Flint and Steel Fire Lighting

I swapped John (Sticks65) a couple of whetstones for one of his Flint-steels 

 http://sticksblog-sticks.blogspot.com/2011/03/whetstone-trade-with-fellow-blogger.html

which arrived today, Superb ! the house hot water and central heating is via a solid fuel stove in the front room which is lit each time with flint and steel sparks onto char cloth

here’s the steel and a leather pouch it came with (as a nice touch) along with a tinder tin of mine and a piece of flint, there’s squares of char cloth in the lid.The char cloth is made by heating small squares of cotton ( I find an old towel perfect) in a tin with a small hole in an air tight lid, in the fire, as long as there’s smoke which lights coming out off the hole it’s fine when the flame dies right down block the hole ( I use a coin ) and let the tin cool down, resulting in char cloth, which will catch and glow with the smallest spark.

The sparks ( John to correct me , I’ve never done it though it’s job 327 on the list, where doe’s time go ? ) are a result of after forging a high carbon steel, old files are great, it’s heated up to above a point where a magnet will not stick to it for a few minutes, which causes the carbon atoms to flow together and grow it’s then quenched which locks the carbon in large (bits) ? so that a glancing fast strike across a sharp piece of Flint (which is harder) cuts a tiny sliver of Carbon particles off which ignite with the heat of the friction generated, and if you hold a piece of char cloth on top of the flint with a thumb in one hand and the steel between finger and thumb in the other hand and a fast flick passed trying to shave off the tiniest fraction, with practice one will land onto the char cloth and begin to smoulder.Here's John's in action

You can see a Sulphur match waiting on top of the stove. I make these by dipping spills into molten Sulphur,

 which is how it was done since before the Romans, strike anywhere matches only being around the last 100 years or so, but touch the end of a Sulphur match onto the glowing char cloth and you hardly need to blow they light that easy, then you can light candle, Rushlights,
http://teddytourteas.blogspot.com/2011/02/rushlights.html

 pipe etc. with precision, rather than using a birds nest bundle of tinder which is fine out in the woods
http://teddytourteas.blogspot.com/2011/02/teddy-tours-fire-king.html

Back to tonights fire after spark landed on char cloth and sulphur match lit ( in holder only to photograph) you can just see char cloth glowing on hearth, job's a gud un ! thanks Sticks65

cheers all, just thought I'd share Danny