I'm *slowly* getting better at starting fires, much to the wife's dismay. She doesn't see much point in practicing at this "skill," but I push on.
I have managed, once, to get a fire going with my Fresnel lens. I attribute it to blind luck and stubbornness. I managed to get it going using leaves as tinder (which I've learned tend to smolder/smoke a lot more than generate flames). I was trying to get it going using found tinder and didn't really have much of a knife to prepare any great tinder source. Plus, I was limited in my scavaging area, so wandering off to find a birch or cedar or tinder fungus wasn't going to readily happen. With this technique, I've learned some things, but haven't played around with it as much as I would have liked.
Why? Because the good doctor has gotten a Fire Steel and a magnesium fire starter! Now *these* are fun to play with! I've gotten fires going using char cloth, vaseline impregnated cotton, and wax-impregnated cotton. With the two "cotton soaked in stuff" methods, I'm partial to the wax version, simply because under normal conditions (normal to me), they're less messy. Someday, I'll have to figure out which fuel source has a longer burn time: the same amount of vaseline on cotton or wax. I haven't really gotten very good at starting a fire without the use of these manmade tinders, but I'm sure it'll come.
I also got a carbon steel Mora now. The thing is that the back of the blade had almost a "U" shape to it (two high ridges on either edge) and that wasn't doing a lot for getting sparks. I filed down the ridges and got a pretty good right angle on the back of the blade. *Now* I can generate some sparks! I've also gotten better at the whole, "using the thumb and generating sparks just from the tip of the Fire Steel" method shown in a different post here.
The Magnesium fire starter...I've struggled with this one, to be honest. The magnesium doesn't burn long, and it has to be closely packed for all of it to completely burn. If it's buried under tinder, most of it won't ignite at all. But, I have started fires with it. And I've learned some tricks to making it work. Getting shavings off of it is much easier now that I've "sharpened" the back of my Mora. And larger "curls" rather than a fine powder seem to be better suited to starting a fire. Also, really thin/fine wood curls and a feather stick seem to work best for getting the fire going, at least in my hands...
The next thing I want/need to tackle is learning to use stones/sandpaper to sharpen my knife...
Doc
I have managed, once, to get a fire going with my Fresnel lens. I attribute it to blind luck and stubbornness. I managed to get it going using leaves as tinder (which I've learned tend to smolder/smoke a lot more than generate flames). I was trying to get it going using found tinder and didn't really have much of a knife to prepare any great tinder source. Plus, I was limited in my scavaging area, so wandering off to find a birch or cedar or tinder fungus wasn't going to readily happen. With this technique, I've learned some things, but haven't played around with it as much as I would have liked.
Why? Because the good doctor has gotten a Fire Steel and a magnesium fire starter! Now *these* are fun to play with! I've gotten fires going using char cloth, vaseline impregnated cotton, and wax-impregnated cotton. With the two "cotton soaked in stuff" methods, I'm partial to the wax version, simply because under normal conditions (normal to me), they're less messy. Someday, I'll have to figure out which fuel source has a longer burn time: the same amount of vaseline on cotton or wax. I haven't really gotten very good at starting a fire without the use of these manmade tinders, but I'm sure it'll come.
I also got a carbon steel Mora now. The thing is that the back of the blade had almost a "U" shape to it (two high ridges on either edge) and that wasn't doing a lot for getting sparks. I filed down the ridges and got a pretty good right angle on the back of the blade. *Now* I can generate some sparks! I've also gotten better at the whole, "using the thumb and generating sparks just from the tip of the Fire Steel" method shown in a different post here.
The Magnesium fire starter...I've struggled with this one, to be honest. The magnesium doesn't burn long, and it has to be closely packed for all of it to completely burn. If it's buried under tinder, most of it won't ignite at all. But, I have started fires with it. And I've learned some tricks to making it work. Getting shavings off of it is much easier now that I've "sharpened" the back of my Mora. And larger "curls" rather than a fine powder seem to be better suited to starting a fire. Also, really thin/fine wood curls and a feather stick seem to work best for getting the fire going, at least in my hands...
The next thing I want/need to tackle is learning to use stones/sandpaper to sharpen my knife...
Doc