They’re very useful as they’ll light even when wet. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. I knew that we were expecting a nasty storm with heavy rain and 30-40 MPH winds.

Using a ferro rod is relatively simple. The magnesium shavings burn extremely hot and help light tinder and kindling. The weather was cool, and I expected a storm that night. Once you’ve got the hang of it rest the bottom of your fire starter against your tinder bundle or char cloth and strike sparks into it. If you carry these I would not have cotton balls as the other alternative. This is so light weight and good for multiple things, this should be included in every emergency pack in my opinion. Therefore, having a quality Firestarter with you in the wild can quickly mean the difference between life and death. KonvoySG also includes a container of char cloth, absolutely essential for use with a flint and steel. I ripped off the sleeve of my cotton t-shirt and doused it with the medication.

Name The below table of contents have links to each section of this article. © 2018 Geek Prepper - All Rights Reserved. Eventually hypothermia causes your body to completely shut down and your heart will stop. Choose two different types of tinder. For most of my life I have been interested in emergency preparedness. Now if your like me after hearing all those things it does you are saying “what?” But it really does all those things. The magnesium scrapings are then ignited by a spark from the ferro rod.

The ferro rod and striker are actually used as the clasp for the bracelet. Most folks I’ve seen using a ferro rod are casting their sparks into fine tinder in order to make fire. link to Bring Old Batteries Back To Life! I drill a hole if needed, tie a lanyard and I am done. They typically contain cerium, lanthanum, iron, praseodymium, neodymium, and magnesium. I could not recall if I was heading in the right direction or needed to turn around. Getting a good grip on it was a bit tricky but we got the hang of it after just a few tries. Never try to float the ferro rod.

The sparks are fairly easy to aim into a tinder pile.

Pick the right tinder for your bundle. This is when you try holding it above your tinder bundle in the air and striking it with your other hand.

Maybe people will take all of your supplies, your families’ supplies if you get herded in with a large number of displaced people?

But a ferro rod does NOT need to be struck very quickly and delicately. This can be easily accomplished by simply scraping the black material off of the rod. For years, this was the only type of spark-producing fire-starting device that came in a rod form, and was termed a ferrocerium rod or a mischmetal fire starter. Again just do the very end so that you can make this last for all 90 fires. John D. McCann is the author of Build the Perfect Survival Kit and Stay Alive! It has everything you’d need for basic survival in an emergency situation as well as lots of useful everyday tools. The longer the ferro rod is, the more contact time you will have on the surface when you slide the striker over it. So you cut these into two inch lengths and then peal the fibers apart and mix it with the wood shavings that you use as your tinder. It’s a bit on the pricey side for a standalone ferro rod but the features it gives you more than makes up for it in our opinion. When you get that new ferro rod, it mayb be covered with a special black coating, that is designed to prevent sparks during shipping.

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites, at no cost to you. If you’re going somewhere where tinder is not found easily, take the magnesium bar as a backup to add to the burn time of your fire. Bird feathers are another good option if you shred them. If your ferro rod is going to be part of your Everyday Carry, you probably don’t want a goliath rod … Then I remembered my first aid kit. I have found you get MUCH more sparks and material which continues to burn by using ground down saw blade teeth. The magnesium is the metal you see burning after the sparks have died off. This is a material covered in a special kind of flammable wax. I’m David. Loved this article, especially step 3..yeah, I have been doing it wrong. My consensus is that the best fire-starting tool isn’t either of these on their own, but rather the combination of a large piece of magnesium (99.99% pure) and a high-quality ferro rod (made with carbon steel) that is matching in size. A new fire starter rod is introduced and it is called a mischmetal rod. Never understood why they would use this method.

Flint and steel only gets up to about 800 degrees fahrenheit. You’ve got to get the sparks to land on VERY DRY and FLUFFY tinder. Now on to the ferro rod. ... each of which burn for roughly five minutes once ignited, offering plenty of time to catch larger pieces of fuel like wood. You absolutely need to take the time to practice using it. How these work best is if you slice the end of these off with a knife.

It will produce many sparks which will dry out your tinder so it can ignite. What really sets it apart from the competition are the 4 waxed tinder sticks contained within it. Here’s How to Make It, How to Make a Char Cloth: Instructions Plus Troubleshooting, Best Tinder for Fire Starting – Natural Plus Homemade Firestarters, Survival Books and Movies For Education and Entertainment, Make “birds nest” of dry grass on the ground, Top the birds nest with plant fluff (if you can find some), Make a featherstick and put it on top of the fluff and dry grass, Use your ferro rod to rain sparks down on the configuration.

Get the 74th edition of the World's Greatest Gun Book. Ferro rods are one of the easiest primitive fire starting methods to pick up. With very little practice, you can aim the blade to throw the sparks and material where you want it. It combines a useful length of cordage with an attractive braid design. So some people light this and then use this as a wick or a match to light other tender they have that is not lighting as easily. In the rest of this article I am going to go over my favorite types of emergency tinder that you can purchase cheaply to have with you in emergency situations. There are several reasons. You are disoriented, confused, and clumsy. Figure out if you want a standalone fire starter or one that’s part of a kit. Pull the rod back (away from the tinder) with a slow and steady motion to create a show of … I absolutely love this. This site is owned and operated by Cornerstone Concepts LLC, a limited liability company headquartered in Idaho, USA.