Fire by Flint and Steel | John A. Swett | Muzzle Blasts Archives

This article appeared first in the November Issue of Muzzle Blasts Magazine in 1976 NMLRA Members can read this and every other article ever published. Sign up today

-By John A. Swett

Dim shapes in the swirling snow slowly materialized into a small party of men, wrapped voluminously against the wea­ther in furs and capotes. Mov­ing slowly downhilL through winter b arren woods, they reached the floor at the upper end of a small valley. They crossed a frozen stream and climbed to the flat top of a knoll where each one eased his burden to the ground.

Seeming reluctant to violate the ivory silence, the group rested wordlessly for a few moments, then following a rout­ine born of many long trails past, they set about making camp. Spreading out along the sides of the valley, the men gathered armloads of firewood and returned to the knoll where a large pile quickly grew.

While one man headed to­ward the stream bed to gather rocks for a heat reflector, an­other began to lay a fire, while at his back, the rest of the party started to raise a com­munal lean-to. Kneeling on a cleared patch of frozen ground, the fire builder assembled an open-sided cone of thin twigs and then outer layers of larger sticks. With dead grasses and leaves gathered from the lee side of a large deadfalI he form­ed a loose nest, just small enough to fit inside the piled twigs. Searching beneath the folds of his capote, he found the small leather-wrapped bun­dle containing his fire-steel and flint. With the flint in one hand and steel in the other he tried a few quick strokes while turn­ing the flint and searching for a sharp edge. A good shower of sparks ended the search and his weather tightened features relaxed as he laid aside the flint and transferred a small piece of steel wool from the leather wrapping to the nest.

Hold it! Steel wool! A frontiersman using steel wool? That's about as authentic as naugahyde ! It works great, but that isn't what we're talking about. What we are talking about is authenticity.

Let's get back to our intrepid frontiersman. What should he have used to catch and hold the sparks? Char-cloth, that' s what! It is exactly what the name implies--charred cloth.

There is no mystery to mak­ing char-cloth. All that is needed is a fire, a tin box, and cotton or linen cloth. Pure cotton or linen is used, with emphasis on the word 'pure'. Cloth contain­ing synthetic fiber is poor or useless for our purposes. An old flannel bathrobe has kept me in char-cloth for two years, and I've still got a couple years worth left. 100% cotton T-shirts work well, also. ("Hanes" brand is one). Tin boxes which contained shoe polish, tea, sad­dle soap, throat lozenges and bandaids are sources of usable boxes, some of which are big enough to carry your flint and steel as well as char-cloth. A waterproof box is obviously a desirable item so if you have one don't go poking holes in it to "let the gases out". (More about this in a second). The cloth to be used should be well washed to remove the sizing. Cut it into squares about the size of a quarter and pack into your tin box. Now then, if your tin box is airtight, put the lid on only part way so that a tiny crack is left to "let the gases out." Place the box in the fire and watch it carefully. As the cloth inside begins to heat up, it gives off combustible gases which will be ignited by the fire as they escape from under the lid. As soon as the gases stop burning, remove the box from the fire and let it cool before opening it. If you open it while the cloth is still hot, oxygen in the air will cause it to glow and thus ruin it. Char-cloth has the look of charcoal, but it can be pulled apart into separ­ate layers and will withstand gentle handling.

Whether you use it in a flint­lock or a fire starting kit, the flint must have a sharp edge. A good sharp edge is required for a large hot shower of sparks. Use the edge of the flint as it were the edge of an axe and try to chop long slivers of steel from the face of the striker. This usually produces the hottest sparks.

Once the char-cloth has caught the spark and begun to glow, fold your tinder nest ( dried grass, leaves, etc.) firmly against it, hold it above your face and blow gently and steadi­ly up into it until a flame starts.

If you blow down into the nest, you will find yourself breathing smoke. Now a lot of people have told me that instead of char­cloth, you can use dry leaves, pine needles, termite borings, cattail down, cotton, milkweed down, grapevine bark, lint and fur(!). Just walk into the woods, grab up a handful, strike your spark and blow. It certainly must have looked great to the uninitiated who watched Richard Harris do it in the movie "Man In The Wilderness", but as usual, real life is a different matter. I speak from experi­ence when I say that these ma­terials won't hold a spark in the "as gathered" condition. It is possible to alter some natural materials for use as a substitute for char-cloth, by the same method used to make char-cloth. I have been successful with cat­tail down, and I suspect that a  fibrous material such as corn husk would be good, altho' I over-charred my sample. At any rate, since we know that charred cattail down works, we can infer that other natural ma­terials will also work. The "weight" and texture of the charred material seem to be important and I believe this is one of the reasons that char­cloth works so well.

A Word About Strikers:

The fire steel or striker must be made of hardened steel, and the striking surface should be smooth. An old file heated 1·ed hot, coo I e d slowly, ground smooth, bent to suit, re-heated red hot and quenched in cold water, makes an excellent strik­er. A rough striker surface will chew the sharp edge off your flint on the first stroke, so make it smooth! •

MUZZLE BLASTS, March, 1976