Fire steels

[jbullard1]

I know nothing about these but are the edges sharp?
How do they work?

[melsdad]

The one I had given to me is not sharp. The striking surface is about a ¼" wide. The flint is sharp.

[FG1]

Nopey Jerry , you can take an old simmonds or nicholson flat file and grind all the teeth off grind a tail about 3/8 x 2.5 " and the striking surface .75 +/-  x 3" .Heat the tail and bend around 1/2" pipe(or similar)to make sort of a U , polish the striking surface smooth to 150 grit finish . Heat bright red/orange and quench in water and swirl to cool . Check it with yer flint .

[mario]

Nopey Jerry , you can take an old simmonds or nicholson flat file and grind all the teeth off grind a tail about 3/8 x 2.5 " and the striking surface .75 +/-  x 3" .Heat the tail and bend around 1/2" pipe(or similar)to make sort of a U , polish the striking surface smooth to 150 grit finish . Heat bright red/orange and quench in water and swirl to cool . Check it with yer flint .

Or for around $15 or so, you can buy one from me (made by Mike Ameling) that sparks like the dickens. I have a couple flat oval and French ram's horn (17th century) left.

Or you can get one from Mike himself.

Mario

[Mike Ameling]

The way a flint striker works is:

You use a sharp edge of a piece of flint (or other types of rock) to chip/dig out little bits of steel from the striking surface of your flint striker.  The energy you put in to chipping/digging those little bits out (along with breaking the bonds between the steel molecules) heats them up enough that the carbon in them burns.  That's the sparks you see.  The harder the steel is heat-treated, the easier it is to chip/dig out those little bits of steel - and the smaller those little bits are.  The smaller those bits of steel are, the easier it is to heat them up hot enough to get the carbon in them burning.  So you need steel with a high enough carbon content in it to begin with, along with it being heat-treated hard enough.  But steel heat-treated hard makes it more brittle and susceptible to breaking.  So you have to do something of a balancing act when heat-treating a striker -  hard enough to spark well without being too brittle.  

Some people prefer a striker with a wide striking face - kind of the same principle as the frizzen on a flintlock.  Others prefer a narrower striking surface.  But one thing to consider would be a narrower striking surface.  If you have a narrow edge, that will concentrate the force of striking your flint-n-steel into a much smaller area.  This will make it a little easier to get your sparks - needing less force to get better sparks.  When I strike sparks, I tend to tilt my striker to the side a bit so that I am striking more along one corner of the surface instead of along the whole wide surface.  It works for me.

I hope these humble ramblings help.

Mikey - yee ol' grumpy German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. A 3 inch chunk of a old file (like Nicholson) makes a great simple striker.  Clamp the file in your vise with about 3 inches sticking up above the jaws.  Drape a shop rag over it, and smack it hard on the flat side with your hammer - to snap off the part sticking above the vise.  The shop rag helps control any "shrapnel", and helps you find back that chunk from where it flys across your shop and under a workbench.  Now carefully grind the teeth off of the narrow edge of the file.  Go slow and cool in often.  If it is getting too hot to hold in your fingers (or starting to turn blue) then cool it right now.  Also grind back or "bevel" the teeth a bit along the sides of that narrow edge.  And smooth off any sharp edges where it snapped off (saves cuts on fingers).  You need to grind the teeth off down to bare metal.  Those teeth interfere with striking sparks, and chew up the sharp edge on your flint real fast.  And there is your quick/simple flint striker.  Many boy scout troops used to do this as a project.  You do have to use the "pinch" grip to use it, instead of the "brass knuckle" type hold you have with a C shaped striker.  But you can get much better control with the "pinch" grip.

[45flint]

I have found some flints don't like to be struck but rubbed or scraped

[Kermit]

The carbon in the steel BURNS?

[T.C.Albert]

I recently read that the pure element "Fe" actually burns when exposed to oxygen...but that it nearly instantly oxidizes...when the flint cuts off those minute particles of the pure iron it is unoxidized and sparks or "burns"...( the carbon must make it spark better?)

I had always assumed the sparks were generated by the kenetics
involved in striking them off of the steel with a sharp flint...but the above implys it more of a chemical reaction???

Is the "iron burns when exposed to oxygen" story true??? Or is it one of those grain of salt internet things???
TCA

[rweber]

Hopefully without getting into semantecs on it, the short answer is TC , yes, iron, Fe, burns when exposed to Oxygen, it is Oxidizing, like  rusting and it is also a chemical reaction.

rusting does not give off enough heat for you to notice that part of the reaction, but it is there. technically hydrated oxide of iron ( Fe2O2 +(HaO))

You can have fire underwater if using a product that produces or has its own embedded oxidizers, welding underwater for instance, OR a magnesium sparkler lit in air continues to burn under water, depending on the content, reacting and burning its own O2.

Without the Oxygen there is no Oxidation, you won't get a flintlock to go go off underwater simply because there is no O2 for the Fe to react with and burn/ oxidize rapidly, ie spark.

I am not certain of firesteel composition but I would expect part of the reaction to be Fe2+O2+ heat ( the strike) -->FE2O2 + heat ( or iron and heat and O2 combines to make ball of rust and heat in form of "Man that fire feels good!"

If I had known in school how much the chemistry applies in making and building muzzeloaders I would have been more interested!

[Mike Ameling]

Part of it is the energy you put into chipping/digging out those little bits of steel.  Part of it is the breaking of those molecular bonds.  And part is that chemical reaction.  This all combines to generate heat, and that gets the Carbon hot enough to burn.  Those "twinkling" sparks are the carbon burning.

When you take wrought iron (almost no carbon content) and spring/tool steel to the bench grinder, you can see the same thing.  The "sparks" coming off of the wrought iron from the grinding wheel will be kind of dull red, and stream out a long ways.  But those from grinding high carbon spring/tool steel will be almost white, and "twinkle" a lot - plus only go out a short ways.  Those "twinkling" sparks are the carbon in the steel burning.

There's lots of stuff I am interested in now, that I didn't pay much attention to in school.  I hated History back then - mostly because of HOW it was taught.  Now I BUY history books just to read them!  

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

[Kermit]

Want an intersting science experiment to baffle the uninformed? Hold a match/lighter under a piece of 0000 steel wool, and watch it glow red. Steel "burning." Burning of anything is rapid oxidizing, innit?

[rweber]

yes, it is.

take that steel wool of yours, pack it tightly into a ball and remove as much air (20% O2 roughly) and it won't do much even in a furnace other than slowly oxidize, but fluff it up and let the O2 in and it is a firestarter for you with fast oxidation.

[pathfinder]

The most interesting and what I think the best change incured when sriking flint to steel is the  way it makes Squirrles taste at the end of a good hunt!