Fire making myths put to rest?
I wanted to find out what it would take to get a fire going with mag shavings, and I wanted to find out if wet mag shavings would ignite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa2O-AiCmHY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLJsp_0-gSA
Then I wanted to find out if a wet ferro rod would still throw sparks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPmfL9P2dik
Water soaked ferro rod: It works and the video proves it, nuff said.
Mag bar:
It takes a huge amount of effort to scrape up enough shavings to ignite even the driest and most easily ignited tinder, frayed blue jeans.
A quarter sized pile of shavings only burns for a fraction of a second. I had to scrape up about 6 quarters worth to get it to finally work, but it did work. The shavings fly everywhere while being scraped so I used a big brown paper bag to gather them up and keep them dry as I scraped. It took 5 minutes or so under ideal conditions to get enough shavings to ignite the blue jeans and two separate attempts.
I've heard people here say that wet magnesium shavings will ignite! So, I tested it out by pouring less than a tablespoon worth of water on a 2" wide by 1" high pile of mag shavings, a huge pile as I've also been told it only takes a quarter sized pile to start a fire. This was about 6 quarters worth of shavings, took 5 minutes to make the shavings, and my hands were extremely sore and weak for all the effort. But, after letting all excess water run off I held a lighter to them for over 30 seconds at two different times, I sparked my ferro rod on them numerous times, I burned a big piece of white birch bark on them for over 30 seconds, started a fire with the birch bark, took a 15 minute break twice and finally, after completely drying off they ignited using a ferro rod.
Bottom line: mag shavings will not ignite when wet unless you dry them off first. The video more than proves this theory!
My hands were crippled from the effort and it is the middle of summer and I was not in need of fire. No stress, no cold fingers, etc. etc.
On a positive note the ferro rod that came with my mag bar decided to finally start throwing sparks after several hundred to perhaps a thousand attempts. I removed it from the bar and put a handle on it. Based on the haphazard and random globs of molten metal it throws I can only assume it's misch metal and not ferrocerium. It is very hard to get the sparks to go where you want and I had to wear the rod down to half it's original thickness before it ever threw consistent usable sparks.
This was not a "Doane brand bar", but was imprinted with "Cochlan's Made in the USA", although the package it came in said "Made in Canada"??
After many experiments resulting in mostly failed, cold, and sore attempts over the past year I firmly believe that the mag bar, as intended, is a poor excuse for a fire starter and will only work under the most ideal dry and staged conditions. Conditions where a ferro rod alone would produce better results. Conditions you are not likely to encounter in any environment, except for maybe your front porch.
