Split Wood Fires: Using Your Knife As A Spokeshave

Split Wood Fires: Using Your Knife As A Spokeshave

I have been using the 90 degree spine on my knives to collect tinder from trees, shave tinder from fat wood (makes for easier ignition than shavings), and when making split wood fire (aka one stick fires) for quite some time now. I honestly believe this process is much more effective than making a tinder bundle of feather stick shavings as I can always get this type of tinder bundle to light with only a couple strikes on a ferro rod. The secret in this process is how thin of a material that made ready for combustion, if you add the thinner scrapings to a larger tinder bundle of shavings or feather sticks you can easily have a fifteen minute fire starter at the ready.  So without further delay a quick video overview of the process showing hardwood to fire in just a few minutes.

Need Help Getting Your Fire Started? Try a few of these methods:  Dryer Lint Tinder Bundle  (LINK); Gorilla Tape Tinder Bundle (LINK); Rub Cloth (LINK); Dragon Ball Fire Starters (LINK); Char Cloth (LINK); Solar Ignition (LINK); One Stick Fire (LINK); Fire Pad (LINK); DIY Fire Starter: Cotton & Petroleum Jelly Modification  (LINK); Camp Fire vs. Survival Fire vs. Cooking Fire (LINK); Building a Sustainable Fire In Wet Conditions (LINK); Split Match Trick (LINK); Survival Resources 4x Fresnel Magnifier (LINK); Fatwood Fire (LINK); Evolution of My Pocket Fire Kit (LINK).

Tinder Making Process Tutorial In Pictures:

1) Once you split your stick/log find an edge that allows you to get a little bite into the wood and begin using downward and forward pressure and you will see a very thin quasi feather stick develop. 

2) Continue this process until you have a minimum of a fist size tinder bundle

 3) If you have some more marginal type tinder (i.e. shavings or feather sticks), make a pocket in the center of the tinder bundle and place the finer scrapings into that pocket.

4) Strike your ferro rod into the tinder bundle trying to concentrate the sparks into the center where the softer scrapings are placed. 

5) Once you have a flame started be prepared with your feather sticks or smalls as you have about three minutes worth of fire starter with this size tinder bundle.

6) You will get a very intense flame rather quickly and should be able to get even wet smalls to take quite readily. If you setup a "V" of smalls around your tinder bundle, light your tinder bundle and then put additional smalls above

 Don't Have a fire Kit? Buy One Here: 

Conclusions: 

This skill really brings out the value in all that time you invested in selecting the perfect woods travel companion for your survival knife (See what I look for in a survival knife here- LINK). That 90 degree spine can provide you tinder by scraping a tree a buck has rubbed, scraping fatwood, or as you can see scraping a split wood fire. I encourage you to get out and practice this skill with you knife of choice it can become one of the easiest fire starting methods you have in your skill set and would mean that you would not have to look for additional tender when doing  a split wood fire like so many other have to do.

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