Very nice...I liked it. I am admittedly not an expert at the flint and steel; I do way better with the modern 'fire steel'. That, I know, is lack of practice. Though right now I'm unable to practice as my striker has gone missing. The woods have it, somewhere. I also tend to use charcloth because I do keep jeans until they're basically unwearable. Though, I don't use them for cleaning rags afterward. I am not sure what the point in all that was, other than I need to practice more. LOL
Hutch, many many years ago I almost lost my fire steel in the woods. I have a habit of striking & then dropping the steel & continue to make fire. Agter a little episode where the steel became concealed beneath leaves, I tied my steel to my belt pouch buckle with a leather thong long enough that I could still use the steel whilst it was tied. It works well & I never have to worry about losing my steel again!
Keith, great video! I wish that you had spent some time explaining how to make your tinder; i.e., charred pucky wood to catch the spark. It took me a long time to figure this out whereas you take it for granted! I also have taken a lot of abuse for daring to say that the western trappers did not use charcloth. It was like I was committing blasphemy against their Holy Grail; charcloth.
Hi John. Actually I did cover preparing charred plant tinders in another previous video, you must have misssed it. Simply char the punk wood or whatever you are using directly in the fire,e.g. on the end of a pointy stick. Then place it in your tinderbox to smother it. Yes I got some similar flack a while back. I don't say anything now, unless I am really choking over the misinformation! I just make another video to give the correct information. Some people do not want the truth John, especially when they have been promoting their own beliefs strongly. Rather than learn, they will deny. You are of course quite correct, it would be very rare for a 19th century beaver trapper in the Rocky Mountains to be using cloth for tinder unless he had run out of plant tinder and he needed to make fire. In which case he would spill a little gun powder on a handkerchief or a piece of clothing and strike on that. But it would not be charred. Thanks for the feedback John, appreciated.
A PS for John: The western trapper would still be more likely to use a plant tinder and gun powder than cloth unless it was an emergency and he had no plant tinder to use.
Absolutely! When cold, wet, tired hungry and getting dark, you know on occasion the mountain men pulled out the powder horn to start fire as fast as possible. We do the same thing now except with gasoline!
6 comments:
Very nice...I liked it. I am admittedly not an expert at the flint and steel; I do way better with the modern 'fire steel'. That, I know, is lack of practice. Though right now I'm unable to practice as my striker has gone missing. The woods have it, somewhere. I also tend to use charcloth because I do keep jeans until they're basically unwearable. Though, I don't use them for cleaning rags afterward. I am not sure what the point in all that was, other than I need to practice more. LOL
Hutch, many many years ago I almost lost my fire steel in the woods. I have a habit of striking & then dropping the steel & continue to make fire. Agter a little episode where the steel became concealed beneath leaves, I tied my steel to my belt pouch buckle with a leather thong long enough that I could still use the steel whilst it was tied. It works well & I never have to worry about losing my steel again!
Keith, great video! I wish that you had spent some time explaining how to make your tinder; i.e., charred pucky wood to catch the spark. It took me a long time to figure this out whereas you take it for granted! I also have taken a lot of abuse for daring to say that the western trappers did not use charcloth. It was like I was committing blasphemy against their Holy Grail; charcloth.
Hi John. Actually I did cover preparing charred plant tinders in another previous video, you must have misssed it. Simply char the punk wood or whatever you are using directly in the fire,e.g. on the end of a pointy stick. Then place it in your tinderbox to smother it.
Yes I got some similar flack a while back. I don't say anything now, unless I am really choking over the misinformation! I just make another video to give the correct information. Some people do not want the truth John, especially when they have been promoting their own beliefs strongly. Rather than learn, they will deny. You are of course quite correct, it would be very rare for a 19th century beaver trapper in the Rocky Mountains to be using cloth for tinder unless he had run out of plant tinder and he needed to make fire.
In which case he would spill a little gun powder on a handkerchief or a piece of clothing and strike on that. But it would not be charred.
Thanks for the feedback John, appreciated.
A PS for John: The western trapper would still be more likely to use a plant tinder and gun powder than cloth unless it was an emergency and he had no plant tinder to use.
Absolutely! When cold, wet, tired hungry and getting dark, you know on occasion the mountain men pulled out the powder horn to start fire as fast as possible. We do the same thing now except with gasoline!
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