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http://www.amazon.com/Light-Fire-Sw...09&sr=8-4&keywords=light+my+fire

17 bucks for 12,000 strikes, which works out to .00142 cents per strike for a firesteel that works when wet and throws sparks at 5500F.

Get the orange one, easier to find when you set it down.


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The ugly blue ones are pretty easy to pick up too.

Critical gear that small though, when I'm not using it, goes in a pocket or my HPG Kit Bag.


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You can get the Swedish Firesteel rods only (no handles) from bensbackwoods.com if you wanted them more compact to hide/duct tape somewhere.

http://www.bensbackwoods.com/servlet/Categories?category=Fire%3AFerrocerium

Last edited by alukban; 01/29/13.
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...or you can just make fire easy...no need to over think....just sayin'

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Originally Posted by mtmiller
...or you can just make fire easy...no need to over think....just sayin'


Have you started a fire in November elk season on the West End of the Olympic Penninsula after a month of rain? laugh Easy is relative...




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What is the advantage of the 2.0?

Is it just the increase in the number of "cycles" available?

Is it a bigger, more skookum unit?


If you take the time it takes, it takes less time.
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Originally Posted by Okanagan
Originally Posted by mtmiller
...or you can just make fire easy...no need to over think....just sayin'


Have you started a fire in November elk season on the West End of the Olympic Penninsula after a month of rain? laugh Easy is relative...





Exactly

To give you an example. We take a yearly trip to St Regis MT and go rafting. It is so dry there, all you need to start a fire is a handful of twigs from any tree in reach and one match. I dare you to try that in North Idaho or Western Washington.



"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."
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Originally Posted by elkhunter_241
Originally Posted by Okanagan
Originally Posted by mtmiller
...or you can just make fire easy...no need to over think....just sayin'


Have you started a fire in November elk season on the West End of the Olympic Penninsula after a month of rain? laugh Easy is relative...





So what is your secret to getting fire in those conditions. I know what I would use, but apparently you have a better solution? Please share.

Exactly

To give you an example. We take a yearly trip to St Regis MT and go rafting. It is so dry there, all you need to start a fire is a handful of twigs from any tree in reach and one match. I dare you to try that in North Idaho or Western Washington.


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Oops, I read back and see you throw sparks and blow on a whistle. My bad.

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OK. While in the big city yesterday, I went to REI. You bastids talked me into a V2.0.

Thanks, I guess. <grins>


If you take the time it takes, it takes less time.
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REI really does have a 20 dollar cover charge smile


Just for [bleep] and giggles, here is pretty much my Fireworks, V8.7.
[Linked Image]

I've always had an axe or hatchet on me in the backcountry, that's not really Fireworks, but it's in the same "possibles" category, as is a knife. The Fireknife was gift from a good friend, and now that it's chopped up a couple deer and proven itself worthy, it now lives in my HPG kit bag. So does that little 1 Oz Nalgene bottle full of Coughlans fire paste. EdT was spot on in his review of the Fireknife (It's lightweight, useful, and cheap enough that if you abuse it to death you aren't going to cry) I know for a fact that I can use those two to make an emergency stick fire next to any creek or river in Montana should that be all I have on me.

The rest... a Bic, 2.0 Firesteel, damp proof MRE matches, Fatwood and Birchbark all ride in a Zip-loc freezer bag in my possibles bag. With what I have there, and my brain, I can make fire anywhere, anytime, and for a couple months if I wanted too. Weight on the whole deal??? I don't give a [bleep], it's worth it to not be a statistic.

Birchbark is one of my favorites to pick up along the way in my AO. When you can find it dried and peeling off the tree, it's as good as napalm. What you see in that pic, I tear into about 1/4" strips, then grind it up in my hands to make "sparkdust" A Firesteel will easily ignite it and it burns long enough to ignite kindling the size of half pencil size. The Fatwood is new to me, but I'm wondering why I didn't play with it sooner. Shavings I get with my Fireknife I can ignite with my 2.0 Firesteel, but not the Fireknife. I plan on trying to make some sparkdust with Fatwood shavings that have been through a rock mortar and pestle and see how that catches spark.

Anyhow.... That's what works for this backwoods hillbilly.


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Oh, I'd love to see more pics like mine on this thread....

This thread is why I decided to try out Fatwood. Glad I did too.


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Book matches?


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I know it's not cool, but is anything going to beat some Fire Ribbon and a working Bic to start a fire? Keeping it going is going to take dry fuel any way you cut it.

A friend of mine, prone to excess and tolerant of heavy packs, takes a road flare and swears it once saved his life.


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I prefer piezo lighters. Trying to spin the bic's wheel and hold the gas pedal with cold fingers is too hard to do.

The piezos can usually be found at tobacco shops.


If you take the time it takes, it takes less time.
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Originally Posted by ironbender
Book matches?


I know.... There's a reason for that. On the inside of the cover is my quad tool for a 1:37,500 topo map. Plus, it can make fire smile


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quad tool?


If you take the time it takes, it takes less time.
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But guess what I did find today (instead of shed Mule Deer antlers)?????

My favorite laugh
[Linked Image]
Then you peel it, smash it up in your hands, wad it up....
[Linked Image]
Then nuke it
[Linked Image]
and violah....
[Linked Image]

There were plenty of dead standing lodgpoles around, I know that with what I had on me, I could've built a bon-fire if I wanted too. Mostly, I was just practicing being a hillbilly before I came home and made steak fajitas.

I just got lucky on capturing those images. I stuck my Cannon in the snow, on a 5 second delay, and then shoot 10 pics at one second intervals

Today, I couldn't believe how much more horsepower the V2.0 has over the earlier Firesteels. Just dinking with it today, I couldn't believe what you can get away with lighting in the way of tinder.....


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There's no 'h'in 'voila'....


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Great pics! Birchbark is wonderful stuff and the paper kind peeled out like you found is the best. Birch was common where I used to live in the Interior of BC. I am pleasantly surprised that you could light it directly with the fire steel. Y'all are convincing me to go back and buy a V2.0 laugh

Here's a pic of a grandson roasting a hot dog for lunch on a minimal fire in late November along a coastal river. We were meandering back roads, looking at spawning salmon, practicing fire building, etc. It had been raining or snowing and melting for three weeks, with some soggy snow still around and was raining at the time. The driest squaw wood we could find is propped up almost over the small flame drying. We used more fatwood than usual to get something going, and split up larger dead wood with an axe to get past sodden wood to merely damp stuff. The creek behind him is full of spawning coho and chum.

[Linked Image]


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