Viking firestarting, the quartzite & soft iron method

[Galemys]

Thank's to Mike Ameling I got interested in another relatively unknown way of firestarting, used in historical times in Scandinavia by the Vikings (alongside the 'normal' flint & steel):

"THE QUARTZITE-AND-IRON" method of fire starting:
"A method allied to, but distinct from, the Flint-and-Steel Method was that which involved the use of a block of quartzite and a pointed piece of soft iron. These yielded sparks when struck together. The method came into use in comparatively recent times and was never wide-spread, having never been practised outside the Scandinavian countries; where, for a few centuries, it was used very generally."

Original thread:
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21329&highlight=bryant

The method is also mentioned by Walter Hough, a museum curator who has written articles on firestarting devices (thank's for sending and reviving this interest Ed!). It consists of a piece of quartz/quartzite, usually a flattish oval that was worn on the waistband, and a pointed piece of 'soft' iron. The iron pick was used to create sparks with the quartz stone. The iron dulled very easily and the same stone was used to sharpen the point. The stones have a lengthwise groove in it formed by the usage. The perimeter of the stone also has a groove so it could be tight with a piece of leather and fastened to the waistband.

Thank's to Google I found the following site (is this family of yours Wayland?):
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/fire.shtml
with a link to the following article (In Swedish, but the pictures show alot):
Grimbe, Jannika. Ovala eldslagningsstenar - vad har de använts till? (PDF).
Here's the direct link:
http://www.forntidateknik.z.se/IFT/litte/eldslag2.pdf

Although my Swedish isn't up to standard, I can still make out that Mrs. Grimbe discusses the history of the method, the archeological finds, some other firestarting methods and that she has succesfully experimented with two kinds of stone and iron picks of different carbon content. There's lot's of pictures included as well.
Maybe one of the Swedish speaking members can give a short transcript?

Has anyone here (Mike?) tried this method?

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Mike Ameling]

I've been looking around for some good quartz/quartsite. The stuff I have near me is way too soft and crumbly.

But one important thing is still needed for this to work - carbon. That carbon burning is the sparks you see. So you have to get that carbon from either the steel or from the stone. Soft iron just doesn't have enough carbon content. Regular quartz doesn't either. I haven't read up on quartzite - yet.

I suspect that what they really had and used was a steel rod. Or a soft iron rod that had a bunch of carbon fused into it while being forged (case-hardened).

I can get sparks using a steel rod on assorted rocks using a similar technique, but not with a "soft iron" rod.

Fun stuff. And the Viking Answer Lady has tons of info and great pictures on her web site. The info is worth checking out even if you aren't that interested in re-creating the Viking era. Their crafts were wonderful - wood, metal, stone, fiber.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[Eric_Methven]

Luverly! more stuff for me to read up on. Thanks for that.

Of course you could use the Viking soft method of fire starting. Take two slaves (one male and one female - they seem to like that better too) and rub them together briskly until they spontaneously combust. Of course it doesn't always work. Sometimes all you get is the male slave getting hot, and the female just getting hot under the collar. Might be fun trying though.

Eric

 

[rich59]

I have found I can get sparks from soft iron. (I don't think the carbon content is what makes it burn - it is the iron itself that burns. The carbon just makes it harder and therefore throw off tiny bits rather than just bend). I don't know how the Vikings did it. Anyway, to get sparks from soft iron you need to increase the energy and speed of the hit on the sharp object. As an example - a piece of soft steel dragged along a road will produce a shower of sparks.

In my experiment I took a fist sized rough piece of flint in my hand and struck it obliquely and hard along the side of my spade. Sparks came off in all sorts of directions. I caught one by surrounding the experiment with a long strip of char cloth.

 

[Galemys]

to get sparks from soft iron you need to increase the energy and speed of the hit on the sharp object

The article mentions that for this "tryckeld" method (tryck = pression, eld = fire) pressure is applied to the iron rod and that a striking motion is made, "like striking a match".

The stones have also been found in Scotland and Ireland as archeological artefacts.

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Wayland]

Hmmmmm.

My Swedish is hopeless I'm afraid so I'm waiting to get a decent translation of the article.

It's interesting that these items could have been used to make fire but my first thought is why would they use this method when steel strikers are fairly common finds?

Some of the items illustrated look much more like sewing awls to me and the stones would be ideal for sharpening them.

 

[RobertRogers]

Very interesting - I like the quartz crystal lense method

 

[Karl5]

According to the essay, the archeological society is split in two camps regarding the function of these stones. There's the "sharpening stone" camp, and the "firemaking stone" camp.
The author is trying, through litterature and experiments, to find out which of these 2 camps is the most likely to tell the truth.
She's also trying to see if the stone quality makes a difference (quartz, quartzite and different sandstones), as well as the carbon content in the steels she's using (0.5%, 0.7% and 0.9% carbon respectively).

She's basically coming to the conclusion, that the stones can be used both for sharpening as also for making fire (through the "tryckeld" method), but that the results from examining the wear marks on the stones indicates them to be firemaking tools rather than sharpening tool. She does not, however, draw a complete conclusion from her examination, but remains slightly cautious in her judgement, choosing her words so that it's possible to interpret her as the stones could be a sort of "multi-tool". I.e. a possibility the stones could be firetool + sharpening tool in one, albeit she is partial to the firetool idea.

/ Karl

 

[Mike Ameling]

Steel is iron that has a certain level of carbon mixed into it. That carbon mixed in allows the "steel" to be harder than the original iron, and to be heat-treated even harder.

When you strike sparks using a properly hardened flint striker, you are chipping off small bits of the steel. The energy used to chip out those little bits heats them up enough that the carbon in them burns. That's the sparks you see. The iron itself does not burn. If you strike a bunch of sparks over a piece of white paper, and then look at what is left on the paper under a strong magnifying lense, you will see small spheres of iron. And a metalurgical analysis of them would show them as almost pure iron. When the carbon burns (the sparks you see), it heats up the left over iron enough that it briefly turns molten.

A modern shovel/spade is made from tool steel - iron with a lot of carbon content to improve its strength, rigidity, and wear resistance. And most common modern "iron" is actually low carbon steel. The old Wrought Iron was much closer to being pure iron. It still had some carbon mixed in, along with a number of other "inclusions" like forge scale. If you grind wrought iron, you will see streamers of "sparks", but those are mainly just red-hot bits of iron flying off. If you grind steel, you also see streamers of "sparks", but those "sparks" will also be ... twinkling ... or shooting off little "rays". That is the carbon in them burning. The rest is just the hot iron flying out - being red hot and molten.

So, my original opinion still stands. That rod needs to be made of steel (iron with carbon mixed in) instead of just soft iron. Or the stone itself must have some carbon content mixed into it.

Just my humble thoughts to share, and best used in conjunction with your own research.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[Tor helge]

Hmmmmm.

My Swedish is hopeless I'm afraid so I'm waiting to get a decent translation of the article.

It's interesting that these items could have been used to make fire but my first thought is why would they use this method when steel strikers are fairly common finds?

Some of the items illustrated look much more like sewing awls to me and the stones would be ideal for sharpening them.

I don`t want to translate the article for you but Galemys said it; "tryckeld" pressure fire is the key. You don`t strike the stone but rather press the point of the fire awl down the stone to make it spark. At least it was what the text said (it is a long time since I read it).
As to finding steel strikers; these fire awls and belt stones are not of the viking era but from much earlier times (before 400AD).
But as someone mentioned, there are two camps regarding the function of these stones.

Tor

 

[Wayland]

I don`t want to translate the article for you but Galemys said it; "tryckeld" pressure fire is the key. You don`t strike the stone but rather press the point of the fire awl down the stone to make it spark. At least it was what the text said (it is a long time since I read it).
As to finding steel strikers; these fire awls and belt stones are not of the viking era but from much earlier times (before 400AD).
But as someone mentioned, there are two camps regarding the function of these stones.

Tor

Ah.. That would make more sense. Post iron, pre steel.

We're looking more Vendel period then.

 

[rich59]

Steel is iron that has a certain level of carbon mixed into it. That carbon mixed in allows the "steel" to be harder than the original iron, and to be heat-treated even harder.

When you strike sparks using a properly hardened flint striker, you are chipping off small bits of the steel. The energy used to chip out those little bits heats them up enough that the carbon in them burns. That's the sparks you see. The iron itself does not burn. If you strike a bunch of sparks over a piece of white paper, and then look at what is left on the paper under a strong magnifying lense, you will see small spheres of iron. And a metalurgical analysis of them would show them as almost pure iron. When the carbon burns (the sparks you see), it heats up the left over iron enough that it briefly turns molten.

A modern shovel/spade is made from tool steel - iron with a lot of carbon content to improve its strength, rigidity, and wear resistance. And most common modern "iron" is actually low carbon steel. The old Wrought Iron was much closer to being pure iron. It still had some carbon mixed in, along with a number of other "inclusions" like forge scale. If you grind wrought iron, you will see streamers of "sparks", but those are mainly just red-hot bits of iron flying off. If you grind steel, you also see streamers of "sparks", but those "sparks" will also be ... twinkling ... or shooting off little "rays". That is the carbon in them burning. The rest is just the hot iron flying out - being red hot and molten.

So, my original opinion still stands. That rod needs to be made of steel (iron with carbon mixed in) instead of just soft iron. Or the stone itself must have some carbon content mixed into it.

Just my humble thoughts to share, and best used in conjunction with your own research.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

If one uses a battery on steel wool you can see that the steel does indeed burn. This steel is "low carbon" and only has 0.1% carbon in it. I gather that "high carbon" steel is only about 1% carbon. That is pretty low level to do the burning.

And apparently if you start wire wool glowing and put into oxygen then it "really" burns.

 

[Mike Ameling]

If one uses a battery on steel wool you can see that the steel does indeed burn. This steel is "low carbon" and only has 0.1% carbon in it. I gather that "high carbon" steel is only about 1% carbon. That is pretty low level to do the burning.
QUOTE]

Carbon steel is generally designated by the number of "points" of carbon in it. Steel with 1% carbon content would be designated as 100 points of carbon. My strikers and many knives are made from steel with 95 points of carbon. Common "welding shop" steel has only around 18 to 20 points of carbon. The old style "bailing wire", or modern reinforcing rod tie wire runs 5 points carbon - very soft and bendable/flexible.

I never looked up the specs on steel wool. If it only has 0.1% carbon content, then it would be designated as having 10 points of carbon.

Generally iron won't burn, but instead will melt. Any carbon content in it will burn if it gets hot enough, and those are the "sparks" you usually see. By sparks I mean those that "twinkle" instead of just "glow".

But to "burn" you must have a "fuel" that burns and gets consumed. Generally that "fuel" is carbon in some form. And soft iron just wouldn't have much carbon in it. Nor would quartzite. So then where is that "fuel" coming from - to give you "twinkling sparks" instead of just glowing red hot bits of iron?

I'll have to ponder this some more.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[rich59]

to "burn" you must have a "fuel" that burns and gets consumed. Generally that "fuel" is carbon in some form. And soft iron just wouldn't have much carbon in it. Nor would quartzite. So then where is that "fuel" coming from - to give you "twinkling sparks" instead of just glowing red hot bits of iron?

On the idea that the iron itself is what burns to form a bright spark - I would think that the surface area is a crucial thing here. Only the surface is in contact with air. So a large piece of iron can't burn as most of the mass is not in contact with air - only the surface is. That surface does start to burn, but it rapidly gets covered with iron oxide and that blocks further oxygen getting to the metal. But when you get down to the size of wire wool and sparks the surface area is large enough to allow it to burn.

I am not sure but I wonder if the wire wool or spark needs to melt to continue to burn.

 

[Galemys]

I am still trying to get through the whole article, the big line is fairly clear, however the details elude me.
The method was in use from about 100 till 800 AD, so the "Viking" title of this thread is indeed a bit misleading.

Some questions that have arisen while reading, meant for Mike or anyone else with a historical insight in blacksmithing:

What kind of steel could have been used in this period? The writer uses 0.5, 0.7 & 0.9% carbon steel to reproduce the method and get's sparks with it. Are those kinds of carbon steel representative of this time period?
Would those steel awls need any hardening to produce sparks?
Is there a modern equivalent of such kind of steel or can I just try any rusty nail to scrape on a piece of quartzite?

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Mike Ameling]

Steel that is primarily iron and carbon is designated by the 10xx series of numbers. 10 indicates plain Carbon steel, and the two last digits indicate Points of Carbon - in hundreths of a percent. So 0.5% would be 1050, 0.7% would be 1070, and 0.9% would be 1090. I generally use new 1095 carbon steel to make my strikers. But occasionally I use some "farm" steel - which tends to run 1080. A lot of knife makers use 1095 carbon steel to make their knives.

So the author WAS using carbon steel to do their testing.

Steel from those early time periods does vary a bunch depending upon how it was made. So each "batch" produced will have a little different amount of carbon in it. And the internal distribution of the carbon within the steel can also vary a lot. A common method of making steel was to take small chunks of wrought iron (mostly pure soft iron), pack it into a pottery crucible along with bone/leather scraps, and then "bake" it in the fire. The "carbon" from the bone/leather would then migrate into the surface of the iron - turning it into steel. If you just do this to the outside of the iron, it is also called "case-hardening". The center remains soft iron. The next step would be to forge weld those chunks together, draw/stretch them out, and weld them back together some more. This distributed the carbon in those outside layers throughout the rest of it - making the whole bar into steel. But those stated levels of carbon content could easily be reached when they were specifically making "steel".

You can get sparks without heat-treating carbon steel to a hard state, but it is harder to chip out/off little bits of that steel, and then get them hot enough for the carbon to burn. If you heat-treat them HARD, then it is much easier to chip off smaller bits and get those small bits hot enough to burn/spark. If the steel is too soft, you end up having a harder time chipping out chunks of the steel, and the chunks you do gouge out tend to be much larger. So the energy put in to chipping those bits out isn't enough to get them hot enough for the carbon to start burning.

Nails tend to be made from pretty low carbon steel - closer to 1005 or 1020. That's why they are so soft and bend over easily without breaking. But "cement nails" have a much higher carbon content. If you try to bend them, the crack/break. So they will work. They are generally machine cut/stamped and square tapered - designed to hammer into cement without just bending/smooshing over. A lot of metal engravers use them to make their little metal engraving chisels (just file/shape the ends to what they want and heat-treat).

Standard "welding shop" iron is generally around 1018 or 1020 carbon steel. It is now often designated as A36. It is made to a Minimum standard for alloy content, but can still have lots of tool steel mixed into it - being mostly re-melted scrap. A friend found a whole ball-bearing in a rod that had not gotten fully melted and blended in. It dulled his hacksaw immeadiately when he got down to it in the rod. When he "broke" the rod apart right there, it snapped apart right around that perfect sphere ball-bearing.

Other modern steel that should work and be available mostly for free would be things like garage door springs (usually 1095), lawn mower blades (either 1084 or 5160), and farm hay rake teeth (1095). Otherwise you would have to order specialty high carbon tool/spring steel.

Yes 100 to 800 A.D. is pretty early for the Northman time period. But that Byant and Mays museum book talks about the use of this fire starting method "... came into use in comparatively recent times and was never wide-spread, having never been practised outside the Scandinavian countries; where, for a few centuries, it was used very generally."

Hope this helps answer some of your questions. And your response did answer some of mine.

Thanks

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

I am still trying to get through the whole article, the big line is fairly clear, however the details elude me.
The method was in use from about 100 till 800 AD, so the "Viking" title of this thread is indeed a bit misleading.

Some questions that have arisen while reading, meant for Mike or anyone else with a historical insight in blacksmithing:

What kind of steel could have been used in this period? The writer uses 0.5, 0.7 & 0.9% carbon steel to reproduce the method and get's sparks with it. Are those kinds of carbon steel representative of this time period?
Would those steel awls need any hardening to produce sparks?
Is there a modern equivalent of such kind of steel or can I just try any rusty nail to scrape on a piece of quartzite?

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Galemys]

Thank´s for the update Mike.
Do you happen to know when the first traditional flint and steel came into practice? Was it the romans?

"... came into use in comparatively recent times and was never wide-spread, having never been practised outside the Scandinavian countries; where, for a few centuries, it was used very generally."

The earliest examples of those quartzite stones were found in Poland and the Baltic states so this region is probably where it started from before it spread out to Scandinavia. The first specimens are roundish, later in time oblong pointed stones where more ´in fashion´.

Tom

 

[Mike Ameling]

Flint strikers, or fire steels, have been around as long as man has been working iron.

The earliest positively dated/identified fire steel that I have heard about came from an Afgan tomb dated to the 5th century B.C. It was dated based on other objects and coins in the tomb. But it is also a fairly fancy one - with a cast bronze handle in the shape of a lion, with a straight steel bar striker across the bottom.

I have also heard of several very early B.C. Roman strikers. The earliest being just a straight steel rod. The "wear patterns" on the sides showed that it had been used as a fire striker instead of just being an awl.

After that you start to get into the "art" and preferences of personal style/shape on flint strikers. Some areas/cultures/time periods had their preferences. And they all changed over the years.

But THE MOST COMMON shape/style of flint striker over all the ages they were used is that simple C shape. It shows up in all the time periods and geographical areas - starting with those very early Roman times B.C.

Such a simple little tool of everyday life, and with such a long history of use. It's kind of surprising there isn't more info available out there. But then, it doesn't have the glamor and "appeal" that weapons do throughout history.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[Tadpole]

If one uses a battery on steel wool you can see that the steel does indeed burn. This steel is "low carbon" and only has 0.1% carbon in it. I gather that "high carbon" steel is only about 1% carbon. That is pretty low level to do the burning.

And apparently if you start wire wool glowing and put into oxygen then it "really" burns.

ferrtic wire wool has not only the low carbon carbon content, somewhere between 0.08% to 0.1% it also is coated in oil, for two reasons to stop it rusting, and oil is used in the manufacturing process to stop it catching fire due to the as it is made.

 

[Galemys]

First try-out yesterday.
I had found a flattish quartz-like river cobble near the parking lot of an office and a sturdy (and rusty) awl at home, I have no idea what kind of steel it is. I first pecked a line in the cobble, then scraped and sawed it to make a very shallow groove. Then I tried scraping and applying lots of pressure at the same time. Big single sparks did fly out every second or third strike. They are quite hard to direct to the tinder though, I didn´t manage to catch one on my charcloth, held underneath and in line with the groove. A problem that occurred was that my awl´s ´strike-through´ was going straight through the charcloth, making it fly all around the place. The iron leaves a lot of ´smear´ in the groove that has to be removed every now and then for it inhibits good contact with the quartzite.

Must practice some more.

Cheers,

Tom