Does this count?

I was in a campground a few weeks ago and wanted to practice my firebuilding skills. Problem was, all the logs that were available were huge - about 12" diameter or more - and not split. I had no axe, nor a hatchet, and I had stupidly left my Swedish Erikssen knife at home. The largest knife I had was a cheap "lockback" with a 3" blade that I had picked up almost as a joke at one of those Dollar stores (for $2 Canadian). I found that I was able to split off quite a bit of kindling from the edge of one of the large logs using the cheapo knife to split off thin wedges, which I then pounded into cracks made by the knife, to split off larger wedges, etc. I did not get a sustainable fire going, but that's because my fire-building technique is horrible - I suspect if I had worked at it for a few more hours, I would have gotten enough kindling to make the fire go (and I would have kept myself plenty warm doing it <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ). It was hard work, but it's do-able.

Because the blade was so short, at several points I resorted to pounding it in point first, rather than blade first. The cheap "locking" mechanism wasn't strong enough to deal with this and tended to unlock without much warning. If you're ever forced to (ab)use a lockback in this fashion, even a high quality one, I recommend that you keep the blade pointed away from you, and hold the knife in such a way that your fingers are clear of the closing mechanism (e.g. holding it between thumb and forefinger, with all five fingers straight).

To start the fire, I used a 99 cent disposable lighter (that was half empty) and some birch bark that I had scavenged earlier in the day. <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />