Flint and Steel

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Flint and Steel

Hallo!

"What will keep your tinder, slow match, or char cloth dry while your matches get soaked?"

It is not so muc ha matter of having dry char to dry tinder, as it is a matter of having the knowledge and skill to find natural materials suitable to catch and hold a spark long enough to coax it into a flame.

Even after downpours, there are dry areas to be searched under rock overhangs, the leeward side of rocks and trees (dead leaves as well as inner barks), the undersides of fallen trees.

Once Upon a Time, on the secoan highest mountain in Pennsylvania, we had a frog-strangler after a vertical wall of water that put four inches or rain water in my cup and totally soaked the forest so that even the above techniques failed.
I had my lads search for and process tinder in a three hour process of creating and sorting out piles of progressively larger tinder materials from micro shavings on up.
It took three hours or prep work, but a flint and steel fire was made from a wet woodland.

(The "cheat" if necessary would have been black powder.)

The account of the Irish Brigade (116th PA, IIRC) complaining about being soaked in a soaked woods and only getting fires going with flint and steel, would seem to support the knowledge and skill of the fire-makers.

Curt

[bill shack]

Re: Flint and Steel

if you want to light a fire from the flint and steel method this is what you do
1) make yourself some tinder( charred cloth) the day before put some 100%cotton in a small can that you can open and close easly i e shoe polish container without any polish in it . then put it in a fire next to the coals for about 15 minutes. then retrivie it from the fire.
2) get you fire ready with lots of kindling ect.
3) take some of the tinder(charred cloth) out of the tin.
4) Now strike a piece steel i e knife with a flint so that a spark is formed and catch that spark with the tinder.
5) very gentily blow on the spark until it burst into flame and light your kindling with it.
Bill shackell
private Gray and blues of montreal Canada

[Spinster]

Re: Flint and Steel

Smoke-fire.com has strike-a-light kits. They even come in a little hide pouch. If I recall correctly, they are only about $10.00. I've been meaning to get one myself but as of yet, have not. If you get one, post a review of how it works for ya.

Kevin, those work fine with a bit of practice. For more reliability, click one page further in the catalogue and spend $5 more for the complete kit, which includes a tight tinned box to hold the whole assemblage and keep the your char cloth or tow dry.

One source of fire pistons/match syringe is www.turkeyfootllc.com
I find the particular use of exotic woods/horns to be a bit problematic, but the stock used for manufacture varies. Like the flint and steel, this is an item that requires practice, and a supply of dry tinder.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Flint and Steel

Hallo!

Charred cloth, charred punkwood, charred fungus can be used to catch and hold spark.

But they are tedious, and require some skill in their making.

The easiest char is charcoal bits from a fire that are buried to cut off the oxygen. Stored in a tinder box, they readily hold and catch a spark (and require no "char cooker" device or cloth, punkwood, or tinder fungus to make.)

Curt

[RyanBWeddle]

Re: Flint and Steel

Take a shovel/spoon/tooth and grab a coal from the fellas that already started their fire...

Why people want to go backwards in time while recreating the 1860s, and go all rustic and to the lowest common denominator is funny, I guess civilization started proper in 1865.

[allan4570]

Re: Flint and Steel

I to have wondered if not some man would have carried a striker and flint in the war. But as Pat Craddock has mentioned earlier in this post, about the lack of the strikers being found in camps or while on a active campaign, there's seems to have been limited use. I know all to many times I have either sweated or been soaked by rain unitl my matches and striking surface were rendered useless. So, I always have my fire starting kit with me!

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: Flint and Steel

Truth be told there are probably as many US soldiers carrying flint and steel in Iraq today as there were in 1861 to 1865.

[cprljohnivey]

Re: Flint and Steel

In re-reading this old thread... I find it interesting that no one has brought up the subject of where are soldiers getting matches from anyway. Yes they were around in civilization in abundance but if they are on campaign, constantly on the march, what chance do they have of comming upon a store that has not already been picked clean of such devices by the soldiers marching ahead of you to replace those that have been used up or destroyed by the elements?

[Pumpkinslinger]

Re: Flint and Steel

Sutler, sutler, sutler if they were lucky.

[cprljohnivey]

Re: Flint and Steel

Mike,

Sorry... I should have been more specific. Sutlers were in quanitiy in the union army sure nuff but not so much in the Confederate army. So lacking any local sutlers... where'd they get em?

[john duffer]

Re: Flint and Steel

Somewhat simplistic but in modern practice I've sat by many a fire when I didn't have any matches. As long as one man has them then hundreds can benefit.

[allan4570]

Re: Flint and Steel

Yes, I too have stood and sat by many a fire that I didn't start. If one man had matches then once a fire was going, others could possibly benefit from it, to a point. But, all this still doesn't answer my original question about the common practice of starting fires. I guess a trival part of life as this was did not spur any soldier to write it down in a diary or memoir.