Common flint and steel or magnesium fire starters are normally good for around 3, strikes, but that can vary based on the size and quality of the brand. Large quality models can last for 10, strikes or more. Fire pistons can last virtually forever as long as you replace the char cloth. The early humans discovered fire by rubbing two flint stones against each other. They used to make fires in front of the caves to scare away wild animals.
The material most commonly used, however, is char cloth. Char cloth is basically a natural fiber cloth that is cooked in the absence of oxygen. I use cotton cloth cut into small pieces, 4 or 5 centimeters square. I put it in a small, metal, airtight tin I got from choking down some French hard candies from La Vie de La Vosgienne. The French should stick to Coq au Vin. But I digress. I put the tin in the fireplace and wait for smoke to stop coming out from the pinhole.
When I open the tin I find small squares of cloth just as I put them in the tin, but just a chocolate brown toasty color instead of white.
Char cloth is not magic, but it feels like it. A tiny spark touches it and immediately it glows red. Blow on it a little and the red grows hotter. Funny thing is that the harder you blow or the wind blows the hotter the char cloth burns. Tinder : This is just something to give the char cloth somewhere to fulfill its destiny. When practical, I carry oakum, a teased fiber made from unravelling hemp or jute rope. Strike the steel down against the flint, as if you were trying to shave off a small piece of the edge of the steel, because you are.
After a few strikes a spark will land on the char cloth and you will see a faint glow. The glow will create a ring of red as the ember spreads out away from the point of contact.
Fold the char cloth into a smaller square and place it into the nest of tinder, and fold the tinder over the top to make a small ball. Smoke will float out through the tinder, and a few puffs of air will increase the flow. There are lots of options when it comes to fire steel. If you control for all the other variables, the diameter and length of the fire steel is the second most important factor in determining how long it will last in use.
Everyone has a preference depending on how they like to use the fire steel and plainly stated a fire steel with a greater volume will last longer than one with a smaller volume. You should still get a few hundred uses at the very minimum, but if you want one that can stand the test of time, look at a fire steel that is longer, larger diameter and made from a harder alloy. It is worth clarifying that the fire steel in question in the context of this article is a modern ferrocerium and striker arrangement, not a regular piece of actual steel used with flint or chert back in the old days.
The distinction is important: a modern fire steel ferro rod is an alloy specially formulated to be pyrophoric. A bog-standard piece of steel used with a flint is not, though the mechanism by which it is used striking it with a harder striker, in this case the flint produces a shower of hot particles similarly to a ferro rod arrangement. If you are using a piece of steel with flint or chert in the old ways it may last longer or not nearly as long as a modern fire steel.
This alloy will rust if it gets wet and is not cared for. Be it rain or sweat, a fire steel will rust quickly from either if it is left alone. They can rust a bit in damp situations, due to the qualities of the steel. But this rust can be scraped or sanded away to make the striker look good as new. Since the stone only scrapes off a micro-sliver of steel, there should be enough metal on the average striker to make thousands of fires and hundreds of thousands of sparks.
This fire starting method creates a red hot spark by striking a piece of high carbon steel against a hard, sharp stone edge like a flake of flint or similar stone. The steel shaving is ignited by the friction of striking steel and stone together. This burning steel spark is immediately caught in fire charred material, then placed in dry tinder and blown into flame, regardless of the weather.
0コメント