21st Century Longhunter Series Combustion

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Video Transcription

morning guys Dave Canterbury at the Pathfinder school what I want to do today is I want to introduce you to a deeper look into the Pathfinder system I've started a discussion area on Facebook last night called the 21st century long hunter and I don't want you to confuse this terminology the way many people confuse the Pathfinder as a term it has nothing to do with the military it has to do with the old Indian scouts and pathfinders that went out look for new areas and richer resources for nomadic tribes back in the Paleolithic era of the Native American Indians of the United States but long hunter in general what I'm talking about I'm talking about early explorers early market hunters earlier Scouts people like Christopher gist who worked for the Ohio land company based out of West Virginia now scouted into areas around you know the Cumberland Gap and up into the Ohio Valley for land sales for the Virginia or the Ohio company based out of Virginia which was owned by one of George Washington's brothers and looking at that type of gear and what they packed and carried looking ahead into the 1800s - people like Nemec so you have a span of a lot of years there that you can look at the equipment and if you look at it they carried virtually the same things okay and that's where the five C's of survivability really comes in if you look at those things the main tool that they carried other than their flintlock or their fuses will talk about in a few minutes or their musket was a cutting tool okay and cutting tools we've talked about in several videos we'll talk more about that later on what we're going to do today is we're going to do a comparison study on combustion because I want you to understand a lot of people ask me Dave why do you use that old traditional retro type equipment instead of using the latest greatest thing that's out on the market you know canvas tarps canvas backpacks are a good example of that and the reason for that is is because it worked it worked then it works now okay if you look at the Pathfinder knife the Pathfinder knife is a classic Roche belly French trade knife design that worked for a couple of hundred years on the frontier that's why I chose that design that profile for the Pathfinder knife now the Pathfinder F is thicker it's a different grind it's got you know new type handles on it made out of micarta but the design of that knife is very similar and functional in comparison to an 18th century trade knife and that's why I chose that profile so looking at combustion devices and making a comparison to what they carried versus what we do today we can see how little or how much we need for combustion to actually get by ok now we do have the same benefits that they had as far as accelerants go in the 17th or in the 1700's and 1800's or the 18th century 19th century because they had gunpowder ok

gunpowder wasn't accelerant gunpowder would catch fire with a spark a low-temperature spark 800 degrees was enough maybe less to spark that into a flame okay and if you look at that we have those same types of things today we have accelerants like bug spray we have alcohol base accelerant which they would have had back then we have chemical accelerants like mini inferno like wet fire so all those things are very comparable to the accelerants that they would have used back then as far as whether it was a chemical based whiskey or booze some type of shrub which was a mixture of orange juice and vodka that was fermented it was a very popular drink along the 18th century frontier it was called shrub they also would have been combustible moonshine would have been combustible any high alcohol content thing would have been combustible or burnable as well as having oil lamps and grease lamps as well as having their fire lock or their flintlock or their fusil or their match or their yeah excuse me guys I got to talking to faster and got ahead of myself you know their musket all of those that's what they use for combustion much of the time because it was set up on a basic flint and steel principle ok so what you had for combustion was you had accelerants you had flint and steel for combustion and you also had magnification for combustion remember a lot of people wore glasses back then you know into the 1800s a hudson bay company sold a tobacco box and then canteen shop coms got down on his website right now that carry tobacco for pipe pipes were the mainstay of smoking back cigarettes or cigars it was pipes you'd go into a tavern and there would be a big jar of plenty tavern pipes there you just take one out and smoke it while you were there but at any rate so what they would do is they would carry this tobacco in this tin it had a cap on the top he popped off there was a magnification lens in there so they had that type of combustion as well as they used to light their pipes with did they light fires with those in the woods maybe maybe not you can only speculate and experiment through experimental archaeology and think with common-sense to say they had a magnifying glass they probably used it they knew it started a pipe they would know it started a fire so conserving resources like their flintlock or their flint and steel kit would give them the ability to start fire through solar ignition and save and conserve resources and they were just as smart as we are if not smarter probably smarter when it comes to living in the woods so today's comparison we're going to talk a little bit about flint and steel fires ok first understand that the flintlock gun is based on flint and steel technology it has a frizzen on it that's made out of a high carbon steel and then it has a hammer on it on the lock okay that actually holds a piece of flint and when you put powder into the priming pan of that flintlock gun and you close the frozen over the top of the pan or the pan cover which is sometimes called and you cocked your lock or your trigger mechanism that held that piece of Flint when you pull the trigger that Flint came forward and struck that high carbon steel frozen and threw sparks into the pan where your powder happened to be and that would go through a touch hole and set the powder off in the barrel okay

very much like we talked about in the video about the 12-gauge being a modern version of a long runners type musket or fusing and the you know adaptability of that gun in today's modern era to black-powder so the use Flint steel technology now the other way they use Flint steel was with a flint strike with a steel striker and a piece of Flint rock or chert rock or quartz or anything that has a hardness of seven okay and what you need to understand at this point is that some people still don't seem to get to this day that I talk to students and classes is that the rock itself okay is not creating the spark what it's doing is it's driving material off of that frizzen cover or off of that Pankau

or off of that steel striker or off the back of your knife it is driving iron particles off of that object that are what's called pyrophoric s' okay pyrophoric SAR material that will spontaneously combust

when microscopic pieces of it are exposed to oxygen okay and that is exactly what a Ferro cm rod is a pharisee M rod is a mixture of pyrophoric metals to include magnesium that will spontaneously combust when they're scraped off of that Ferro 4cm rod with a knife and that's why I tell people you always want that good 90-degree edge on the back here knife because that's really all it takes to scrape those particles off of that rod are a good sharp edge you can do with a piece of glass if the edge is sharp enough it doesn't have to be a piece of metal and have to be high carbon steel it just has to be a good sharp 90-degree edge and that's why I tell people to make sure they've got that 90-degree edge on the back of their knife so that you can use it for your ferrous iam rod if you've got a high carbon steel knife you can also strike sparks off of it with a piece of rock that's harder than a hardness of seven like coarse shirt and Flint then we talked about a few minutes ago so let's talk about charred material for a minute because that what they would do you know in those days that they were going to use our fire lock is instead of putting gunpowder in the pan they'd put a piece of char cloth or charred material in that pan and then pull the trigger that would again spark that material and set it on fire just like you would strike a striker for a flint and steel kit which I'll show you in just a minute to ignite your char cloth okay let's our cloth is a precious commodity in the Pathfinder system I tell people to carry a bandanna I tell people to carry metal water bottle for reasons of being able to make char very easily charred cloth but you can char other materials like punked would like cattail like the inner path of Mullen stock the the basically the resources in the woods are endless of what you can char so understanding things that make good char good solid Charlotte's not going to burn up too fast and give you a long-term ember like tinder fungus is very very important when it comes to conserving resources and getting the biggest bang for your buck when you're making your char your cotton bandana your cotton clothing if you're wearing it should be the last resort as far as making char material because there's char material all around you in the woods you just have to know how to select it like I said cattail very good if they're not busted up the inner the inner pith of a lot of plants works really good especially mowing you can char even pieces of softwood like cottonwood and things like that that are very softwood like tulip poplar if you can char that type of wood it will take longer to char that in a little cloth to heat it up to temperature to let all the chemicals escape and not let oxygen in will take longer with material like that then it will with a piece of cloth but it will work just as well if not better and save the resource of that cotton cloth for later so understanding that comparison to an 18th century or 9 early 19th century fire kit which basically either can was composed of their fire lock or their flintlock rifle or musket or fuse eliphaz a smoothbore or whether it was a rifle board or their flint and steel kit which they would carry in some kind of a tin usually that could be used to make the charred cloth or the charred material in today we can use Altoids tins and things like that work very very well and then you can put your striker in there you can put a piece of Flint in there you can put some other charred material in there some charred cloth in there maybe you wrap a piece of cloth in there that you can use to char later if you need to put a cigarette lighter in there put a pharisee them rot in there a pharisee M rod is just as good except it has a lot higher burning temperature than a flint and steel kit okay but a Flint steel kit will be just as effective you know for a kit like this for the 21st century long runner but a Ferro rod will do the same thing the advantage to a Ferro rod is it burns a lot hotter temperature because of the chemical compounds in it like magnesium which burns at a very high temperature and because of that it will combust tinder a lot faster you can use it with char cloth you can use it with steel wool you can use it with other charred materials and you can use it with any dry tinder okay you're very seldom going to get a spark hot enough from a flint and steel kit to ignite a pile of dead grass but one strike off a Ferro rod will generally do it if you've got the right material in your tinder bundle so a Ferro rod would be a comparison to a flint and steel kit if you're going to carry that and that's why I carry a Ferro rod above anything else I'll always choose the lighter first but I always have a Ferro rod with me and generally steel wool because it holds a hot spark so long because it's molten metal

and then some type of chemical accelerant for surefire like mini inferno like what fire and things of that nature I will always carry this ok guys real quick what I want to do here was I wanted to kind of go over what I would consider a decent fire kit to stash in your hammer sack to have on you all the time now what I'll generally do is I have two containers in my kit we'll talk about that later in the container comparison in the 21st century long winter series but right now we're talking about combustion so my so one of the things that I carry in my have or sack all the time besides having a Ferro rod on my knife which I always have I have this fire kit it's made in the classic Altoids tin okay and I've said many many times you know I don't think you could put enough stuff in an Altoids tin to affect your survivability all right unless it was a specified kit like a fire kit like maybe a fishing or trapping kit something like that you could probably put enough components in there to take care of you you're not going to put everything you need to affect your survivability in one little box like this you can build redundancy but you can't depend on it for your life okay this fire kit I would stake my life on and I do believe that fire is your number one asset in any survival situation any emergency situation any long-term or short-term Scout Trek or hike anything like that fire is your number one asset because you can do so many things with fire that truly affect your survivability your cutting tool is the only other thing I would put above fire there's no way that I would put shelter above fire so with a kit like this the size of this I can effectively make fire a lot of different ways and it gives me a lot of different options what I've done is I poked a hole in the top of this Altoids tin to let gas escape for making char cloth there are several videos on my channel about how to make char cloth and have charge different types of materials I believe Dave Mitchell has got videos on there about it Steve critter Davis has several videos on things like that we have probably 40 different fire making videos on my channel so I'm not going to go into that today what I want to talk to you about is building a sufficient what I would consider a sufficient fire kit I just used a piece of inner tube rubber here over the top of that just to cover that hole to keep moisture out and also to keep the kit closed inside this kit alright I have some pre-made char cloth here all right I have a couple of wet fire cubes inside here which gives me my surefire all right I I could choose to put mini Inferno in here as well mini inferno is probably in my opinion a little bit better than wet fire left fires just more compact as far as fitting in this kit I always carry some triple hot steel wool a pretty good hunk of that in there I told you long term ember out of this stuff and it can be ignited with the Ferro rod that's the great thing about steel wool char cloth can be ignited with the spark off a dead cigarette lighter a Ferro rod a rock off your knife if you got a good high carbon steel knife it can become ignited with flint and steel it can be also ignited with a magnifying glass and we'll get to that in just a minute I carry a small ferrous IAM rod and here's just a spare like I said it's redundancy I have one on my knife all the time and I also have one in my bigger container which contains my main fire kit everything has to be multifunction so if I have a container it's going to have something in it I carry a brand new bic cigarette lighter like I said instant flame I'm going for that every time first unless I don't have a choice then I'll go to the next thing that I've got my kit then I keep another piece of just walnut dyed material here this may have a hundred percent cotton for charring later and what's wrapped in that is a Fresnel lens okay this is my go to beyond the lighter if I've got Sun I'm using this first because the sun's a renewable resource every time I scrape things off of material to make fire whether it's a pharisee M rod or whether it's the back of my knife or whether it is just a regular fire steel which I'll show you in just a minute that's made for flint and steel

any time you do that you are expending a resource with the Sun you're not expending a resource alright and all of that so you've got one two three four with the Ferro rod five with the wet fire and six with the char cloth instant methods of making fire in this kit right now as it stands in this 10 that's what I would consider these small Altoid 10 kits good for put enough stuff in there you can effectively do the same task four or five different ways if you have to and that would include a small trapping kit or a small fishing kit the pocket fishing kit anything like that you want to make sure that it's multifunctional you can do things several different way this kit can be put in a pouch or it can be putting your haversack I keep mine in my hammer sack because my pack contains my main secondary redundant container with my main fire Kinyon as well which is redundancies of a lot of this stuff that are in that except it has many infernal in it so that was my comparison and fire kiss now what I wanted to show you was I wanted to show you flint and steel okay

actual flint and steel not off a fire lock weapon but what they're talking about by flint and steel we'll talk about that real quick okay what I have my pocket here other than the cordage which I always have pieces outlane everywhere I have two different strikers here this one's a little bit fancier it's kind of got dragon head on it and this was just made out of an old file and it's rusted up and you can see the file marks in that thing it's made out of an old file and files make great fire strikers all you really want is you know a shard of a flint or chert material this is probably chert here flint shirt quartz anything like that work that will actually throw sparks off the edge of something okay and this one's got a little bit of a glazing of rust on it again multipurpose I can take the steel wool and I can scrub that off okay put my steel wool right back in my kit it's still usable or fire no problem and it's going to throw a lot better sparks now than it was okay perfect now I have my char cloth and I would just take a piece of this char cloth and you can strike this stuff in the tent if you want to you can put it down in the tent you can strike down on top of it it's not a problem you can do it like that alright you can see that's on fire after three strikes easy enough no problem okay what we can do is I'll just tear some of this off that's burned get it out of the way what we can do is we can take this and we can put it on top of our piece of rock like this okay and that works very well to again remember that you need surface area okay the more surface area you have to catch sparks the better off you are so if i wad this up I don't have much surface area if I take a piece of that charred cloth that's a little bit bigger like this and I lay on top of my rock now I have all of this surface area to collect my spark so I'll tuck it back underneath a little bit like that and put the rest of it right at the edge okay and then take my striking device and turn my rock up a little bit so the sparks are going to fly up and over just like that okay and then strike it boom there you go two strikes and we got fire okay nothing to it so that's a very reliable method of combustion for something like char cloth or charred Punk material or charred you know inner material of anything and things like that but it's not going to work it's not going to work for something like steel wool it's not going to work on dry grasses but if you make sure that you always have charred material with you you always have a combustion method if you back that up with a lighter some matches I hate matches but a lot of people seem to like them I think they suck

I would never carry a match if you gave it to me but the point is if you have redundant things in here like a match or like a lighter like a pharisee em rod you don't necessarily need to carry these implements because if you can find a hard rock and you got a good high carbon steel knife you effectively have the same thing without carrying it okay and I have a high carbon steel knife you know the the path fighter scout this knife here the Pathfinder Scout or the Pathfinder one the pls K 1 or pls k 2 all three of those knives are high carbon steel and they will all strike sparks I've made a video past and post it on YouTube of making a fire with char cloth using the back of my Pathfinder one so I wanted to go over that with you today and show you how to effectively strike sparks onto charred material charred cloth using a flint and steel setup and also tell you that you don't have to carry this if you've got your knife you can avoid this as long as you can find a piece of rock somewhere now if you can't find a piece of rock or it's not in your area maybe you want to add that to your kit just to make sure you have it but between the pharisee M rod the lighter the accelerants the char the magnifying glass there's a lot of ways to start firing this little tin and I don't have to carry a heavy metal object on top of the knife that I'm already carrying it's a metal object that's my whole point in this discussion today comparison for the 21st century long hunter going back looking at the gear from the 18th 19th century what they carried the fire kit was very simple it was very effective but it was very simple they would combustible material they would have access to accelerant then we have something that would cause a spark the advantage that we have today is we have materials like ferrous iam rods made up of different pyro forks that throw a lot hotter sparks so this has been our introductory to the series on 21st century longer a comparison of the Pathfinder system and Pathfinder type gear to that of the 18th 19th century all the way from you know the market hunters and long hunters and explorers like Christopher Guest of the 18th century all the way to the 19th century with people like George Washington Sears better known as Nessman so I thank you very much for joining me for this video we'll be back with another video in the series the 21st century long our real soon

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