Natural and man-made firesteel tinder.

[Blackdog]

Not worth a new thread, so here goes.

Good old birch polypore, which on it's own won't take a spark very well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypore



As Mors (and many others) spell out, if you boil birch polypore in hard wood ash it will then take a spark. This is correct. I boiled (simmered is more like it) this batch for round about 20 hours, dried it and then pounded it out. Bingo Bango it will now take a spark like crazy. A little labor intensive but it does in fact work. If nothing else it is something to file away in the brain bucket. Good old Ötzi liked it enough to carry a batch.


Seeing is believing.





Just as a polypore note: in a earlier picture on this thread you can see a chunk of this stuff that I drilled a small divot into and then placed a coal. This chunk smoldered long enough to easily transport a "fire" from Point A to B.

[Woods Walker]

Blackdog.

That looked good. I am going to toss out a few statements and tell me how many apply.

1. 1095 carbon.
2. Mustard patina.
3. Convex grind.

[Blackdog]

Blackdog.

That looked good. I am going to toss out a few statements and tell me how many apply.

1. 1095 carbon.
2. Mustard patina.
3. Convex grind.

2 out of 3 ain't bad. I think the knife is D2 but for a million dollars tax free I couldn't exactly tell you what the heck that really means. Carbon, sharp and strong enough and I'm a happy camper.

Back on subject:

Richard Graves writes that tinder can be helped along by a light dusting of charcoal ash. Somewhere else (maybe Mors again??) I read that rubbing wood ash into non-tinder fungus would work. So here goes:

Again the same old polypore pounded out and some ash I had left over from the last drill. I rubbed some of the ash in and sparked it off. It didn't take as well as the boiled but when it did it was good to go. The cool thing is that when I was blowing on it the fungus produced snappy little sparkles. Again this is a step or two below boiling but it does in fact work pretty well and takes about 2 days less time .

[bacpacjac]

Great thread, Woods Walker! And crew! Thanks! Very interesting and educational. My 8 year old is learning how to use his ferro rod and we're always on the hunt for new tinder. This is not only a great guide, but an excellent example for us to follow. Practice. Practice. Practice. Thanks!

[Woods Walker]

Have you tried these with flint and steel? It produces a MUCH cooler spark and thus is much harder to get an ember or flame.
What is good to use?(besides charcloth, which, of course, works great!)

Chaga should work but I never tested that with a Flint and steel.

Correction. I gave it a try tonight and had no luck with a chunk so made some chaga dust and it took a spark from a file plus quartz and wouldn't go out. I mean it wouldn't go out. Burned through the paper plate and rained glowing particles. It was about the same texture as fireboard dust.

Give me some sun (if damp) and I could process chaga found in the field no problem. The only downside was some of the very small quartz splinters that flaked off into the chaga dust started to fracture when blowing the ember into flames. It was dark and hit the rock a bit too hard a few time.

I should try the chaga dust again and do up a thread on the topic.

Great thread, Woods Walker! And crew! Thanks! Very interesting and educational. My 8 year old is learning how to use his ferro rod and we're always on the hunt for new tinder. This is not only a great guide, but an excellent example for us to follow. Practice. Practice. Practice. Thanks!

Great to hear the knowledge being past down. Thanks for the postive comments.