'Flint' and Magnesium

[johnboy]

Hi,

Has anybody tried one of those flint and Mgnesium fire lighting blocks.
I think you scrape the magnesium to get a pile of shavings and then ignite it with the flint striker.

Sounds like fun.

comments?

john

 

[darctus]

Used them for years very effective

 

[Ed]

And the magnesium block will last years... mine's showing a bit of corrosion though now but I've had it 6-7 years.... and still loads more life left in it!!! :-D

Ed

 

[sargey]

i love mine, but loads of people slag 'em off. like:

when you're trying to get a pile of magnesium shavings they tend to blow way...
yeah well so do lots of tinders fine enough to work from sparks.

if you drop it, the flint can come unglued from the magnesium...
wrap a rubber band or bit of bike inner tube round it.

cheers, and.

 

[Roving Rich]

The flint wears out far faster than the magnesium. If you use it at night DONT LOOK at the burning magnesium, you'll be blind for minutes.(and maybe some permanent damage ?).
We used to mix the magnesium with gunpowder and lay a trail upto the fire just to show off, but good boyscout fun.
Rich

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

Paint your mag bar with a thin coat of nail polish and forget about oxidation worries. Every system has it's pros and cons. It takes a bit of work to create that pile of shavings and I cringe watching people destroying a fine knife edge doing it. Many people carry a 35 mm film cannister with a pre shaved supply or mix it into petrolatum saturated cotton balls. All systems require practice and care.

 

[alick]

A1 at first attempt.
Seems very effective to me. I read the review where they test drop these various firelighters so I just treat the magnesium block as an addition to a proper army firesteel, not a replacement for it. The striker that comes with the firesteel is quite servicable for scraping fine magnesium shavings.

 

[Keith_Beef]

Someone mentioned preparing the magnesium dust beforehand... If you're going to go that far, why not prepare thermite powder?

Iron filings + aluminium filings, IIRR. Simple, eh? a chunk of each metal, plus a couple of files.

Don't prepare the two at the same time.

Never use the same grinder to work on aluminiun then on steel. Or steel then aluminium.

I don't know what sort of spark you need to start the powder burning, but when lit, the combination of the two metals, as fine powder, gets up to welding temperature.



Keith.

 

[ESpy]

Magnesium ribbon works well for igniting thermite. Allegedly. And I used, I mean would have used, iron oxide (rust!) powder rather than iron filings.

Hey, I wonder if I can fuzz-stick Mg ribbon...

 

[johnboy]

If I remember correctly aren't those cheap pencil sharpeners made from Magnesium alloy so I wonder if I scrape one of those will those scrapings ignite????

I'll try on my work desk tomorrow!

John

 

[stevec]

it needs to be rust (iron oxide) it won't work otherwise, its a chemical reaction. the aluminium wants the oxygen more than the iron can hold on to it in simlinstic terms. i suppose that if you were that way inclined you could do something with the blob of molten iron that yo end up with.
sc

 

[clcuckow]

Don't you thing that thermite is a bit extreme for fire lighting ;-)http://www.thecatalyst.org/other/thermite/

 

[ESpy]

Just a little bit, yes. Can be handy for welding, I understand

 

[clcuckow]

when you think they use it for welding railway lines, dont they?

 

[ESpy]

Yup. Can't think of other industrial apps just at the moment.

 

[galew]

Someone mentioned preparing the magnesium dust beforehand... If you're going to go that far, why not prepare thermite powder?

Iron filings + aluminium filings, IIRR. Simple, eh? a chunk of each metal, plus a couple of files.

Don't prepare the two at the same time.

Never use the same grinder to work on aluminiun then on steel. Or steel then aluminium.

I don't know what sort of spark you need to start the powder burning, but when lit, the combination of the two metals, as fine powder, gets up to welding temperature.



Keith.

The Magnesium will do that, the thermite need to be heated with something like a magnesium fire to start it off, so too much trouble unless you are needing it for welding or destroying some machinery. We always start ours with a magnesium strip when used for welding cables.

 

[ZDP-189]

My problem is that I've owned two and have never gotten a fire started. First, try as I might, I cannot manage to shave the block. Secondly, the only shavings I ever got off the block didn't light.

If someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong, please do.

 

[johnnytheboy]

I prefer mine over my firesteel, the scraper thing was crap so i bined it the scraper on the firesteel if better for the mag block

I light my fire everynight with it srape onto newspaper or similar

can you buy mag blocks without the flint on the side? so i can just use my firesteel???

 

[ridge rover]

Pointers from the colonies.

Nail polish on ferro rods [flint] is a good idea. Its the body oils that will corrode the flint. Simple moisture is OK. Even pocket carry can corrode the flint. I polish all mine.

When scraping the magnesium, hold your knife at 90 degrees to scrape. You are not making a fuzz stick!


I keep mag powder in gellatin capsules in a mini survival kit. But the problem is the powder might blow away. Put the powder on tape and its a good trick for scrapings also.

I tried putting mag powder on petroleum jelly cotton balls. There was a good flash that quickly burned out. Waste of time!

 

[ZDP-189]

Thanks! If have been trying to shave little curls like I saw in the pictures.