Originally Posted By: unimogbert
I haven't seen this discussed but even so it might bear repeating.

The Harbor Freight $3 magnesium fire starter blocks have magnesium that cannot be lit!


Thanks for the warning. I happened to have impulse-bought a HF Mg block displayed at checkout not too long ago, so I'll put it to the test.

Years ago, I found that scraping off shavings with a blade worked better for me than a rasp. I also found that scraping onto a flattened loop of sticky-side-out duct tape reduced scrapings being blown away and seemed to support combustion.