Well as the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words" so hopefully that means a video is worth at least two thousand. At any rate here are some video clips of me lighting various tinders this afternoon. I tried to keep the file sizes as small as possible while still getting high enough resolution for you to zoom in and get a decent look as what going on. Sorry for the shakey camera. I was holding the camera in one hand and flicking the sparklite with the other. Not an easy task. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

SparkLite Tinder
Cotton Ball
Q-Tip
Toilet Paper
Paper Towel
T-Shirt

All-in-all I really like the Spark Lite. I prefer a knife and a ferrocerium rod but not if I only have one hand. I have practices using a knife and ferro rod one-handed. It can be done but not easily. That a topic for another thread though. Now if only the Spark Lite were made of aircraft aluminum instead of plastic. Ah that would be great! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Brian - er, did you forget to upload the files? Links don't work and the files don't show up in your directory...

Tom

Sorry, Geocities and I had a little disagreement. Apparently they do take that TOS stuff seriously <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> so I had to whip up a quick webserver on a machine here at home to host the files temporarily until I find a permanant home for them. The links should work now.

Sounds like you've got a good idea for a new product there, while you're at it, put a threaded cap on it so the flint can be replaced, and let me know when they're in production, if they're not TOO expensive, you've already got your first customer <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />.

Troy

Great demonstrations!

Guess I better head out to the patent office. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Thanks

Thanks, your videos helped a lot. I was looking really closely at the sparks in your sparkslitetinder.wmv & qtip.wmv video and in slow motion playback I noticed your able to get a much bigger and stronger spark. I'm thinking it must be my SparkLite's flint. Either it got chipped and now it's to small or it was just a bad batch. I'll just have to order a new one, at least they're pretty cheap.

I know fluffing couldn't really be the problem because I been fluffing all the ends with a needle. The only time I can get it to light is when I'm doing rapid sparking.

On a more positive and side note. In my last post I said I was going to the desert to check out some volcanos. I did and sure enough my Doug Ritter Pocket Survival Pak saved the day. My college classmates were climbing into some caves and one of my female friends slipped on a rock and broke her finger and took some nasty cuts on her hands. I was able to use the pencil and duct tape to make a splint and stop the bleeding with some cotton clothes I had put in as extra flint. Wasn't a survival situation but it helped none the less. What really got me mad though was no one else had any medical supplies at all - professor included! The only First Aid supplies was on the bus which was located miles away. I will say this experence helped a great deal. I was so focused on fire making that I almost removed some of the material in the pack thinking I didn't need them. If it wasn't for last night I might have never realised until it was to late, just how important simple things like duct tape can be.

Now I'm just wondering where can I find replacment rolls of duct tape as small as the one supplied in Ritter's kit.

I make my own by rolling it around a blunted toothpick or even just rolling it around itself. I find that this way I can actually get a little more duct tape in the same amount of space. Just be sure you get good duct tape like what Doug puts in his kit rather than the crappy consumer grade stuff that is often found in grocery stores and drug stores. Any hardware store or home depot type store will have the good stuff.

On a side note, that's really funny that your pencil saved the day because there has been much debate over the usfulness of such a small pencil in past threads on this board. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Also, glad the videos helped!!!! I was worried that they would be too blurry cause it was hard to hold the camera still while working the SparkLite in the other hand. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Dont worry about needing a new SparkLite. Look on the bright side. When you buy a replacement you'll get 8 more pieces of tinder to play with without having to use up the 4 or so pieces that you keep in your kit for emergencies. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />