you can pick up as one piece - think cotton wool, old mans beard etc.) is to trap a small part of the tinder between the steel and the striker, then do your strike, aiming your first tinder into a bigger mass of other tinder.

Make sure to keep enough pressure on the steel with whatever striker you are using and you should be good to go.

 

[wingstoo]

I recently go a swedish fire steel and have taken into the woods a few times. I cant seem to get any natural materials to lights such as dry grass, pine needs or anything like that. Is this possible to do? I know u can use charcloth but i would rather use natural tinder. Any advice on technique or anything. Thanks.

Have you tried using the inner of a birds nest? If a bit damp just pop it in your pocket for a while to dry it out, the rest of the nest will do as kindling as well.

LS

http://www.northwestjournal.ca/IX3945.htm

http://ridgerunnersurvival.tripod.com/fire.htm

http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catalog.CFPage?mode=article&objectID=30249

 

[WhichDoctor]

Have you tried using the inner of a birds nest? If a bit damp just pop it in your pocket for a while to dry it out, the rest of the nest will do as kindling as well.

LS

Just remember to empty the bird out first .

Sorry, but seriously .

I find cattail / bulrush down is very good (no shortage round here) and you can normally get it all year round. You can ether get a grate big bundle, fluff it up to get lots of air into it, get a nether big pile of dry grass or very thin dry twigs, strike a spark into it and drop the grass on it as soon as it lights. Or take a small bundle scrunch it up and then teas out a bit in the middle to catch a spark. With a bit of practice you can get a coal fairly easily, then put this into a bundle of dry fibers and blow it into life.

But I do have to practice with some of these other things, I have to admit that I haven't had much success with anything other than cattail down as yet .

 

[Big John]

In addition to what's already been mentioned - thistle & dandelion seed heads are easy to light (as long as they're dry), although the flame will be very short-lived so they need wrapping in some suitable tinder such as dried grass.