Start a fire for a million bucks?

[Lee1959]

My wife likes the reality type show Survivor so I always tape it and watch it with her. While normally true survival skills mean little, it is generally more a study in human nature and psychology than it is survival, last nights final actually came down to a true test of a survival skill. After 39 days in a primitive setting, a tie came down to a test of who could start a fire with a magnesium firestarter the fastest and have it burn through a string. Whoever did it was in the finals for a million dollars and as the voting turned out, the person who won it, either one of them would have won the million. One 57 yo guy did it fairly quickly and ended up winning the million, the other in his 30s failed miserably. Hard to believe that even with a mag strip someone could be so inept at it, especially after they had to do it day in day out to boil their water and for any cooking for over a month. They also know ahead that any ties in votes is always decided by a firestarting contest so one would think it an important skill. Had to laugh my butt off at the young guy.

Moral of this story? Learn and practice fire making skills, it may at the least cost you a million bucks, at worst it may cost you something much more dear.

 

[Illum]

you'd be surprised how hard a magnesium film will catch with sparks, magnesium's thermal dissipation qualities will require you to heat a film for a bit before it goes, shavings...well shavings is hard unless you know how to use your knife correctly.

I've bought two of these magnesium bars to try on my own free time....I don't like it too much, it'll seriously roll the edge if you have absolutely no idea what your doing...like me:shakehead

gotta love wallys $1 pocket folders...you roll the edge, oh well, its not sharp to begin with:nana:

 

[american lockpicker]

you'd be surprised how hard a magnesium film will catch with sparks, magnesium's thermal dissipation qualities will require you to heat a film for a bit before it goes, shavings...well shavings is hard unless you know how to use your knife correctly.

I've bought two of these magnesium bars to try on my own free time....I don't like it too much, it'll seriously roll the edge if you have absolutely no idea what your doing...like me:shakehead

gotta love wallys $1 pocket folders...you roll the edge, oh well, its not sharp to begin with:nana:

I have 2 magnesium firestarts one is a Doan and the other is a
Coghlan I aslo hate using them I prefer to use a Bic or a Zippo to start a fire...

 

[Lee1959]

Well for one thing, stainless steel blades work poorly for this. To use one effectively and easily a carbon steel blade is best.

 

[Oddjob]

Bob Crowley was smart because he realized the possibility of a tie breaker and he went and practiced using the mag strip. Unfortunately some people on survivor forget about the basics and go through the game not knowing how to start a fire. I remember another fire making tie breaker in a previous year where the two participants could not get a fire going after something like an hour and a half!

 

[jzmtl]

Well for one thing, stainless steel blades work poorly for this. To use one effectively and easily a carbon steel blade is best.

You know I keep hearing people say this, but when I tried it with spine of my spyderco it works no better or worse. I mean think about it, all it does is to scrap stuff off and create heat to light shavings off, why does what it's made of matter as long as it's sharp?

In fact the best firesteel shaver I've found is a carbide sharpener, HERE is a short video I made comparing it with a sharpened hacksaw blade.

 

[american lockpicker]

Well for one thing, stainless steel blades work poorly for this. To use one effectively and easily a carbon steel blade is best.

Thats what I have found thats most effective. I use an old carbon steel kitchen knife that is too rusted to use with food prep.

 

[Illum]

Well for one thing, stainless steel blades work poorly for this. To use one effectively and easily a carbon steel blade is best.

I have noticed that SS blades can't cut @#$%...at best is "mg whiskers" if your bar still has an edge, they'll glide on the flint given enough pressure though. I wonder if D2 tool steel or an serrated edge might work better.:thinking:

I found a chiesel to work very well...

I'm going to give the fire piston thing a try one of these days...

 

[Flying Turtle]

Being the same age it was good to see old Bob win that thing. I'd like to think I could compete with all you youngsters.

Geoff

 

[Lee1959]

It is the carbon that sparks, high carbon steels work best . Some stainless alloys have more carbon some less which makes a diff.

 

[jzmtl]

No carbon doesn't spark, besides there is no elemental carbon in carbon steel, it's all bonded to other metal. It's the friction that generates heat which ignites ferro-cerium alloy shavings.

 

[gorn]

The problem these guys had on this season of survivor was the way they were trying to get the flint to spark. They were try to chop down a tree instead of scraping the blade along the flint. I noticed that both times they had a fire making competition.