I just went on "test" survival camping trip (2 day, 1 night). I had the bare equipment. Major stuff included:

REI Lookout Pack
Doug Ritter/Adventure Medical Survival Kit
Plexiglas Fire Piston
Brigade Quartermaster IMPS net (hammock)
North Face Rock 22 tent

The main point of this trip was fire starting, I had about 5 different methods available that I brought along to try out and test.

I'll start with the hardest method and finish up with the easiest.

First, I tried a magnesium fire starter. You know, the type where you shave the magnesium and then use the spark insert to light the pile of shavings. This was really the hardest and most time consuming. Mind you, the weather was great, however hot but no wind or rain. I couldn't imagine trying to use this method with wind or freezing cold hands. I had ideal conditions and it was still hard. The hardest part was making the shaving pile. I first just started shaving them onto a foliage-clear dirt area I made. The shavings went everywhere into nooks and crannies into the dirt. Then the magnesium block just stopped producing shavings lol. I had a nice sharp Kershaw knife. I tried using my buddies knife with serrations but that didnt do as well either. Finally after about 30-45 mins of try to shave, collect, and pile up the shavings i had enough to light. This is also taking place in North Carolina woods. I sparked it a few times in the air to make sure i could get a decent spark. Then aimed it at the magnesium shavings and sparked it. Two things happened: the spark insert decided to not spark as well and the shavings went everywhere because I shaved too hard and my knife hit the pile. You can't shave with a lesser stroke than I gave to get good sparks. So I sighed, got the shavings back together with my tender by it. I shot sparks all over the shavings but they didnt light...I tried this for about 10 more mins before they flared up. My tender caught by the grace of God. (I didn't see this happening if there was wind or dampness). And after an hour+, I had a fire. This was very time and energy consuming, also with luck involved. I don't recommend this method at all. But the magnesium starter is better than nothing at all.

Next, the fire piston. It's a device that uses air compression to heat up a small bit of tender in the device enough to form a small coal. The trick is getting the coal into something that will burn. I made a bird's nest of pine needles and bits of leaves to dump the coal in. It's a tiny coal this thing produces. The plus side with the fire piston is as long as you have tender around you, you can use it. The fire piston never runs out. Again, I suggest you google the term to learn all about it. This wasn't a bad method but still hard. It takes a while ( plus blowing ) to get a flame but it'll work. Calming down, and using patience will get you a fire. Prepare what you'll dump the coal in before you start slamming the fire piston. It will 99% of the time produce a coal on the first attempt. After that, it's up to you. I give it a 6.5 out of 10 for ease. A 9.5 for reliability.

Next I tried the Spark-Lite. I have never even attempted to use this method before. Other than flicking the spark wheel a few times to make sure it sparked, I've never used this before. I followed the instructions supplied with the Doug Ritter kit. It suggested fraying the cotton peice a bit then flicking the sparks into the fray. So I make a A-Frame fire (I dont know how many people are familier with this setup). A nice, dry dead tree was right near by to supply the wood I used in all my experiments. It was perfect for a fire. Anyway, I mushed up the wood into sawdust, Added a few small dry "snappy" sticks to the sawdust pile and built an A shape around the pile. The triangle of the A is where the kindling goes for those not familier. The open end of the A goes downhill or towards the wind. The "cross" stick of the A sits on the two that form the upside-down V to allow air to pass underneath. There is your A-Frame fire description. Anyway, I had this setup all ready to go. I have my frayed wax-impregnated cotton ready to go and my spark-lite in hand. I hold the cotton near the spark-lite and give it a flick. It ignites on the first flash. The cotton doesn't all go up at once. Instead it has a nice, hot glow. It's slow burning too, so it allows me to place the cotton where I want to. It goes under the "cross" stick and into the tender. That catches easily like I predicted and from there on it just gets better.

I was VERY impressed with the spark-lite system. So easy. I could see this working in wind and rain. The only downside is the cotton tabs. There's not an endless supply of them in the woods. So camping, go with a lighter. Survival, go with the spark-lite.

Caleb,

Excellent, you experimented and found the pros and cons of different systems and how they work for you. One thing to try with the magnesium fire starter is if you have a file on your multi-tool, is to make a pile of magnesium fillings instead of shavings with a knife. The other “hint” would be to keep your knife close to the pile and keeping it still, move the sparker up the knife. That way there is less chance of disrupting your pile of shavings/fillings.

Good Job-

Pete

Caleb,

Some of us pyromaniacs like to take a large ferro rod, like the the MagFire Pro, and look for natural tinder that we can light with it. It is the sparker rod part, not the Magnesium. My favorite is a pile of thin wood curls from whittling a piece of pine.

It sounds like the fire tabs where the real winner here. Did you try the other
sparkers with the tabs?

I've been emailing with Oak Norton of SPARKLITE. There was a short production batch that got into the supply and are defective. If anone recently bought a SPARKLITE and encounters poor performance please contact him. The design has been recently tweaked, with the sparking wheel turning with more resistance. This will increase the dependability and spark. I will be receiving some and post a review.

And for sparking on the magnesium block's ferrocerium, the back of a saw blade, be it the woodsaw in a multitool (Leatherman is very good, Gerber is good, can't saw first hand or observation for SOGs or Vics) or a SAK (the Vics are good, Wengers are OK), is better than trying a knife blade. All you are doing is beating on the edge while getting a minimum number of sparks.

Best bet, in my experince, is a bit of hacksaw blade. Snap a piece off, add a hole if needed so you can't loose it. And practice. People try to wittle on the mag block, and that isn't what you want to do. You want to scrape, like it was a hide or an arrow shaft- no sharp edges or points needed or wanted. Just a nice, crisp edge. I recommend getting a second one to practice with. And don't get a cheap one, buy the Doans ones, they are the best.

I case you couldn't tell, I like my magnesium blocks, but I was given my first one when I was 9. I've been playing with them for a while. :P But given my druthers, I'd rather use a sparklite, they are faster.

I tied a tiny needle file to my magnesium blocks. I took a regular small flat needle file and cut its length in half to about the same length as the magnesium block. I then sharpened one edge with a grinder, and burned a hole in the plastic orange handle for a lanyard connecting it to the magnesium block. I used the file to get shavings off of the block and the sharp edge I had ground onto it was used to produce sparks. Worked for me at least.

Oh, I like. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> A good file is always nice to have.

How long does it take to get a good pile with a needle file? I've seen pictures of similiar with a cut down bastard file, which I think might work better just becuase there is more to hang onto.

I have a fire piston, although I've not used it much. Mine needs to be lubricated with vasaline or similar. I can imagine running out of vasaline when I still had tinder. Also, I think the device has a minimum size in order to work; anyway, mine is physically large and too big to carry.

I like the Sparklite, especially as it is so small. I believe anything which makes sparks is good because it can be used with improvised tinder.

Similarly the Sparklite tinder is good because it can be used with anything that makes a spark or flame. In fact for a while I was using them with a ciggy lighter for lighting hex fuel, because I found that worked easier than the lighter on its own. (Nowadays I use tinder card for that because it is cheaper, but QuickTabs are better because they are more waterproof.)

Currently I reckon the best bet is a flint-ignition lighter. When it has fuel it's the easiest thing to use, anyone can understand it and it works one-handed. Liquid fuel ones have the drawback that the fuel evaporates, but the advantage that it is easier to replace the fuel eg with meths or petrol which is likely to be available in my urban environment. Imco models seem less prone to evaporation than Zippo. When the fuel runs out, you can hope to improvise tinder for the spark.

It did just take some patience, but when I used it, I had oodles of time. The shavings were so fine I took great care to find the perfect leaf to hold them in to keep from losing them -- I used huge sycamore leaves.

Following Ray Mear's "holly leaf" method seems wise. If I recall right (so don't quote me), didn't he use two holly leafs stacked? The top one was "skeletonized" through natural decomposition. The shavings would be sandwiched between the leaves, using it to shower with sparks?

Addendum: Oak will be updating the instructions with a list of some of the things he's successfully used for tinder. Most illuminating was to first scratch up the surface of Fuel tabs such as Triox. Remember, a spark is short lived, and what it lands on isn't always as important as how that tinder is shaped.

Simon:
Do you have any pictures?

No, I'm relatively poor and never have been into cameras at all, much less digital ones. It's real easy to do though. My example was just something that worked for me, there's countless other ideas out there that probably work better.

As much as I hate to do it, I'll reveal The Secret All Fire Starter Companies Know and that is - TINDER IS THE REAL KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL FIRE. Yeah, my Magfire is a solid performer, but if you take time to practice, you'll soon learn that making a spark isn't the hard part (if you have any fire-making tool at all). It's going from spark to fire - that is the real challenge, especially if it's damp out - not just rainy, damp. That's why I "cheat" and carry dryer lint soaked with WD-40 in a film can. It lights in the rain, burns hot and stays lit. It's really best with lint from a polar fleece blanket - massive heat output lets you dry questionable material to get ignition and get the fire going. All other tinders are inferior to a good old hydrocarbon product. Oh, and I took alcohol OFF the list because In like a VISIBLE flame.

So, did you loose your eyebrows with that technique?

I have found that with a magnesium block, the goal is not to get shavings, but scrapings. To shave is to attack the block with your knife at an angle to it. Rather, scrape, with the knife edge perpedicular to the block and substantial ribbon-coils of magnesium should come off. It works great for me! At least that's how I think I recall doing it. It's been awhile.

Good information, thanks for sharing. I can tell you that a few decades ago, a friend and I went and did about the same experiments but with different items.
We went to tha mountains, about 7000 ft in a pine forest and took minimal equipment and the plan was to test all our "survival" gear.
Perfect timing, it was not too cold but it was almost a steady drizzling rain with a wet forest all around. We had a vehicle within a mile, so we could always retreat.
We made a nice shelter with a tarp tent item I wish I still owned and proceded to test out some navigation skills and search the nearby area. The original area we planned to go had been recently clearcut and turned into a mess:(
When it was time to cook our meals, we started testing all the firemaking goodies we had collected over the years. Some of these miracle items had been carried with the intent that we could rely on them in an emergency. As it turned out, nothing worked very well. Some items could not even be lit once we finally had a fire going. They had dried out or evaporated whatever magical property made them flammable.
What finally worked was come plain cotton balls, one of the magnesium blocks with striker and after exhausting all the super duper magical firemaking gadgets, we found the Starburst candy wrappers in our pockets were perfect to make a fire in wet/damp conditions.
By using a dry cotton ball and shaving the magnesium into the cottonball, which kept it on one place, easily sticking to the cottonball. One strike from the ferro rod and it caught fire, a few starburst wrappers, which are waxed paper, and we had a system that burned long enough and hot enough to light damp shavings and wet twigs. From there it was easy to get a nice cooking fire going.
Since then, I have refined my system a little, I buy a roll of waxpaper at the market, costs less than $2. I then saw off about an inch and a half roll, pull out the cardboard tube from the center and carry that inside a 35mm film canister. I use a Firesteel to ignite a tinder tab (Same as the Sparklite ones) or a plain cotton ball and take about a 6 inch piece of the wax paper twisted up and it will almost always burn long enough and hot enough to get my kindling going, even if damp. If I need more, I have plenty of waxpaper in the canister.
I have several Sparklites and my only concern with them is the flint can deteriorate over time, while the Firesteel is obvious as to it's condition and I check on it before any trip.
Everyone should test their technique and gear and know what works for them and what doesn't. You now have a some good ideas on firemaking and know what works for you. Way to go!

cotton ball soaked in vasoline works every time.

I like the vasoline/cotton ball technique. Also, a few drops of Purell into the cotton ball helps it ignite quickly.

Good post! IMO, tinder is the key. My current favorite is dryer lint with Bag Balm. Bag Balm is mostly vaseline but has antiseptic qualities (redundancy). I also carry in my PSK what I call "micro flares." I make them this way: take a British lifeboat match and duct tape three kitchen matches (strike anywhere) just back of the lifeboat match head. Then dip the whole rig in paraffin several times to cover the kitchen matches and leave the lifeboat head exposed. One of these is my "last ditch" fire. Once you see one burn they are very reassuring and quite small! <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

If instead of the duct tape you whipped the matches together with waxed linen thread (dental floss would probaby work also, altho I have not tried it) that would add fuel and increase the burn time a little bit. I once tried making some super matches by just wrapping a standard kitchen match with the thread, and while they would not qualify as "super," they did increase the burn time a bit...

Thanks for the test results. I've been thinking about getting a couple of spark-lites and this is very good info to know.

Another idea! But I'll tell you, the duct tape I use (a HD gaffers tape) burns good, too. At least when all that paraffin gets goin'!