What makes a good fire striker for fire steel?

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Adze

Native
Oct 9, 2009
1,874
0
Cumbria
www.adamhughes.net
Three reasons: (all my opinion of course)

1.) It keeps your hand further from the sparks and from the tinder bundle - holding the blade away from you and locked open gives you a firmer grip than holding the handle with the knife closed. You're just less likely to burn yourself - a far more likely event than cutting yourself, provided you follow basic knife safety, when firestarting.

2.) The back of the blade is a very square edge and I've cut myself with it before now. Granted the cutting edge of the blade is sharper and more capable of cutting you than the back edge, but I prefer a firmer grip on a blunt handle to an infirm grip on a sharp edge.

3.) As Ged says... the sparks are seriously hot! If they're hot enough to micro pit a carbon steel blade, they're definitely hot enough to macro pit a beech handle.

The long and the short is that I'm happy to strike sparks with my Opinel because it cost about £8 and I generally use it for food prep and occasional firestarting instead of tasks which would require 100% integrity of the steel in the blade. I also genuinely find it safer for me to use striking sparks with the blade open and used carefully, than with the blade closed and with a more precarious grip.

Cheers!
 

Ogri the trog

Mod
Mod
Apr 29, 2005
7,182
71
60
Mid Wales UK
Hi Dave,
Great to see you here. Let us know how you are getting on with your replacement striker and if there are still problems, I'll come over to give you a few tips - maybe do an evening with the troop!

ATB

Pete "Ogri the trog" Williams
 
Jul 13, 2012
30
1
Abermule
Hi Pete, seems like i came to the right place to get some great answers, ill try some of these great ideas.

We will have to another meet soon, i annealed a file in preparation to make a knife so will let you know how that turns out,

regards

Dave
 

tinderbox

Forager
Feb 22, 2007
195
1
60
East Lothian
Three reasons: (all my opinion of course)

All that makes sense, I never thought of the knife being to small. I use No. 9 Opinels, and with medium size hands the grip is fine, but with a seven or bigger hands you're right it would be tricky. The handle does get scorched, but as you say they're cheap enough to abuse. In general though I'm with Ged in that I prefer to use a scraper.

Thanks for the answer, thinking through what you said I realised that I almost always use a four inch blade, (give or take half an inch), kitchen, carving, dining, you name it. If it was legal my EDC would be a trapper with a blade about that size.

Cheers.
 
Jul 13, 2012
30
1
Abermule
I bought myself one of these from Shark Designs and I'm a happy man :)

http://www.sharkdesigns.co.uk/pictures/fire/pyroflint/500_pyroflint_super_striker.jpg

Seems to work so well and with little effort, also tried the bit of hack saw blade again with a little more pressure and that works better, I don't think I quite understood that you've got to shave parts of the steel of to make the sparks but it's all good now....

Probaly buy myself a few more to keep in the kit bag...

Regards

Dave.
 

John Fenna

Lifetime Member & Maker
Oct 7, 2006
23,109
2,843
66
Pembrokeshire
All you ned is a sharp edge - even the edge of a coin works!
A member of a year 6 group I was working with used the edge of a 50p coin to good effect on a standard LMF Army model :)
 

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