“When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible.” Robert Henri 'The Art Spirit' 1923.... Thankyou for all that you do! You truly are bushcraft artist... Just starting on chapter one!
63 years old. Very active outdoorsman my whole life. Always had a ferro rod in my survival kit. I assumed it would guarantee starting a fire. On an overnight camping trip i wanted to exercise the skill. It had been raining, but i was confident to find some dry enough tinder . I tried until i had blisters. I failed
Greetings! Your enthusiasm and videos are infectious. Don't know if you're familiar with uncharred punkwood as a flint & steel tinder or if you consider it previously well-known? This is my first uncharred success - this stuff's just incredible, often taking a spark first strike and it has a worldwide distribution, wherever wood can be found.
Your videos will save countless lives in the future to come. Your knowledge and hardwork is priceless. BEST CHANNEL FOR OUTDOOR FIRE SURVIVAL PERIOD. WOULD LOVE TO SEE A SURVIVAL BOOK FROM YOU ON THIS SUBJECT AND MORE.
Oh my gosh, I’m so glad you posted one video with all of them. And what great timing! I was just telling my buddy about no char tinders and I was going through showing him your videos, and he’s like “we gotta watch all these different videos?”, and I was like “yeah, I wish they had them all in one place but they don’t”, and like three minutes after I said that I saw that this video had been posted so we switched over to watching this one. Thank you!
Such valuable info, for sure. Now a request. Could you do a video using your favorite tinders, but with no striker? You carry a high carbon knife, and you find some flint, now can you get an ember? You seem like the right guys for this task.
Thank you for your extensive research. I love that you included latin names in your video. It makes it so much easier to know what you're talking about, because common names can vary depending on who you're talking to (for instance, I've met people here in VA that call rhododendron "ivy"). I can't wait to check out the pdf! As far as what you said about the dead trillium leaves, I think the nitrogen content would actually be reduced. It's recommended in composting to add brown material to the green material because otherwise it's too hot (meaning too much nitrogen). It's very cool that you have a type of trillium growing over there. There is are supposed to be 39 species of trillium native to the US, and certain species are more rare than others. Trillium grandiflorum grows all over the Blue Ridge here in the east, and is not very rare (uncommon, but not if you know where to look), but there are also threatened/ endangered species like Virginia Dwarf Trillium. I think grandiflorum gets mistaken for being rare because it's a spring ephemeral, so it isn't seen for a large portion of the year, but maybe it's way less common out west.
I have used aspen punk wood .What I found was in a hollow log. I would rate it a 7,.each time I got an ember I switched flints. Never did I have to go over 8 strikes. many on the first strike and many with 2 and 3 embers on the first strike, I would have never known this with 0ut your video . thanks
Thanks again for sharing all your time and effort! Really enjoy watching and learning! Milkweed ovum is still my go to here in the midwest. But I love nettle, it still works best for me with ash. Steve
Great! I just stumbled upon this video, and it looks like some of this might also work in Europe (we do not have waterleaf, but stinging nettle and mugwort). Thank you! It is one year old, I hope you haven´t given up.
Have you ever tried Titanium striker, they throw a lot hotter spark then regular steel. It’s harder to get a spark, but I believe it would change the ratings. Good video.
I have a hypothesis, but mugwort and stinging nettle are both oily plants, perhaps these oils help their flammability. Juniper, Sage, Wormwood also contain the same oil that mugwort does, next time i pass some junipers i will grab some and test it.
8:40 Hey Circium arvense is a really good plant ! You can eat the young leaves, the stem and what's inside and you can also eat the capitule of the flowers like artichoke (really tinier on this plant). For the leaves, you just cut the needles with scissors and boil for about a minute, a bit of lemon, some salt and there you go, the Crétoise way ! :)
I really love the flint stell videos and the educational tinder videos. I am a blacksmith and my favorite work piece to forge is flint steels. would love to see if you could do a video on what rocks spark.
Glad you’re enjoying the videos. I’m really interested in your blacksmith work related to making steel strikers for flint and steel. If you have any pictures/website/any more info on what you do please email to us: wildernessstrong@gmail.com
Ok now I need to try with European plants !! And we also need to try with pyrite stones and not steel ! I guess the top 3 of your list might work with sparks from a iron-containing rock striked ! Thank you guys for your work it is very exciting !!
Thank you so much for these videos. This information is of incredible value. Many of us have been trying to find a list like this and are very grateful. Keep up the amazing work.
Thank you so much for researching this thoroughly and carefully, and for presenting it to viewers in such an accessible and digestible format. Thank you for your efforts and videos.
STINGING NETTLE REPORT: USING the outer layer of the stems while green plants about 3 feet high,at first I was disappointed with 200 strikes and no ember after well dried I ground it even finer no luck with Flint but I used the flint only on my magnesium bar and that did take so I took the Nettle to the finest level much like fluffy cellulose insulation, very fluffy I got several embers at this point in probably 20 strikes with Flint and my homemade file striker❤️.
Wow, great! Thanks for sharing and for not giving up. As we mentioned in the video sometimes it takes several "failures" in order to learn the nuances of each plant and what the expectation should be for success. I predict that you will now experience many future successes as well. Thanks again for sharing. 👍
Tinder is great. I really admire the produce of this earth It can even be sensitive from spark which has a lower temperature than steel. Thanks Brother,😊🙏🔥🔥🔥
Thank you so much you're doing such a great job!! I live in North Central Texas and live near the Red River and have a few of the plants that you discussed I do not have great burdock but I do have burdock I don't know if they're the same plant but I am eager to find out.. Keep up the good work👍👍
There are 3 commonly known species in the burdock family in the US. If you don't have great burdock then you probably have arctium minus or arctium tomentosum. They should both have similar edible and medicinal properties to arctium lappa, so that could also mean similar no-char potential. The only way to know for sure would be to test it. There is also a toxic plant that can sometimes be mistaken for burdock called cocklebur, just so you know. You can find easy to spot characteristics and photos with the right Google search to help you id your plant. Burdocks are all supposedly invasive species from Europe, and are considered noxious weeds in some states, so don't feel bad about harvesting them for experimentation. You'd probably be doing the native plant species a favor.
We cover striking methods in this one: Flint Steel Top 5 Methods | NEW Striking Technique ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gTBq9MzGxSg.html
I watched the video. Thank you. I'm still curious about which steel strikers in your opinion throw the best sparks. I bought two on etsy, and they were both duds that thrown little to no sparks.
thank you for sharing this video and the knowledge contained within. I have tried burdock and stinging nettle myself, but so far with no success. I will have to try more but I am wondering if it is possible that the same species of plant can be differnet based on the location where it is growing? the climate where you an I live are quite different and could be a huge factor in plant's composition leading to different characteristics and properties in regards to the fire making .
That could play a role. We have only done this throughout the Pacific Northwest but have had comments from others who were successful in other regions of our country. You are the first to check in from Slovenia, keep us posted if you get it to work.
@@wildernessstrong6131 thanks, well i'll keep trying and if I have any success I'll let you know. Keep making this great educational content, I really appreciate it.
Why didn't you use a Ferrous Rod and the back side of a camping knife to make sparks? I use an old knife that I found in a lake diving years ago and since the rust had pitted it so bad it is useless except striking the Ferrous rod. And it throws several huge sparks that will light anything flammable! Now I suggest anyone wanting to get in the far out country back woods load up a good size plastic bag with cotton balls with about a third of the ball slathered with Vaseline! The cotton cathes fire so well it is amazing and I keep mine in a plastic bag in my camping gear. It last forever and nothing makes a good fire easier to make than a couple of cotton balls with Vaseline sparked by a half inch diameter ferrous rod and a carbon steel camping knife.
Many people carry knives on them all the time, everywhere, but may find themselves in a situation where they need a fire and don't have a ferro rod, lighter or matches. If you all you have is high carbon steel knife, you can start a fire with a piece of quartz or flint and one of these plants.
I have gone through everything thing I can think of in my area, processed them all in different ways, spring, summer,autumn, winter, the only thing I got to take was cramp balls, do you guys use titanium strikers?
No we don’t use titanium. I’m interested in cramp balls, I don’t think we tried that. Did you do a video on it? We enjoy your channel, persistence and enthusiasm. Many of the Tinders that worked on our list only worked using specific striking methods. The most successful method we used was putting the flint to the floor surrounded by tinder and striking over the top of it. It’s the last method we demonstrated in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gTBq9MzGxSg.html
Your Videos are amazing!!! Sometimes u used an old file as striker, as i do. are there any differences in the quality of the sparks, compared to other strikers? Still yet i was not succesfull with some of your plants growing also in south germany. Best regards
That’s a good question. We still haven’t officially concluded that the file works better, but that would make a good comparison video. Sometimes we switch the type of flint and the style of steel several times when we’re trying to get a tinder to work. We need to do a bit more research on the subject to see which produces more/hotter spark.
What state are you all in? I haven't seen most of these plants where I live (Northeast Florida). There's probably different plants here you don't have access to that will work also. There should be a list somewhere where fellow flint and steel fans can add locally available materials to. Maybe there already is, if so, link?
I’d like to see a list like that. We are in Oregon but I’m curious about other plants around the country that we don’t have access too. We get a lot of questions specifically from Florida so if you find any plants that work there keep us posted.
Great video. I'm very interested in trying your top candidate, mugwort. However, from my research I cannot find the plant you show and mention as mugwort to be Artemisia vulgaris; the leaves to start are very different. Best I could find would be Artemisia douglasiana, but that too looks too different. Could you perhaps show off more of this plant in another video (your previous mugwort video is basically the same footage)?
Looking over the older video again: one of the plants you show along when striking outdoors and what you collected green appears to me to be Artemisia douglasiana. But what you show in this video, and at the start of the older one appears to be a different plant all together.
It looks like you’re correct. I believe we mislabeled our variety of Mugwort. It closer resembles Artemisa douglasiana. We’ll do a bit more research. Thank you.
What about rhubarb? It is akin to burdock. Also what about winter dogbane. That’s when I usually harvest it for cordage - after it dies back. I saw that dried green dogbane did not work. Thanks! Can’t wait till Spring so I can go look for the plants you suggest!!!!!
That has crossed our minds. It would take quite a bit of dust since placing the sparks where you want them is not always possible, but in theory it could work.
Mostly because the project was to discover new plants that were not previously recognized by the fire making community already. Chaga has been pretty well known and discussed for some time so we focused on the plants that most likely were unknown to most. Thanks for the question.
@@wildernessstrong6131 that makes plenty of sense in said context. I really enjoy your videos, and look forward to your upcoming adventures and content.
I understand its called 'flint' , but what is the brown stones you are using . Is it an iron stone , It looks very durable . Thanks again for a great video
We refer to it as Jasper. Our understanding has been that the darker chert with reds and browns has iron oxide and is then classified as jasper. But we’re always trying to broaden our knowledge on the topic.
Our experience is mostly with curly dock and broadleaf dock. They are definitely similar but the broadleaf has wider and flatter leaves while the curly dock leaves are skinnier and wavier. Broadleaf Dock is the variety that we’ve had success with in flint and steel fire making. Also just fyi dock plants are not related to Greater Burdock although the dead leaves process in a similar way for fire tinder and share some similarities in that department.
Well we have a list in the description that covers a lot of information. No books yet, but a few comments here on the channel have made us think about it some.
