Flint but no steel

[the loonatic]

I was just wondering if anyone knows how to start a fire with just flint but no steel. I can create some satisfying lines of sparks across the flint but how can I make fire from this ?

[LDS]

You would do it the same way you make fire with F&S. Send the sparks into a tinder material and coax an ember.

Problem is that if you can get sparks from just two pieces of flint they will be really weak. It might be easier to use a friction method.

Pyrites are another matter. They give good sparks.

[coon4492]

yea LDS makes a good point the friction methods are easier atleast the technique is, finding good wood was hard but I got help from an expert. I don't want to say I gave up on fire using flint I just am going to try it later in my life after I master other fire techniques you might want to consider that as well.

[Kortoso]

I have heard of iron pyrite being used instead.

[halo2]

With stone on stone, you generally cannot generate a spark that can travel the air gap to your tinder. Small, brief "sparks" are due to the triboelectric effect and aren't hot enough to do so.

It's best to have an iron source such as pyrite.

If you don't have that, think friction.

[paul vallandigham]

Two rocks of anything, including flint, are very difficult to get long life sparks from. When you hit a steel with flint, the sparks are actually the burning molecules of carbon in the Steel. Not the iron in the steel. Pyrite is an ore with iron in it, and is what is used for those tiny cigarette lighter "flints". Iron Pyrite was also used in the original Wheellock guns made in Europe in the 1400s. The wheellock is actually the same design for making sparks that now appear in cigarette lighters. The only difference is that a huge spring was wound up and held by the Trigger, which when pulled, released the spring and put a spin to a serrated wheel that was in contact with the pyrite to produce the sparks. Today's cigarette lights require a manual turning of the wheel to produce the sparks. If you can find ask or carbon from a burnt stick at an old campsight, or from a fire started by lightning, to rub on your tinder, The blackness of that carbon and the carbon itself will help hold an ember from sparking your flints. Charred clothe is another form of tinder that will work for you. But its very hard to produce sparks that can be directed towards your tinder by bashing two rocks together. Even wrapping the charred cloth around one rock and then bashing it against the other may actually prevent enough of a blow to create the needed spark. Its very hard to do.