Flint or Lighter?

You should always carry at least 2 means of fire starting with you. I prefer magnesium fire starter and jet lighters but I always carry flint and steel as well on me. Another great long lasting fire starter are welders strikers .

Fire is perhaps mans most useful and important tool. While there are many ways of making fire I am a bit surprised that no one has mentioned the Fire Piston.

Matches and lighters are fine so long as you have them and they are not wet, etc. Flint works great as does a striker and magnesium block. Friction methods take a bit of practice, but generally do the job after some effort. A Fire Piston will get you going in about 30 seconds with little effort.

The Fire Piston has been around for ages and was common until matches showed up on the scene. It uses the same principle as the Diesel engine, where temperature rises as gas is compressed. They are not that difficult to make, easier to use, last a very long time, and can get you glowing tinder in seconds. Combine a Fire Piston with some Tinder fungus and you cant fail.

Wilderness Survival, Fire Pistons

Ancient Firemaking Machine

Tinder Fungus

I have carried one for years and it has never let me down.

you learn something new every day....i have never heard of that, terapin, and i've been hiking and camping since i was knee high to a grasshopper. thanks for that piece of info...i'm gonna have to try that out!

If you are putting a flint in a survival kit or something like that I suggest you also put some dryer lint in with it in a water sealed bag. That stuff lights up very easily (when it's dry of course). That would help you alot if you had to start a fire.

heh once again, great minds.....I posted about lint as wicking as well in the other thread a little while ago.

In my kit I like to have a ziplock bag with vasoline cottonballs, best all weather fire cheats I've ever used. Easy to light with anything and burn in wet conditions.

Terapin,

Thanks for the fire piston! Very nice!

Steel wool also works very very well. One small spark is all it takes.

I'm suprised nobody else has mentioned this. Works beautifully, even in the rain, and a whole camping season results in hardly any wear. Highly recommended.

Firesteel Knife at ThinkGeek

Also, using cotton lint you can catch a spark from a dead lighter, i can get dryer lint to catch with a dead lighter just fine. Right now i got one lighter lft that's almost out, i need to restock this weekend, but i always keep lots of strike anywhere matches waterproofed with clear nail polish in my bag.For about $2 and a bit of time i can make 100+ waterproof strike anywhere matches.

I usually use my lighter but once in a while i'll pull out a waterproof match and use it just to make sure they're still good.

I need to get a block and a firesteel, they've been on my list for a while but i haven't come across any in the stores yet.

Yeah, the dryer lint lights up pretty easily, as others said. Depending where you live, the paper-like bark of a birch tree works reasonably well, too. I'm not sure where birch trees are, but we've got a bunch where I live, so that's why I know that.

No one that I noticed on this thread mentioned it, but a flint is a lot harder to wreck or break. With a lighter, you can accidentally break it or something and lose the fluid. I'm not sure how many uses a flint has compared to a lighter, but I'm betting it's a heck of a lot more. I have a flint back from boy scouts when I was a kid, and it still kinda works, but it doesn't really throw that many sparks, anymore. (probably because I used to play with it all the time :p)

A flint is probably harder to start a fire with, though; might be an idea to practice and light a little fire or two, rather than find out during crunch time that you don't know how to do it. It would sure suck to freeze to death in winter with a flint/steel in your hand because you couldn't get the fire going...

I found some great looking fire pistons made of buffalo horn from this site and it looks like they would last a lifetime or two.
www.wildersol.com...

[edit on 5-1-2007 by Digital_Reality]

as a member of the local sheriff's search and rescue team we are requried to carry 2 methods of fire starting with us in the field. we are also required to demonstrate starting a fire whit nothing but a wet stick (about 2-3 inches in dia and not rotten if you bend it and it dose not break it ok.)
the main thig about starting a fire in survival situations is having started fires many fires before you get in a situation where it is critical. one good and cheap thing to carry is a film canister with vasilne soaked cotten balls this is one of the best and fastes tinder items you can get. i like the blast match a flint(ferrocerium) fire starter and a good old zippo with an extra fule bottle( they sell a single refill bottle about the size of a chap stick.) so what ever your methods the key is pratice it till you have it down then keep in pratice. r-18