Quick question about blade coatings

[Double_J]

I like RC's method of fire starter. When I was camping on a regular basis I always kept an unopened 6 pack of bic lighters in my camping kit, along with waterproof matches, home made fire candles (made from cut up egg cartons), flint and steel kit from a camping store, and a small cheap magnifying glass. It does sound like a lot of stuff but it only took up as much space as a large band-aid box in my kit.

I only needed the bic lighter once as it was a NASTY WET camp, and nothing was dry. We gathered wood, used a fire candle to dry the tender/kindling, and very slowly got a real fire going. I was glad it was not an emergency as someone would have been in real trouble. I always laugh at the "survival" shows where a fire is ready to go in mere minutes. If things are perfect then yes, it is that easy but things are rarely perfect.

My camping buddy always carries the same fire kit I do with the addition of some rolled up magazines and dryer lint as a fire starter. He was with me on that cold wet camping trip and appreciated the fire starters I had. Bushcraft is a wonderful skill but do not get caught up in the mystique of "survival" using primitive tools. Use the right tool for the job and live to see another day. Learn to use the fire bow/flint and steel/etc. but always have a back up tool.

 

[Sunray]

Powder coating is paint. Cheap for manufacturing. Your knife won't do anything by itself.
You'll get far more 'lights' out of a cheap BIC lighter than you'll ever get out of a fuel lighter.
A bow drill or a flint & steel doesn't work in the wet.

 

[hso]

I wanted to test if a ferrocerium rod would produce sparks if struck with a non metallic material so I grabbed one of my ceramic neck knives and a ferro rod from a kit and low and behold sparks came from the ferro rod. While there were clearly far fewer and of shorter length than those struck using the short piece of saw blade that came with the rod there were indeed sparks.