Flint and Steel Sharing Skills

[Big Bad Stu]

Hi,

This is a follow up to my thread about making char cloth posted a couple of weeks ago.

I went out for a dog walk last night with my neighbour, Neil, who is also my regular oppo in bushcrafty forrays.

While we were out I did my usual fire lighting practice with the flint and steel, the rules are that I must start a fire with tinder gathered from the forest, no pre-prepped is allowed (hopefully this gets me to look hard and also gets me used to starting fire with available materials, thus not having to carry them with me!).

Neil was impressed when the smoking bracken burst into flames, I asked him if he wanted a go as I had plenty of char cloth with me. Firstly I showed him how the get sparks from the flint and steel, he managed it easily, I showed him how to hold the char cloth to catch the spark. Seconds later hey-presto we had a glowing ember which was placed calmly into his bracken bundle and was gently coaxed in to flame. He was elated.

We then safely extinguished the bracken and continued with the walk. Neil's eyes were opened, he agreed that the forest, even in winter, is the land of plenty. There is tinder and kindling everywhere.

By then end of the walk we had resolved to make a load more char cloth, he was off to buy a fire steel off the web and we had a great laugh.

I must stress that we made doubly sure that the bracken was extinguished before we left it as the woods are so dry at the moment a fire could have easily spread. Our walk bought us past where we had done out fire lighting on the way back to the car so we were able to confirm that the remains were not smouldering.

I found passing on this skill (which I have practiced almost every day since making the char cloth) very rewarding, seeing Neil's face when his tinder burst into flame was great. I intend to spread the good word from now on in.

One of Neil's comments stood out "Why don't they teach this stuff in schools?"

Stewey.

 

[webbie]

its a great feeling passing on some knowlage no matter how small it may seem to you.

there is a nice flint n steel set in the makers market for £6, i am not sure howgood they are of yet but seem to get a good right up and have purchased a few myself.

ps least you now have a friend to do bushy stuff with now

webbie

 

[Big Bad Stu]

Webbie,

Neil and I are as bad as each other. We have been buddies for a long time, he hasn't got the family ties that I do and his wife is also into bush craft the jammy git so they get out loads more than I do.

We all love just being out, even if it just for a dog walk.

Cheers for the heads up on the maker's market sets.

Stewey.

 

[andy_e]

Brilliant Stu, feels good to pass on even a wee bit of what you've learned doesn't it.

 

[Matt Weir]

It's quite a buzz isn't it

 

[Big Bad Stu]

One of the best feelings, I look forward to teaching this to my son!

Stewey.

 

[hiraeth]

One of the best feelings, I look forward to teaching this to my son!

Stewey.

i will never forget the look on my sons face when he caught his first spark, all the best on teaching your son stu.

 

[Mike Ameling]

Yes, it is a great feeling to pass on such a skill to another person. Doubly so when you see their reactions.

And you taught that flint-n-steel fire starting skill in one of the best ways - one on one instruction. You can learn a lot from reading, from pictures, even from videos. But nothing beats having someone right there talking you through every step - including correcting those little bits of technique that become so important. The hardest part is being able to strike those initial sparks. Once they under stand what they are trying to do, it then moves to correct angles, follow through on the glancing blow, and preserving the current condition of your knuckles.

And it's best to get good instruction and develope the right technique from the start. Changing bad habbits/technique is hard to do.

My one buddy still won't let me forget that I taught his 10 year old daughter how to use flint-n-steel --- on my livingroom rug while he napped on the couch. He woke up to a room full of smoke! And don't believe him - the rug was never in any danger!

And the second most important part about learning to use flint-n-steel for fire starting? Practice. Lots of practice. And taking that extra step of using natural scrounged material for tinder adds that extra step up in your skill level.

Great job. Now ... go "throw yourself in front of the bus" and teach a Cub Scout pack! If you can survive the energy/enthusiasm/frustration, you might even consider doing it again!

Just my humble thoughts to share. Take them as such.

Mikey - yee ol' grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. Best tip ever when learning to use flint-n-steel? Make sure you have a properly made/heat-treated striker! When I first learned, I went through 3 bad strikers before I found a good one. I just about gave up. (And a lot of the scars on my knuckles were because of trying so hard to make those bad strikers spark.) And then I got that good striker and was amazed at how simple and easy it was! So I resolved to NEVER pass on a bad or poorly made/sparking striker. I've got around a dozen junkers setting on the one shelf by my computer - just to remind me.

 

[Big Bad Stu]

Thanks for the kind words. I have a good while to get good, Tom is only two and a bit.

Stewart.

 

[Big Bad Stu]

Mike,

I bought my fire steel from a specialist maker, A. Finley Primitive Crafts. It was supplied in a leather pouch with two bits of flint and a small bag of char cloth. The steel and flint produce a good spark thankfully. I will paste the link to the homepage below:

http://www.a-finlay-primitive-crafts.co.uk/home.html

The steel I bought is this fella:

http://www.a-finlay-primitive-crafts.co.uk/rams_horn_flint_steel_large.html

I have no link to A. Finley but am a satisfied customer.

The advice about poor fire steels is good, I spent a lot of time researching before I bought mine and it seemed to pay off. What I wanted was a simple bomb-proof piece of kit.

Stewey.

 

[John Fenna]

Crikey! - that is a bit expensive - or is it?
It looks great and you say it works well....maybe I should put my prices up!

Flint and steel are my favourite ways of lighting fires and I have also had great joy in passing on the skills.
There seem to be a lot of duff steels out there, which is a shame as it can put people right off the game so it is good to know of good dealers.

 

[Pignut]

Wave of inspiration has just hit me.........................

Need to make new kit..............................

Arrrghhhhhhhhhhh

 

[Big Bad Stu]

I thought it was a bit pricey but it is quality. It feels right in my hands. and seems to work very well. We are back to the ethos that I feel as I work hard I deserve nice things!

The problem with things is that it is very hard to find suppliers of this type of kit on the web. I live in a rural area so it is difficult to get into town to buy stuff - not that you could just walk into a shop and buy a traditional flint and steel.

I noticed that Ray has traditional steels on his website now, they are not supplied with anything else, they are around £20 I think, I would assume that anything he sells should be excellent quality as he doesn't want to damage his reputation by selling rubbish.

I am not defending my purchase, it is mine and I love it - enough said.

However when I acquired it I had very few choices, from a web search I found Finley, some cheapo ones from America on evilbay or the ones that look like a large chain link which simply didn't have the looks I wanted.

What I am trying to say is that if more choice was offered to potential buyers I may have bought a different one.

Stewey.

 

[tyfy]

I have to ask but does anyone know if http://www.a-finlay-primitive-crafts.co.uk/ a maker or a reseller.

The fire dragon firesteel I bought from the states looks very much like this one except for the makers mark.

It is just that the one I bought was from a forum member (firemaker) and it would be nice for them to get some credit if it is their work.

 

[andy_e]

From what I know, Alan Finlay is a maker, he makes his own knives and runs various courses e.g. knife forging.

I did a 3-day Bushcraft/Survival course with him last year and saw some of his work, including one of his steels which was very effective

 

[tyfy]

It is just that these from firestarter (I have the skeletal dragon ) look very similar to these from Alan Finlay

 

[andy_e]

Some are very similar, though I note that firestarter often uses historical examples as his inspiration, I'd suspect Alan Finlay does too.

Edit: Having just spotted the seahorse one in particular, I guess it's also possible that he buys some in for resale.

 

[tyfy]

Thats Fair enough. It's nice to find a local seller if you need it quick.

It was the idea of putting the makers mark on someone elses work that made me pose the question.

 

[Mike Ameling]

The style and workmanship of the flint strikers on the A Finlay sight show the hand of 2 or three different makers.

It's also interesting how much adding a leather pouch and piece of flint adds to the price of some simple flint strikers.

That Rams Horn striker is based on some originals from the mid 1600's on up through the 1700's. An original was found at a Seneca Indian village site that was occupied between 1650 and 1680. It was most likely traded to them by the Dutch out of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island - before the British conquered it and renamed it New York. But it also was a common style back home in Europe in Flanders and other parts of France.

Those dragon, cobra, and seahorse style flint strikers are modern artistic interpretations. Great looking, just not based upon originals.

THE MOST COMMON flint striker shape out there is the classic C shape. It crosses all the centuries from very early Roman times B.C. on up to modern times. And there are lots of variations in individual details and styling of those C strikers over the centuries.

The Oval style is also a surprisingly long-lived style. It shows up in early Roman times, again in the Middle Ages, and became a very common Fur Trade item in the mid 1700's on up through the mid 1800's.

A flint striker is such a common, simple tool of everyday life, and has been for many centuries. Most were pretty utilitarian in style/shape, but artistic creativity quickly was applied to that simple tool, and then regional preferences developed. Just look at the coiled snakes shapes that the Vikings liked so much. (Some good pictures of originals are on the Viking Anwer Lady's web site.)

I've been mildly interested in flint strikers for many years, and have been known to make a few hundred a year. I have a simple web site set up with a bunch of information and history on it all about flint strikers. Fire From Steel

Plus, I must admit, that I am one of those people selling flint strikers over on evil-bay (under the user name line-shack-rider). And trying to clean up that bad practice of some people who have been trying to sell original Roman era flint strikers as original North American Colonial Rev War 1700's era flint strikers. They tend to bring several times more money as Colonial American strikers instead of Roman era ones. Too many of those shapes/styles went out of existance in the early Middle Ages - before the 6th century. It is kind of funny, though. Take a 2 thousand year old artifact, knock 1800 years off of it's description, and get a higher price. But, it's evil-bay. Buyer-Beware really applies - even more so than going into an antique store.

Oops ... must tread carefully about that ... self-promotion ... type stuff.

Just my humble thoughts to share. Take them as such.

Mikey - yee ol' grumpy blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[steve a]

I have quite a few firesteels in my collection about 12 or so are from Mike, I can vouch that his workmanship is very fine indeed, the steels are historically correct and they produce extreamly good sparks. Anyone looking for a steel would not be disappointed with one of Mikes.

No connection, just a very satisfied customer.