Flint Isn't Easy
Hi fellow Outdoorsmen,
Today I'm here to let you know that using flint and steel is hard to start a fire!
Flint Isn't Easy
One of the things that we've been doing is trying to get better at living in situations where it would be good to know some survival skills. I'm not going nuts and intentionally stranding ourselves and surviving with just what we have. As fun as that would be, I don't think it's something we could do at the moment mentally lol lots of stuff going on.
What we have been doing in the meantime though is doing things that are important! One of the things I've tried several times and have failed every time so far, is trying to start a fire using Flint and Steel. We've got three different kinds of flint and steel and they are ranging from cheap as hell to pretty decent stuff. What I haven't gotten to work yet though, is getting an actual fire going using these materials!
It's been bone-chilling cold here lately, as many people who are living in the Northeast of North America can attest to! One of the things we haven't had is a decent break in the weather where it's not too cold but at the same time isn't raining until the other day. The little man and I have been antsy to get out and try our new tools out!
We finally got the opportunity and jumped at it. The weather was colder than I wanted but it was after a few days of single digit temperatures so the kindling couldn't have been drier which is great. Makes it easier to start a fire when your stuff is pretty dry lol.
We sadly failed at this attempt to start a fire with this stuff as well! I know we don't have excellent technique yet or materials but we are trying to figure out what we need to do in order to get it started. I am guessing that we need to have stuff that is dry as a bone and very fine fibrous. I think I've read somewhere that steel wool is a pretty good way to get it started or decent cotton balls but we don't have either of those at the moment. We tried using lint from the dryer but that didn't do a whole lot lol.
We ended up using a lighter, the back-up after the other methods failed and we had a decent little fire going! We could have enjoyed it for longer but it was getting a fair bit colder out as the night was progressing so we opted to enjoy the small embers.
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Hi there! This was an enjoyable read and I loved the photos. Now I'm feeling a serious urge to go camping!
With the current state of the world, I think this is actually a great idea. I do this very often too. just for fun and for the sake of being ready.
I can imagine the beautiful memories that you are creating with the little man. Such an awesome way of bonding! Thank you for sharing and I hope the weather's nicer in the days to come, so you can go on more outdoorsy adventures.
See you around!
We are definitely going to be doing some awesome camping this coming spring and early summer let me tell you! Just not in these temps hahaha. I want to establish a good baseline of knowledge before going to the extreme. One day I would love to do a week of camping!
I think about 75% of the reason I’m doing all of this stuff is because of the craziness of the world right now lol. It’s never a bad thing to be prepared to get the hell out if you need to!
The memories are definitely awesome. He’s incredibly creative and I’m learning to be patient and try to nurture these things as best I can. It gets a little tricky sometimes but that’s life and parenting lol.
Thanks for stopping by and an awesome comment! :D
That's great to hear! Also, a whole week of camping sounds like a dream come true. When I was little, I once camped with my family at the beach for a week and I can't wait to do that again, with a more mature mindset this time, so I can enjoy it to the fullest.
Yes, you're definitely one of us. Kudos to you for thinking ahead!
It's beautiful that you're nurturing his creativity and inherent capacities. Of course, it gets tricky sometimes, I know. I'm not a parent but I'm the proud big sister to three amazing gentlemen, and I've been sort of a parental figure to them. So I know what you mean by tricky!
Thank goodness the dark Caveman Days are over and we have reliable tools to jump start our fires for warmth and cooking!
Good luck getting the flint and steel to light the kindle. I'm sure you and your son will be successful! You might need to have a primary fire going to stay warm and keep your fingers unfrozen while you experiment with the secondary fire. I vaguely recall my brother's Cub/Boy Scout troop having to do this feat to earn a badge. Being outdoorsy campers, my father volunteered to take the boys camping where they learned how to do this.🏕
If you fill an empty toilet paper roll with lint from the dryer trapping and seal the ends with a little wax it works terrific as a fire starter. Fritos corn chips work great too. But that is cheating! 😀
@cmplxty
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Hahah yeah I know, starting a fire with it isn't easy but sometimes the best things in life are a little difficult! We are going to be doing all kinds of different survival things so it's fun to learn them without any pressure involved lol
I’m totally going to get involved in Boy Scouts and all that with him when we move! I think that type of stuff is awesome and I’ll be learning right there alongside with him. Might even go to get my own badges lol
Thanks for stopping by and dropping an awesome comment! :D
Great skill to learn! For your starting tinder, you will want a good sized wad of very fibrous material. Bone dry certainly helps too. The seed tops of pampas and other decorative grasses work great.
Good luck on future tries! Once you get this mastered, you guys can move on to friction fires!
It's funny I think we ended up using some type of grass a few weeks back that had died and gone to seed. The stuff felt like cotton balls and was about 5 feet tall with the long fluffy tips. It wasn't reed type stuff but it was fluffy and awesome to start the fire lol
Fun story we had some success last night with flint! I wrote this post a week ago I think but we gave it another go last night and used a cotton ball and finally got it to work! We had a bad technique before, we weren't using the flint fast enough to get a bunch of sparks constantly hitting it. Once we improved the technique and used something a lot easier to catch a spark it went right up and felt very gratifying lol having it be wicked dry is a huge plus!
Thanks for stopping by man! I'm slowly learning this type of stuff. My dad didn't enjoy doing any of this so I want to learn it and pass it on as much as I can! Plus it's fun to do for me anyway lol
Hey, congratulations on your success!!
I didn't see much of my dad when I was young, but one of the many houses we moved into had old Boy Scout handbooks from the 40's in a shed. Those books taught me how to build shelters, make cordage, make fires, set traps, fish without hooks...
The newer Scout handbooks aren't nearly as informative, but fortunately people today have YouTube. I don't normally like to send people there, but if you do a search for 'primitive skills' on YouTube, you can find some amazing instructional videos teaching how to do all sorts of things with just your hands and the things you find on the ground.
Try tampons to get it started ;)
Hahaha that’s not a bad idea, (me to my wife)”babe can you buy me tampons from the store?..” …wtf why?! Lol
😂 How things change...I mean they work, are available, easy to store and wrapped ;).
Yay! 🤗
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Stockpiling bic lighters is a good move because people will pay for them when they need them, and if nobody does you can use them.
This story just got me laughing😅😅. Sorry for the difficulties you faced. Thank God for technology. I can imagine our ancestors must have had a tough time with all these stuff 😅