Thank you, you made my day!You made a believer out of me Keith. My belt pouch tinder box has charred punkwood in it. I can even throw a spark downward onto it and get a viable ember. Thanks!
I wonder what the Scouts are using these days Bill. That steel of mine is an original 18th century steel forged from an old metal file. The file teeth marks can still be seen on it.Keith, I really like your fire and steel kit as well. If I can get my forge running, I'll forge a steel. I haven't used flint and steel to start a fire since Boys Scouts back in the 1960s.
I did not know that Mike had gone under, very sorry to hear that.Keith, I am sorry to say we often cheated 50 years ago and scraped our sparks into wads of 0000 steel wool if we couldn't get regular char/punk/lint to catch a spark. The standard Scout contest was to start a fire and get it going well enough to burn a string tied above the kindling.
We had a wonderful member here who passed a few years ago -- Mike Ameling -- and he was a genius with hot metal. He made some wonderful strikers in patterns going back to the Romans. I keep some old Nicholson files in my stash and will start with one of those for the carbon.
Keith,I wonder what the Scouts are using these days Bill. That steel of mine is an original 18th century steel forged from an old metal file. The file teeth marks can still be seen on it.
Regards, Keith.
When I was a primitive skills instructor many years ago, I had an annual contract to teach the Scouts at Lynchwood Scout camp near Tamworth NSW. The first time I went there arriving at night for a start the next day, my 7 year old son & I got to witness the Scouts & the Scout Masters trying to light their camp fires with matches & lighters. It was raining, & no one in the whole camp could get a fire going. My son took his flint & steel kit & lit all their fires, some of which used fire from other fires. That was a long time ago, so these skills have been dieing out for a long time now.Keith,
They are primarily using Ferro-rods and lighters. The Scout Flint & Steel set I had years ago contained a soft steel bar and a chunk of quartz - never did work. Perhaps today, I could coax a spark from the kit. My friend always has plenty of Bright-ovals and other strikers with flint pieces for sale to the boys, so there are a few around here with quality equipment. That said, fire-lighting/building is a dying art. The preferred method seems to be Diesel oil-impregnated wood chips and a road flare....
Nice one Spence! Good image, thanks for sharing.Here are a couple of very early original steels. The lower one is what I use in my fire kit.
View attachment 1541
Spence
Jackly,View attachment 1544 View attachment 1543 Here's a couple of original tinder boxes and strikers. The one on the left was found in Wisconsin by Lake Superior and the one on right was found in Virginia. Both had the steels still with them. The boxes are just about identical.
Jerry
No they are rusty iron.They are brass?
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