American Bushman

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing." —Benjamin Franklin

Monday, March 09, 2009

Ultimate Survival Technologies Sparkie (Part 2)

I know there's been an awful lot of talk about firestarting and firesteels here of late but it just happens to be the subject on my mind at the moment. Here's a video I shot on how I use WetFire Tinder and the new Sparkie from Ultimate Survival Technologies (UST.)



In a nutshell, I crush the cube of WetFire with my thumb before opening the wrapper. This gives me much greater surface area and the smaller bits easily ignite with a spark from the firesteel. Sparkie can be used one handed while pushing down toward the tinder or you can hold it above your tinder and drive the firesteel rod past the striker using your thumb or index finger.

After a couple of strikes I found Sparkie got a little gummed up but a quick rinse and shake dry fixed that problem and now it's working as good as new and maybe even better because I've removed the protective coating on the firesteel.

I also found out what it takes to make WetFire stop working before it's all used up. After the video was shot I put out the tinder cube and scraped the remaining tinder into a pile. Then I left it. It rained non-stop all weekend and that tinder was soaking wet by the time I came out late on Sunday morning. High winds had also blown a good bit of it away to points beyond. Three days of rain on partially-burned WetFire will keep it from igniting. If you use a partial cube to get your fire started though you can wrap up the remainder in the mylar wrapper and keep it for weeks (if not months) and it'll still light as easily as it did the first time out.

Today I'm working on yet another fire-related project. I'll have more to share tomorrow...

Thanks for reading,


B

7 Comments:

At 3:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dude,
We're tired of knive's and flint...

 
At 4:11 PM, Blogger American Bushman said...

LOL! You are?!

Me too.

Well, actually my wallet is tired of them. I, personally, just can't seem to get enough of them...

What would you prefer I write about?

B

 
At 4:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Agreed, knives and flint are old. Let's talk about mish-metal and quality steel blades instead. ;)

Seriously? Tired of knives and flint? REALLY?! LOL. I dream this stuff and I'm not tired of it yet. Keep on keepin' on.

 
At 4:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

As for getting the package open with one hand on the Wetfire....teeth brother, teeth.

 
At 5:12 PM, Blogger American Bushman said...

Teeth?! Eww...

:D

I was thinking I could've used my teeth. I do have a SwissTool that I could've used too.

Now I did use my left hand for everything and I'm left-handed so maybe I should be practicing with my right hand instead.

Thanks,

B

 
At 7:19 PM, Blogger Aaron said...

cool. I almost ordered one of those when knifecenter announced it as a new product. I never get tired of this stuff.

 
At 3:31 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fire is very important to be sure. The gizmo seems a little unnecessary since it is easy enough to strike the rod by hand anyway.

 

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