This months OKC22 challenge is collecting and lighting 5 natural tinders with ferro rod.
I cant stand ferro rods, and dont use them. I find real flint and steel faster and easier!
As far as I knew, I didn’t own one, other than the blast match style ine a friend gave me, thats in my ATV hunting gear… cant strike that with the knife.
Then I remembered this little guy I made, a 3/16″ rod set in a muley deer tine with a scraper years ago..
Figured I’d try that, but its a short shower of sparks, and hard to use with a bigger knife..
Then, I happened onto pics I had of a bigger ferro rod I’d forgotten. If I still had it. Found it quite by accident after giving up, looking for something else lol.
Was getting ready to remove the handle and replace with something better, when I got deja vu…
Went and dug around and found the one I started to do that to like 4 years ago… Went ahead and did that one instead.
One of my peeves with these things is the ever epic short grip. So I grabbed a block of curly maple(close enough to the curly oak on the knife) , drew out a design and put a nice sized grip on it.
Wanted as much rod length exposed as possible, found it a super tight fit in 9/32″ brass tube(hammered in, it is NOT coming out). Fit 1/4″ into the tube, then 2″ of the tube set in the wood handle. Extended the rod reach, and in theory when its used up(if ever) I can remove the stub, add a new rod to the handle.
Could have cut/carved/sanded, but I went and put it in the metal lathe.
Siting here with a first coat of wipe on poly drying. 🙂
Alaskan, Adventurer, Engineer. 