I kinda wondered where the hollow compartment on your person was, but on second ponder.....I don't really want to know.

Every one: E.D.C.or regular carry survival kits should ALWAYS be transfered to a metal container. Seal it with duct tape or high quality electricians tape. Anything that is carried in an "envelope", like the RSK will develope problems with its seal. That's inherent and unavoidable.

If true and if this condition is a contributor to early component demise, then one would have hoped that AMK would have done a better job of evaluating the long term effects of using this type of packaging on the contents inside under real world conditions.

At this point, however, I am not convinced that the packaging is a problem, either with or without added desiccant, without learning more about the inherent quality, reliability, and life expectancy of the Spark-Lite.

I wonder if the same issue might affect my Light My Fire Swedish firesteel? Should it be "protected" somehow when not in use?

Though it seems this thread has ended up as a discussion of corrosion on ferrocium firestarters, and even though I am anticipating those replies, I would, however, like to remention the mirror issue before it gets "lost." It sounds like problems with the sparklite are more prevalent than the black streaks on the RescueFlash (from the PSP) mirror. Is there truth to that, or have more than the 2 people had black streaks? I place a high level of personal importance on the mirror issue because I carry the RescueFlash mirror as part of my "duty" gear afloat, and I just want to be sure that the gear will work when I need it to. The sea air has high humidity and I hope that it will not damage the tools I may need to survive, the mirror and ferro rod included.

Norad,
Be carefull cutting or drilling into the sparklite.
Look at the bottom and you will see a round plug that extends inside the handle. This holds the flint in. Cutting or drilling may cause this to fail.

I will email Oak @ 4Seasons Regarding the SPARKLITE issue. Oak always takes care of any problems so please be patient. Metal matches will corrode once the protective outer finish is abraded. A thin coat of laquer paint, ie fingernail polish will seal your matches. It will have to be scraped off in use.

the light my fire rods, have the same problem. It just takes a lot longer before i becomes usless. You can protect it with a coat of nail polish, vanish, wipe of oil, etc.

Most importent, keep it dry.

To get it to fit inside the handle I had to cut past the plug. I replaced it with a short #4 screw. it's pretty solid so I'm not too concerned with that. Since I live in a desert I'm really not too worried about moisture degrading the flint either. It just sounds like a good idea to check every once in a while.

I just pulled my Sparklite out of my Becker handle and it works fine. I wonder if the problem may be that some Sparklites are not mil-spec? I got mine from Countycomm. Is there more than one manufacturer?

Just as an aside when taking off the handle for my Crewman I discovered that when I replaced the three allan head screws with slot heads, I stupidly and inexplicably left one allan head in place! That means that in an emergency I would not have been able to access the stuff in my handle as I no longer carry an allan wrench. Kinda embarrassing. <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> Needless to say, it pays to periodically check your gear!