Sparks With A Stainless Steel Pocket Knife And Ferro Rod

Description

There is a common misconception that you can't push sparks off a ferro rod, Swedish Firesteel, StrikeFire or similar modern sparking device with a stainless steel knife. In this video I show not only how to create sparks with a stainless knife but also how to do it safely and efficiently even with a stainless steel folding pocket knife.

More on Creating Sparks Here On YouTube...

How To Create Really Big Sparks With A Swedish Firesteel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5R0uFHcfQw

How To Light Birch Bark With A Spark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHZegZNvKIg

Discover more of my material on bushcraft, survival and outdoor life:

Here's my blog full of additional material: http://paulkirtley.co.uk

Follow on Instagram for regular relevant posts: http://instagram.com/paulkirtley

Fallkniven TK4: https://shop.frontierbushcraft.com/Fallkniven-TK4-Folding-Pocket-Knife-p/faktk4.htm

Swedish Firesteel: https://shop.frontierbushcraft.com/Light-My-Fire-Swedish-Firesteel-Army-2-0-Model-p/lmf1110xx10.htm

Tags: bushcraft,survival,fire,knife,cutting tools,ferro rod,firesteel,swedish firesteel,fireflash,sparks,stainless steel,stainless steel knife,stainless steel folding knife,stainless steel pocket knife,Fallkniven,Fallkniven 3G steel,3G stainless steel,Fallkniven TK4,Fallkniven TK4 pocket knife,birch bark,betula,Paul Kirtley,Paul Kirtley bushcraft

Video Transcription

hi there guys and girls this is Paul curtly from Frontier bushcraft and in this video I'm going to share with you a great technique for creating sparks using a Ferro rod and a stainless steel pocketknife and more importantly creating big Sparks and treating them safely

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now there's a common misconception that I hear and see written in a fair few places to this day and that misconception is that you have to have a carbon steel knife to create sparks with a modern Ferro rod and that's just not the case

it was the case that if you're using a piece of Flint that you had to have a type of Steel that is a carbon steel but it's not the case with a fire flash fire steel Swedish fire steel Ferro rod strike fire whichever model you're using you can use a stainless steel knife and then more to the point for this video you can use a stainless steel pocketknife as long as you've got a good right angled edge here on the back of the blade and I want to show you a really safe way of doing that because I'll be honest I've had an accident where I cut myself quite badly using a folding knife making sparks good few years ago and I still got the scars to prove it and I want to show you a really safe and effective way of doing that I like to carry a knife like this as a backup knife or if I'm hiking where I'm not going to be doing a lot of wood craft this might be my primary knife it's quite a lightweight knife these Falcon even TK fours they're not the cheapest knife in the world but the very well-made they weigh very little they're solid they've got a locking blade and I like them a lot so come with me and I'll show you how I create a spark with this really safely now with a sheath knife with a typical bushcraft knife I can use the back of the blade and particularly the back of the blade where it comes to meet the bevel to push nice big sharks and I've made other videos to that effect if you want more detail on that look for the other videos on my youtube channel but here I want to use a folding knife and we could do a similar thing as long as there is a decent back here what you're looking for is a good solid right angle between the spine the back of the knife here

and this side of the knife here nice and well-defined not rounded and that is as long as it feels hard enough that is going to scrape metal from your Ferro rod now remember with the flint and steel and this is where the confusion comes in with a flint and steel a traditional flint and steel it's metal coming off the steel that's why it has to be a certain hardness or certain softness really and the carbon steel that is tempered to a certain hardness that's why I think there is this misconception that to create sparks you need carbon steel but here we're scraping not metal not not off the steel we're not scraping material from that or scraping material from the Ferro rod okay and so as long as you can scrape material from it you can I mean you could use a piece of broken glass actually so as long as you scrape material off this you're going to get the sparks and this is plenty good enough to do that job the danger with a locking blade though is if you use the back of the knife my finger is here near the lock release mechanism when I'm holding it when I'm using it normally it isn't but when I invert the knife so that the mechanism is here this finger actually is right over and if I press that by accident I could end up folding the blade onto my finger and that's exactly what I've done in the past in a similar fashion and I've got the scars to prove it there that's what I closed the knife on my finger doing exactly that just here yeah and I damage the nerve in my finger it's not so bad now but I want to make sure nobody else does that so if you're going to use a folding blade you're going to use a folding blade use it folded yet the spine is still here hold it like a striker hold the fire still in the same way as you would if you use in the back of a bushcraft knife and again I've got videos that show how to do that and then you can just push good sparks off the end in a similar fashion now the danger comes of course if you're using your knife this knife to scrape some birch flash like we do you've scraped up your birch bark and then it's very easy just to flip it and drop a spark on but have the discipline to close it first and then use the back of the knife [Music]

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and as always once you've finished using your tools put them back where they belong don't leave them lying around to get lost in the leaf litter always good fire discipline so there you have it a simple safe and efficient way of creating good sparks from your Ferro rod using a stainless steel pocketknife and those are tools that you're likely to always have on your person when you're out and about so it's really good to practice with them and get efficient with them so even if you don't have your belt knife or you're separated from the rest of your equipment the things that you've got on your person you can light a fire with those so I hope that serves you well I hope you find that useful if you like this video please subscribe to my channel and I will be back with another video before too long hope to see you there take care bye [Music]

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