Hi Grom, the only thing I can say about magnesium fire starters is fun, fun, fun. As a kid and scout, my father used to make these and let the troop use them in his presence, but he never would let me know how to make them, let alone use them on our own. Guess that sums up his caution.
Anyway, as I was reading your post, I was wondering if scouts today use this method for fire starting which we teach and use at our wilderness school.
It's the old char cloth, spark rock, knife for steel, and tinder nest technique. Nothing new, but wondering if it is used or taught to scouts these days?
1. 100% cotton material for char cloth. We find the red mechanic towels the best.
2. Altoids mint tin box for making char cloth.
3. Quarts rock (from the ground) for spark rock.
4. Sheath knife for steel to strike on.
5. Dried grass, hemlock, birch bark, grape vine, etc, tinder nest (Eastern materials).
This method does require a previous fire to prepare the char cloth (the idea is to make a new batch of char cloth each time you have a fire), used to catch a spark onto, then added to the tinder nest. For making the char cloth in the altoids tin box, you need to have two cuts in the top of the tin lid for air. Pack two swaths, accordian style, of the red cloth, into the tin, and toss into a fire. Once the cloth catches fire it will flame through the cuts in the top of the lid. When the flames go out (they will) in the tin, pull the tin out of the fire, and bury it with dirt in a small hole to suffocate the cloth. This cloth then comes out of the tin totally black. This is your char cloth.
Use the char cloth to catch a spark from your spark rock and steel knife (with the cloth laying at the base of the knife), by striking rock to knife, and put the lit cloth into your tinder bundle.
Once you have a sparked char cloth in the nest, the rest is owed to the three principles of fire; fuel, 02, and heat; blow into the tinder nest, while holding the bundle up over your head, so as the wind works with you. Blow and squeeze the the bundle tight, cupping it with your hands, so as to keep the heat in the bundle, until it flames. You'll know it's about to flame when the heavy, milky, smoke turns a bit yello.
Once the tinder nest flames, turn it upside down and set it on your stick triangle at the bottom of your pit (of course you would have previously prepared your fire pit, and stick triangle, to set your tinder nest onto, with five different sized piles of tinder/wood/fuel materials (#1's, 2's, 3's 4's, and 5's. etc), ready to stack into a tipi or cabin style fire set, and blow, blow, blow....
Whalla, fire by our own hands. Wow, we all love this stuff, and so do the students.
As for the difference between your magnesium and this technique, there is no comparison. As a kid, or adult, I'll take the magnesium any day. To bad they wont let us do that at school.
Best of luck making your starters. Be safe, and keep on keeping the kids excited about learning.
Yours truely
Headbone <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
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