Hi!

I put my hands on a Primus Firesteel. It's a little metal alloy rod attached to a small cord along with a striking plate. I am able to strike the rod and generate a spark, but how am I supposed to light up tinder with this?

I saw on some websites that some fire steels require you to strike the thing and produce some tiny bits of metal that you light up with a spark afterwards.

Can someone clear things up for me a bit? <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

The sparks will light most tinder (lint, fluffed up cotton soaked in vasoline, fluffed up tinder quik, and natural tinder). You may have to get it close and spark it several times quickly to light it. Sparks alone don't seem very useful at first, but it's pretty ruggid and it sure beats rubbing sticks together <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />



Those are magnesium firestarters, which is basically a sparking rod like you've got, but it's attached to a block of magnesium. The magnesium acts as the tinder- you scrape off a small pile of magnesium, then use the sparking rod to light it.

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

Be aware, too, that not all scrapers are created equal. Some produce more/larger sparks.

Yours appears to come with a smooth-edged scraping tool, whereas many come with a similarly-sized length of hacksaw blade, which produces better results for me (but it tends to "chew up" the rod). Knife blade will work, but you can imagine what it can do to the blade edge (I avoid). Using sharp edge of rock as scraper can produce useable sparks in a pinch.

The scraper-to-rod angle, and scraper-to-rod pressure also impact results.

Practice, practice, practice. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Nice picture!!

Yea Bee the above technique works great just practice it some to get good at it. A small piece of fluffed cotton with Vaseline the size if your fingernail is plenty to practice with. I’ve even been known (your on your own here) to practice with very small pieces on the bottom of a cookie sheet or an iron skillet to keep it from burning things that should not get burned.
Oh and I made what I think is a better scraper out of an old sawsall blade I like the way it sparks better than the factory one.
Anyway have some fun with it and get comfortable with it, because it is a dependable method of making fire.

I was playing with my new MagFire steels last night. Noticed something.

The freakin' scraper stopped working! It worked for a few dozen scrapes, then the performance fell off, then I couldn't strike a spark. Moved to a clean / new spot on the scraper, started working again, but only for a short time. Finally rendered the entire scraper non-functional just by using up all the edge. Dunno what happened. I tried wiping it off, but it didn't help.

Went inside, got an old knife. Whoa. There we go. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> But you're right... I wouldn't want to do this a lot... hard on the blade.

Try making a scraper out of an old saw blade (hacksaw, sawsall, etc.). I snapped mine to length drilled a hole in the end and then ground it to the shape I wanted. I also ground the teeth off and rounded the edges, which has so far allowed me to fly with it. Much superior to the cheap scraper that they come with.
But better to find out now than when your teeth are banging together like castanets. <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

So you can fly with it? Hmmmm. <wheels turn>

Not that you could do it in a hurry, but it appeals to me from a worst case scenario point of view. Assuming you could also take a diamond coated knife sharpener on board, this would make a fair improvised blade, wouldn't it? (I say diamond, because the "coarse" grades walk through steel scary fast).

If you're stuck in the wild and you need some awesome tinder try some milkweed down. That stuff is verging on explosive.

In fact, some wild plants ARE explosive. For example the pollen of 'wolf's paw club moss' has been used in flashbulbs. I digress, milkweed down is one of the FEW wild tinders that will even start from the FEEBLE spark of an empty bic lighter.

-Nim

If the spine of the blade is a hard, 90 degree angle, use the back edge of the knife. (assuming it is either a fixed blade or a good lock blade)

A 6" steel ruler like you can find at the hardware will also work.