where can I buy flint (ie. the actual rock). I want sharp shards to use with flint/steel/char cloth.

thanks.

Flint is often sold through 'sutlers' in the blackpowder-reenactor hobby. If you go to www.ragweedforge.com and check out Ragnar's bookmarks, there will be several.
The so called 'primative movement' in which people duplicate older skills various native peoples abandoned ASAP for our more modern methods is another source.Try Wildderness Way, which I believe is online.
Finallly, you could visit Grime's Graves in England, a neolithic flint mining site, stip naked and hack away at solid chalk with dear antler picks to find the nodules.

I know that it is available here too, and Tom, the owner of Midwest Native Skills is a great guy to do business with.

http://www.survivalschool.com/products/fire_starting/Flint_Page.htm

thanks. I'll look into these resources. I apreciate it.

When it gets warm, go to your local creek and look for some chert or chalcedony (other forms of sedimentary silica like flint). I can find it almost anywhere in the Midwest. It is a common surface rock in most of the US. I'm not sure about where you live, but it is worth a look.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h...%3Doff%26sa%3DG

Both chert and chalcedony are hard enough to liberate a spark from a piece of iron. Remember, it isn't the rock that sparks, it is the tiny chunk of iron scraped off the iron striker by friction that burns. The rock just has to be hard enough to scrape an iron spec free from the iron striker. Flint is hard enough, but there are other rocks that will do the job too, albeit with varying degrees of sufficiency.

BTW, flint is a type of chert.

I agree with GarlyDog.

I bought flint strikers used for flintlock muzzleloaders at a gun shop. I do not hve flint in my local area and limited chert but I have used the abundant quartz to make a spark successfully.

Mike