These sparks are caught in the char-cloth, an essential part of this system. Char-cloth is essentially a thin piece of charcoal, produced by exposing cotton cloth to heat in the absence of oxygen.
This is easily made by enclosing small swatches of denim, terry-cloth, or knit cotton cloth in a small tin can Altoid cans work very well. It is important that the cloth you choose be made of natural fiber and not synthetic.
Poke a hole in the lid of the tin with an awl to allow vapors to escape in the firing process, otherwise the lid will pop off and expose the burning cloth to oxygen. Once the tin is packed loosely, place it in a fire and heat it until the smoke coming from the hole ceases.
Set the can aside to cool overnight. In the morning, you will discover that the cloth has turned black and is somewhat brittle. This is a char-cloth. There are two styles of catching the sparks in the char-cloth. One way is the place a piece of cloth on a flat surface and strike above it, allowing the sparks to drop down and catch on fire. I personally find this method unreliable, as the sparks are sometimes hard to direct and the cloth can be damaged with a wayward strike.
The second method is to fold the char-cloth over the edge of the flint, held in place by the two fingers pinching the flint. The flint is then struck through the cloth, with the sparks inevitably catching in the cloth that is blocking their descent. At this point, the small glowing ember that is slowly spreading through the char-cloth is placed in the tinder bundle. A tinder bundle is made of dry, fine materials of vegetable origin.
Some examples are the shredded bark of cedar, juniper, cottonwood, and tulip-poplar. Kneel on the ground, place a tinder bundle in front of you, and crouch over the bundle. If you are using charred cloth, place a piece into the depression of the tinder bundle before you begin. Hold the steel in one hand between your thumb and index finger. If you are using a pocketknife, hold the closed knife in the same fashion with the back of the knife blade facing the rock see figure 3.
To generate sparks, strike the steel against the sharp edge of the rock with a quick downward motion. Use deliberate, powerful strokes, directing the sparks toward the tinder bundle. Besides having the charred cloth in the tinder bundle, try holding a small piece under your thumb against the flint near the striking edge. Many times sparks will deflect upward away from the steel as it strikes the flint, and the cloth may catch them.
Incorporating this technique can greatly increase your chances of catching a viable spark. When you see a spark fall into the tinder, immediately give a light puff of air onto the tinder bundle. Alternatively, if you catch a good spark on the charred cloth under your thumb, quickly transfer it to the tinder bundle and blow it into flame. If the spark has begun to ignite the tinder, a small wisp of smoke will be present, and you should see a tiny glow in the bundle.
Continue to blow the tinder into flame. If the tinder does not catch, continue striking sparks. In bright and sunny conditions, place the tinder bundle in the shade or position yourself so that you cast a shadow over the tinder. That way you can see where the sparks are falling and whether the tinder is beginning to burn. This is an excerpt from Outdoor Survival Guide. Home Excerpts How to start a fire using flint and steel. To strike a spark with flint and steel, follow these steps: 1.
Grasp the flint in the opposite hand with the sharpest edge toward the steel. Active Aging. Coaching and Officiating. Because of the relatively size of a typical iron object, the heat it gives off as it rusts dissipates too quickly for the heat to accumulate and be of much use. While holding an ordinary iron object you are unlikely to feel any heat as it rusts, since the heat is absorbed by its surroundings as fast as the oxidation process produces it. However if you can increase the rate of oxidation you can cause the iron to spontaneously give off a large amount of heat very quickly.
Small Particles Have Larger Surface Area — As can be seen in this illustration, the total surface area of the smaller cubes greatly exceeds the surface are of the cube taken as a whole. When a tiny particle of fresh iron is broken off from the main mass, the surface area of the particle is very large in comparison to its total size. Upon contact with oxygen in the air, the tiny iron spontaneously ignites also known as rusts or oxidizes and glows red hot.
How do you increase the rate of oxidization of iron? One way is to give a fresh un-oxidized piece of iron more surface area in contact with the air. More oxygen touching more iron will cause more oxidation which will give off more heat in a given amount of time. Increased oxidation can be accomplished by breaking off smaller particles of iron from a bigger piece. The smaller the iron particle is, the greater its surface area compared to its total size.
Have you ever used a metal grinder or seen one in action on a piece of iron? Notice how thousands of glowing hot sparks fly off the wheel as it removes tiny bits of fresh iron off the chunk of iron being worked on. These tiny bits of iron are actually spontaneously catching on fire as they are exposed to the oxygen in the air.
If you can create a small enough particle of fresh iron, upon contact with oxygen in the air the iron particles increased surface area will oxidize faster than it can dissipate the heat formed during the reaction. The result: the particle of iron spontaneously becomes so hot that it glows as it oxidizes — and can be used to catch tinder on fire.
Iron by itself is relatively soft and tends to bend rather than chip under the stress of a hard blow on a piece of flint. To make iron harder for use in industry, it is made into what we call steel by adding some carbon.
0コメント