Bee,

Here's the correct technique:

1. Prepare your tinder bundle and fire lay first. The tinder bundle will include fatwood shavings, vaseline impregated cotton balls, SparkLight TinderQuik, Coghlan's tinder, or natural materials like dry milkweed down, cattail down, birchbark, and/or cedar shavings - something that will readily accept a spark.

2. Hold your striker (misnomer - should be called a scraper)near the tinder with the sparking rod very close to the tinder.

3. Pull the sparking rod (leaving the scraper stationary) in a scraping fashion back toward yourself. Doing so keeps the sparks "aimed" at the tinder and keeps the shower of spark on target.



4. Properly prepared tinder will ignite rapidly.

M