A fire striker is a piece of carbon steel from which sparks are struck by the sharp edge of flint, chert or similar rock. [1] [2] [3] It is a specific tool used in fire making.
A fire striker is a piece of carbon steel from which sparks are struck by the sharp edge of flint, chert or similar rock. [1] [2] [3] It is a specific tool used in fire making.
Before the invention of matches, percussion fire making was often used to start fires. Before the advent of steel, a variety of iron pyrite or marcasite was used with flint and other stones to produce a high-temperature spark that could be used to create fire. [4] There are indications that the Iceman, also known as Ötzi, may have used iron pyrite to make fire. [5]
From the Iron Age forward, until the invention of the friction match in the early 1800s by John Walker, the use of flint and steel was a common method of fire lighting. Percussion fire-starting was prevalent in Europe during ancient times, the Middle Ages and the Viking Age. [3] [6]
When flint and steel were used, the fire steel was often kept in a metal tinderbox together with flint and tinder. In Tibet and Mongolia, they were instead carried in a leather pouch called a chuckmuck.
In Japan, percussion fire making was performed using agate or even quartz. It was also used as a ritual to bring good luck or ward off evil. [7] [8] Ninjas used an Uchitake (打竹). [9] [10]
The type and hardness of steel used is important. High carbon steels (1060, W1, tool steels, etc.) generate sparks easily. Iron and alloys (like stainless steel, 5160, etc.) are more difficult and generate fewer sparks. The steel must be hardened but softer than the flint-like material striking off the spark. [11] Old files, leaf and coil springs, and rusty gardening tools are often repurposed as strikers.
Besides flint, other hard, non-porous rocks that can take a sharp edge can be used, such as chert, quartz, agate, jasper or chalcedony. [2]
The sharp edge of the flint is used to violently strike the fire steel at an acute angle in order to cleave or shave off small particles of metal. The pyrophoricity of the steel results in the shavings oxidising in the air. The molten, oxidising sparks then ignite tinder. The tinder is best held next to the flint while the steel striker is quickly slid down against the flint, casting sparks into the tinder. Char cloth or amadou ("tinder fungus") is often used to catch the low-temperature sparks, which can then can be brought to other, heavier tinder and blown into flame.
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start fires.
The mineral pyrite ( PY-ryte), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula FeS2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral.
Chert is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a chemical precipitate or a diagenetic replacement, as in petrified wood.
In archaeology, a hammerstone is a hard cobble used to strike off lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone during the process of lithic reduction. The hammerstone is a rather universal stone tool which appeared early in most regions of the world including Europe, India and North America. This technology was of major importance to prehistoric cultures before the age of metalworking.
Stone tools have been used throughout human history but are most closely associated with prehistoric cultures and in particular those of the Stone Age. Stone tools may be made of either ground stone or knapped stone, the latter fashioned by a craftsman called a flintknapper. Stone has been used to make a wide variety of tools throughout history, including arrowheads, spearheads, hand axes, and querns. Knapped stone tools are nearly ubiquitous in pre-metal-using societies because they are easily manufactured, the tool stone raw material is usually plentiful, and they are easy to transport and sharpen.
Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing walls, and flushwork decoration. The original Germanic term knopp meant to strike, shape, or work, so it could theoretically have referred equally well to making statues or dice. Modern usage is more specific, referring almost exclusively to the hand-tool pressure-flaking process pictured. It is distinguished from the more general verb "chip" and is different from "carve", and "cleave".
Experimental archaeology is a field of study which attempts to generate and test archaeological hypotheses, usually by replicating or approximating the feasibility of ancient cultures performing various tasks or feats. It employs a number of methods, techniques, analyses, and approaches, based upon archaeological source material such as ancient structures or artifacts.
A conchoidal fracture is a break or fracture of a brittle material that does not follow any natural planes of separation. Mindat.org defines conchoidal fracture as follows: "a fracture with smooth, curved surfaces, typically slightly concave, showing concentric undulations resembling the lines of growth of a shell". Materials that break in this way include quartz, chert, flint, quartzite, jasper, and other fine-grained or amorphous materials with a composition of pure silica, such as obsidian and window glass, as well as a few metals, such as solid gallium.
The flintlock mechanism is a type of lock used on muskets, rifles, and pistols from the early 17th to the mid-19th century. It is commonly referred to as a "flintlock". The term is also used for the weapons themselves as a whole, and not just the lock mechanism.
A tinderbox, or patch box, is a container made of wood or metal containing flint, firesteel, and tinder, used together to help kindle a fire. A tinderbox may also contain sulfur-tipped matches.
Amadou is a spongy material derived from Fomes fomentarius and similar fungi that grow on the bark of coniferous and angiosperm trees, and have the appearance of a horse's hoof. It is also known as the "tinder fungus" and is useful for starting slow-burning fires. The fungus must be removed from the tree, the hard outer layer scraped off, and then thin strips of the inner spongy layer cut for use as tinder.
The lock of a firearm is the mechanism used to initiate firing. It is generally used as a historical term, referring to such mechanisms used in muzzle-loading and early breech-loading firearms, as modern firearms uniformly fire by use of a firing pin to strike the rear of a cartridge. Side-lock refers to the type of construction, in which the individual components of the mechanism are mounted either side of a single plate. The assembly is then mounted to the stock on the side of the firearm. In modern firearm designs, the mechanism to initiate firing is generally constructed within the frame or receiver of the firearm and is referred to as the firing or trigger mechanism.
Fire making, fire lighting or fire craft is the process of artificially starting a fire. It requires completing the fire triangle, usually by heating tinder above its autoignition temperature.
Steel wool, also known as iron wool, wire wool, or wire sponge, is a bundle of very fine and flexible sharp-edged steel filaments. It was described as a new product in 1896. It is used as an abrasive in finishing and repair work for polishing wood or metal objects, cleaning household cookware, cleaning windows, and sanding surfaces.
Char cloth, also called char paper, is a material with low ignition temperature, used as tinder when lighting a fire. It is the main component in a tinderbox. It is a small swatch of fabric made from a natural fibre that has been converted through pyrolysis.
In geology and particularly in sedimentology, a nodule is a small, irregularly rounded knot, mass, or lump of a mineral or mineral aggregate that typically has a contrasting composition from the enclosing sediment or sedimentary rock. Examples include pyrite nodules in coal, a chert nodule in limestone, or a phosphorite nodule in marine shale. Normally, a nodule has a warty or knobby surface and exists as a discrete mass within the host strata. In general, they lack any internal structure except for the preserved remnants of original bedding or fossils. Nodules are closely related to concretions and sometimes these terms are used interchangeably. Minerals that typically form nodules include calcite, chert, apatite (phosphorite), anhydrite, and pyrite.
A spark is an incandescent particle. Sparks may be produced by pyrotechnics, by metalworking or as a by-product of fires, especially when burning wood.
This is an alphabetized glossary of terms pertaining to lighting fires, along with their definitions. Firelighting is the process of starting a fire artificially. Fire was an essential tool in early human cultural development. The ignition of any fire, whether natural or artificial, requires completing the fire triangle, usually by initiating the combustion of a suitably flammable material.
A chuckmuck is a belt-hung leather and metal decorated tinder pouch with an attached thin long striking plate, found across North Asia and China to Japan from at least the 17th century. Chuckmucks form a well-marked group within flint-and-steel types of fire-lighting kit, still used as jewellery amongst Tibetans (mechag) and Mongolians (kete). This large distinctive style of a worldwide daily utensil was noted in Victorian British India and the 1880s Anglo-Indian word chuckmuck was adopted into specialist English by the early 20th century.
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