Reading Wayland's excellent review of a new fire starter kit reminded of a few years ago when we were doing a prehistoric display at Trelissick Gardens, Cornwall. Among other exhibitors was a blacksmith. He had made some fire steels and a purchaser wanted to test them so they asked for us to try them on some flint we had and in comparison to our own steel. At first the blacksmith made one did not work at all well while ours was banging out sparks from the flint. It was intriguing to see him working on theirs and after few goes it was working well. One could picture the metal worker in ancient times doing the same or perhaps explaining why somebody's new steel didn't match up to the sales pitch.
