Techniques for starting fires with Zippo flints?

Disclaimer: this is all theory!
Put in in a zippo, and flick the wheel;)
No zippo?
Pull out your SAK (you do have a SAK, right?) find a small twig, and split it down the middle. Carve a little notch 90 degrees to the split so you can put the flint in the split and hav a little sticking out the side of the twig. Then hold the twig and strike on the file on your SAK. (or use the filework on the back of you high priced custom blade ;)) Maybe you could even get enough sticking out of the twig to strike with a blade.
Option two: pull the plastic scale off your SAK and heat it with your lighter, and press the flint into the side, then strike with the blade....what's wrong with this picture? Maybe you could do this before you leave home to always have a piece of flint with you (use a cheap SAK)
I also saw a movie once where a villain put the flint under his thumbnail and struck it on a knurled fitting, igniting anesthetic gas and making a flamethrower. I forget the name.

Nice knives...I especially like the Armageddon SKS
 
You'd need some way to support the flint, and something to scrape it with - even a sharp fragment of rock would do. While the flint is ferrocerium, the size of it limits the spark so you'd need good tinder. A section of dry lamp wick with the end fuzzed is easy to hold in place and catches the small spark well. Char cloth is even better.
A search will turn up posts about gluing flints into the groove of an old key for a useful fire starting tool.
It'd be a good idea to scrounge an empty Bic lighter and remove the metal top and try it on stuff to get an idea of what it takes to catch the best spark it's possible to get from one flint.
 
Yeah Trace, I have started a fire with a Zippo flint! Unintentionally however!

I was fooling around and had a bunch of flints, I deepened the holes in 30 .22 hollowpoints, set lighter flints in them with a tad of super glue. I loaded a full magazine in my M-16 with the Ciener .22 conversion in it and ripped the whole mag full auto onto a steel targer at our range to kick off a match. It wads impressive! Every bullet created a flash of sparks and set the grass on filre. We got it stomped out quick enough though. Makes me think there is a lot of cool uses for the round, and you just get bigger flints for bigger hollowpoints. Works in everything I have tried so far. Lets see, punture a gas tank with one......start tactical fires.......etc! :D :D

You can get a pretty big flint in a .45 hollowpoint, nice big spark shower! :eek:
 
i suppose that if you were talking about a zippo lighter that had dried out as they tend to do, you could lift up the felt in the bottom of the zippo and extract a small piece of cotton wool, fluff it up and stick it in next to the wick and start striking.

always keep a couple of spare flints in the bottom of the zippo, under the felt so they don't fly out when you refill it, and if possible keep one of those little rubber ampoules of fuel with you. back in my zippo carrying days i used to keep one under the swiss champ in its pouch.

cheers, sargey.
 
Hey Rob that sounds kinda similar to something we used to do as kids..:-) I was raised on a pig ranch, and in the building we had our sows, and piglets we had a problem with mice and rats...
My younger brother and I were ALWAYS running out of BB's and pellets for our Venerable pump rifle... We used to load the thing with wooden kitchen matches, and pump it to the limit..
It was not hard to scewer a mouse or rat, the match would usually penetrate completely, and then strike on the concrete after it exited..
This method worked very well, and was a rather exciting way to kill rodents..LOL...
I always like to tuck zippo flints away,in various places like the ends of para-cord shoe laces, and just about anywhere you can stick em.. I have stuck them into sticks and created sparks, but was just curious if anyone had a detailed SOP for making a fire with flints.. I guess if you have tinder and ANY damn way of making a spark you are good to go... Mutant, glad you like the stuff...

Take Care
Trace Rinaldi
www.thrblades.com
 
Hi Rob,

You'll have your task laid out for you during the Christmas holidays, if our Large Military Firesteels arrive at your place by then.
Just drill the bullit of a .50 with an 3/8" drill for about 1/2" and glue in a piece of the Large Military Firesteel.
That should make for some impressive sparking when it hits the target ;)

Without kidding, as a youth I used to hand drill .22 coper plated hollow points and fill the cavity with black powder dust (fine particles) and then glued an normal percussion cap (non winged one!) on the top of it.
These "explosive" .22's gave of an nice bang and cloud of smoke when they hit the (solid) target.
I shot them in 10 pound blocks of pottery clay and filled the cavity with plaster? (we call it 'gips' = white powder, mix with water, becomes solid+warm, very fast). The explosive ones made BIG craters and were covered with black debris from the burned blackpowder.

Best Scouting wishes from Holland,

Bagheera
 
Bagheera, I have done the explosive bullet thing using drilled out 500 grain lead 45-70 bullets. It is cool! I dont think I will be cutting up my fire steels though! :p

Trace, your wooden match thing sounds like a gas! We have another thing in common, pig farming. We raised pigs for a couple years on a cattle ranch in central Montana. We had 400 sows at one time. The only pigs I like are in the form of bacon and ham anymore!
 
I agree Rob.. I dont miss slopping hogs one bit:-) But it was a good upbringing, and taught me the value of a GOOD knife.. I used to spend all $$ I earned working at the Livestock Auction on crappy knives at the swap meet. Eventually I figured out just cause they looked cool, didnt mean they would work.. Anyway bud good to hear from ya, and maybe I will see ya in Vegas..

Take Care
Trace Rinaldi
www.thrblades.com
 
This system works well and takes up very little room in a minikit. I use the strikers that are made for lighting coleman lanterns. They use the same flints as lighters and take up a lot less space. The advantage of this tool is that it is easy to put the spark exactly where you want it. No scraping or major movement. Just turn the knob and you get a great shower of sparks. You can lay it right on top of charcloth, give it a quick turn, and you have sparks and a coal. They seem to hold up well too. I've had one in a coleman lantern for over 30 years and it still works. Still, it's a mechanical device with several parts and therefore subject to failure. However, even if parts of it failed (say the knob fell off and was lost), I think you could still coax an effective spark from it. At the very least, it will make a good backup sparker.

If you are really into saving wt, the handle can be shortened. It's only as long as it is because it is designed for coleman lanterns. A dremel tool will shorten things up in a hurry. Note also that an extra flint can be stored in the knob.

colemanstriker.jpg
 
Great idea Hoodoo, do you know if they available by themselves, or do you have to buy the whole lantern?
Thanks,
Chad
 
Hi Chad,
I think some lanterns come with them now but they used to be strictly an add on. You can usually pick them up at a discount store or good sporting goods store that sells coleman parts. It comes with some mounting parts that you will probably want to remove. What I really like about these strikers is how close you can get your spark to the tinder. This evening I was having trouble lighting a small piece of fungus that I charred because I couldn't aim the firesteel that well. I used the coleman lighter, holding it just above the fungus, and one turn of the sparker and I had a nice coal going. This would really work well with a pile of magnesium that blows away just from the air currents created from your hand. With a little practice, it can also be operated one-handed so if a hand was injured, you could still get a fire going.

Another little trick worth doing is to pull the knurled knob off, and grind a small groove on the rod for the set screw to ride in. Then use mild loctite to lock the screw once it's tight.
 
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