I am the leader of a Boy Scout troop. We are working on the wilderness survival merit badge. I was thinking it would be fun to let the Scouts make there own magnesium fire starters. Does anyone know where you can buy the magnesium rod and the synthetic flint used in these? Also would this be safe to do? I was thinking of adding a hard wood handle to it. Thanks

grom,

Our scout shop used to carry them and they may still do so. REI has them. Some sporting goods have them. I suspect Campmor may also sell them. Anyway, I have been very happy with the BSA Hot Spark to initiate the spark. Various other synthetic flints such as the Swedish Fire Steel are also excellent. The latter are sold occasionally by Bagheera of this forum as a fund-raiser for his Dutch scout troop. You could send him a PM so see if he is still selling them. I also like cotton balls impregnated with petroleum jelly as tinder. Various commercially prepared tinders are also available. Magnesium bars can be more troublesome to use.

I don't think I see any downside in introducing the scouts to such effective ways to starting fires. Just make sure that the time, place, and materials and persons present are appropriate for the safe making of a fire. The use of synthetic flints is a reliable approach for starting fires which scouts and all responsible persons should know. Coincidentally my son just completed the Wilderness Survival merit badge at long term camp last week. Unfortunately he has hidden the pamphlet in some place secure from his father's borrowing of it.

Good luck,

John

John thanks for the info, I have some of the commercial models I was thinking it would be fun and educational to make their own. I was wondering how safe the magnesium is to work with IE cutting the rod to length.

By the way, I have been reading the posts on this site for several months and have learned a great deal. Thanks to all!

Generally it is save to work with magnesium. The rod can not be ignited with means a boy scout would have. The shavings however are easily ignited. It would be a good idea to enforce a rule against sparks and open fire until the cleaning is done. I´d make the kids collect the shavings and try the firestarting with them.

you may look also here.. http://www.lme.co.uk/

<img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Be careful with magnesium chips and shavings: they ingnite readily, also when wet.

A neat trick was to place a handfull of magnesium chips into a fire to make pictures of folk around that fire. Magnesium burns brightly like a flash, just longer.

Still, take care with this,OK?

Good luck on finding the flint rods - if you don't want them already attached to something. I've been trying to locate a source for small quantities of the rods for a couple of weeks now. The couple of companies that I've talked to only sell in more bulk than I can afford. <img src="images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Doug listed a couple of possible sources for the flint rods in an old post that I found here in the forum. I don't know if they still sell them.

Charles Houtchens, 915 NE 65th Street, Vancouver, WA 98665, (360) 695-8561

dsparky@att.com

and,

Linda Potter (541)345-3400

If you find another, please let me know.

BTW - Been lurking on the group for a while now and just wanted to say that this forum is a great resource and a great online community. Thanks to all for sharing your knowledge and experiences.

[color:"blue"] Steve [/color]

If you know any concrete finisher's,old magnesium floats work well.

Thanks for all of the info I will let you know if I have any luck

If you cut magnesium, be very careful with the shavings. If you decide to cut it, you should do so outside. If someone accidently ignites the magnesium, water or a standard fire extinguisher will not work to put it out. Actually, magnesium burns hot enough to split the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water, resulting in a real interesting situation. To put it out requires a class "D" fire extinguisher using special chemicals. You can extinguish fires of limited size with DRY sand. It should be safe enough if done outside, so long as your scouts don't get any on their clothes.

Hi Grom, the only thing I can say about magnesium fire starters is fun, fun, fun. As a kid and scout, my father used to make these and let the troop use them in his presence, but he never would let me know how to make them, let alone use them on our own. Guess that sums up his caution.

Anyway, as I was reading your post, I was wondering if scouts today use this method for fire starting which we teach and use at our wilderness school.

It's the old char cloth, spark rock, knife for steel, and tinder nest technique. Nothing new, but wondering if it is used or taught to scouts these days?

1. 100% cotton material for char cloth. We find the red mechanic towels the best.
2. Altoids mint tin box for making char cloth.
3. Quarts rock (from the ground) for spark rock.
4. Sheath knife for steel to strike on.
5. Dried grass, hemlock, birch bark, grape vine, etc, tinder nest (Eastern materials).

This method does require a previous fire to prepare the char cloth (the idea is to make a new batch of char cloth each time you have a fire), used to catch a spark onto, then added to the tinder nest. For making the char cloth in the altoids tin box, you need to have two cuts in the top of the tin lid for air. Pack two swaths, accordian style, of the red cloth, into the tin, and toss into a fire. Once the cloth catches fire it will flame through the cuts in the top of the lid. When the flames go out (they will) in the tin, pull the tin out of the fire, and bury it with dirt in a small hole to suffocate the cloth. This cloth then comes out of the tin totally black. This is your char cloth.

Use the char cloth to catch a spark from your spark rock and steel knife (with the cloth laying at the base of the knife), by striking rock to knife, and put the lit cloth into your tinder bundle.

Once you have a sparked char cloth in the nest, the rest is owed to the three principles of fire; fuel, 02, and heat; blow into the tinder nest, while holding the bundle up over your head, so as the wind works with you. Blow and squeeze the the bundle tight, cupping it with your hands, so as to keep the heat in the bundle, until it flames. You'll know it's about to flame when the heavy, milky, smoke turns a bit yello.

Once the tinder nest flames, turn it upside down and set it on your stick triangle at the bottom of your pit (of course you would have previously prepared your fire pit, and stick triangle, to set your tinder nest onto, with five different sized piles of tinder/wood/fuel materials (#1's, 2's, 3's 4's, and 5's. etc), ready to stack into a tipi or cabin style fire set, and blow, blow, blow....

Whalla, fire by our own hands. Wow, we all love this stuff, and so do the students.

As for the difference between your magnesium and this technique, there is no comparison. As a kid, or adult, I'll take the magnesium any day. To bad they wont let us do that at school.

Best of luck making your starters. Be safe, and keep on keeping the kids excited about learning.

Yours truely

Headbone <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Flint: I get smallish flint rods (about 1/8 inch diameter by 2 inches in length) from Ron Hood's site. They seem fine to me. I put them in each wooden match container where they fit just fine. A little cotton ball on top acts as backup tinder and keeps the matches from rattling. The URL is:

http://www.survival.com/

Bear

I have read about the char cloth and its use in some old books and on the internet. Have not tried it yet. We are going to build a bow and drill and a fire plow and try the friction methods. I will let you know how it goes.