At the last Boy Scout Troop meeting the boys worked on starting fires. The Senior Patrol Leader brought some wood (like the grocery store sells), a hatchet, sharpening stone, a magnesium block and a hand made bow and drill.

The first event was to show the boys how to sharpen a hatchet. The hatchet was then used to chop some useable kindling. Then he moved on to using the magnesium block and bow and drill. The shoe lace on the bow got thin and broke; end of bow and drill.

With the magnesium block and a Swiss Army Knife the Senior Patrol leader was able to make a pile about the size of the tip of your little finger. It barley made a fizz. Then he had some of the other boys try making a pile and lighting it. While this was going on I went to my car and got a large fatwood stick (18? x 3?) I chopped off of a pine tree stump in northern Arizona a few months ago. About this time one of the adult leaders come out and suggested that they check their pocket for lint and mentioned that their dryer at home had a lot of lint they could get. The magnesium and lint were not very impressive and did not give the boys any confidence that they could start a fire with a ferro rod and those things. One of the boys said: why can?t we just use matches and lighters? I told him they do not work when it is wet, cold, and windy. My son spotted the fatwood and scraped some into a pile. He used his County Comm ferro rod he got for Christmas. He got a real flame that lasted for at least half a minute. The boys were impressed and wanted to try this fatwood stuff. I sawed some off with my Leatherman Ti. They wanted to whittle off the fatwood instead of scrapping the side to get the fine pieces that catch a spark. One of the boys was taking the magnesium bock?s ferro rod and making a continuous stream of sparks by scrapping it fast up and down. This was not producing ignition. I pointed out that the ferro rod had to be within ?? for it to work. After awhile all the boys were able to get a flame with the fatwood and a ferro rod.

Latter that night I was talking to my son on how to use the ferro rod and had one of those head-slapper moments: the boys were making sparks in the air and some of it might touch the tinder. This was a tedious and uncertain teqnique. I have gotten into the habit of using a scooping motion on the ferro rod that flings out some of the material from the ferro rod and burns for a fraction of a second in the tinder and makes it light. When I am standing and use my ferro rod I get a cascade of sparks that reaches the floor and bounces before it goes out. That is what I should have taught the Scouts to do. Stay on the last ?? of the ferro rod and make a scooping motion with the scrapper as they pull the ferro rod away from the tinder.

I also had my twins (11) with me at the Troop meeting. One of them had a nice pile of fatwood shavings. He had been working the ferro rod for several minutes. I told him that if he didn?t get a flame in 5 tries he was doing something wrong. I used my ferro rod. One big spray of sparks and the pile lit up. He left in tears. I made another pile of fatwood for him to continue. I apologized to him, got to watch that ego thing all around.

To start a fire with a ferro rod: make a scooping motion and get a shower of sparks and bits that will keep burning as it hits the tinder. <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />