SgtMike provided a wonderful description to help answer the question - the right materials, equipment and technique all add up to the successful beginning to a roaring fire. I would only have a couple of minor adds. Keep in mind it's the "fuzzy edges" of your tinder that enables it to easily catch, such as the fuzzyness of the obvious cotton ball or dryer lint. A flat leaf, even though bone dry, requires much effort while a pile of crumbled up dead leaves requires less do to all those little edges available to catch the spark. A small pile of pitchwood shavings will catch pretty good, too, but not quite as quickly as the fuzzy edged stuff. Another trick I discovered is to make the strike with the edge of the (dry) cotton ball between the striker and the rod. This way you're not "throwing" the sparks at the tinder, you're "throwing" flaming tinder at more tinder. No aiming required to get that cotton ball going and now you can add the other more flammable tinder to it to really get things started. Just my 2 cents.

SgtMike88Ret has described an excellent technique.
My only suggestion to this is try different angles while holding the striker to see which works best.
With some of the fire steels, they get a blue ish oxidised coating over the surface, and some need a couple of scrapes to get though this coating before they start sparking well.
These fire steels are an alloy manufactured to by softer than the steel used as the striker, so the fire steel wares away creating the sparks. The alloy is also designed to give off very hot sparks. If the striker is to soft, the edge rounds off and the sparks die off. They prefer a sharp edge to work against. Different brands of fire steels have a varying degree of hardness and temperature of sparks.
I make sure that my knifes have an edge on the back of the blade by filing a section so they work with my fire steels. I even filed an edge into my Swiss Tool bottle opener as well because Victorinox round all of their edges too much.
After filing they get a quick test, then left so I dont ware the edge.
I've been told that glass can also be used as the striker but I'm not in any hurry to test it.

When showing a friend that didnt beleive they could make a fire, I used a sheet of paper placed flat on the ground and the shower of sparks ignited it 2nd scrape. Then came the comment "oh, I got to get me one of those"

Another bit of possible useless info: You can start a fire with steel and flint rock. It is harder to do because it works by the flint being harder than the steel, so the steel wares away. If you try this you will find that it needs to much effort to be reliable.

Some handy, never fail strikers that I use routinely:

1. Victorinox Pioneer, Farmer, and Soldier awl blades
2. Victorinox Saw Blade SPINE
3. Hacksaw Blade SPINE
4. Jigsaw Blade SPINE
5. Opinel Blade SPINE
6. Al Mar S2K SPINE
7. Carbon Steel Erikksson Mora 1260 with SPINE sharpened like an ice skate

M

I noticed pretty much the same thing with my scraper. While I'll probably wind up replacing it with a piece of hacksaw blade eventually, as a quick fix I put a much sharper edge on one side of the scraper by simply laying it on the belt sander for a few seconds. This led to greatly improved performance of the striker. Don't let this observation turn you off of the Magfire; it's an excellent product. I'm looking forward to getting the big ones in. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

In addition to the other striker options listed here, utility knife blades also work. The spine is hard and sharp enough to scrape bountiful sparks, and the sharp side doubles as a backup sharps for shaving tinder or what-have-you. I've used this set-up many many times without cutting myself, but the squeamish or clumsy might want to cover the sharp edge with a piece of tape or use gloves.

It does require a bit of pressure to get a spark. I showed my Dad one of my new Magfires and (even though he should know better) he proceeded to scrape away with very little pressure and got no results. The goal is to actually remove a bit of material from the steel, so the edge of the scraper needs to "bite" into the surface a little.

I have recently been using the back side of a Fallkniven F1 and it has worked very well. Lit up cedar bark on the second strike on my most recent attempt and I'm no Firesteel expert either...trust me. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> The F1 has a nice sharp 90* angle on the back so I asume any blade with the same characteristic would perform similarly.

Brian,

Thanks for the reminder - my U2's spine makes a great scraper, too...

M

> 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)

<img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> With some folding knifes, such as Dougs RSK, you can use the spine while the knife is closed. Much safer.

I painted mine with clear fingernail polish to protect it from dings and corrosive environments but there must be other (better?) methods out there.

I'm currently experimenting with one such idea. Last April, I coated a ferro rod with mineral oil and slipped it into a piece of tubing. It's been with me on several week long outings and has been exposed to salt water spray. So far, there's no damage visible, but I haven't taken the rod completely out of the tubing. In contrast, the BSA HotSpark carried (simultaneously) without any protection is showing some fairly severe pitting - still works, though...

M

I just use some heat shrink tube over them both.
Most of the time I dont carry the striker. I use my knife or multi tool as the striker.