PROJECT 4

KEYCHAIN FERROCERIUM ROD

Finished project

If you are a welder, plumber, or just familiar with torches, you are probably familiar with the friction sparkers used to light propane or acetylene torches. I have found that they are also useful as emergency fire source that you can add to your keychain.

What make the sparkers work are small ferrocerium rods that are held in a small threaded brass fitting. These rods are replaceable, and normally when you buy a sparker you get five or six of them in the package for around five dollars.

It is quite easy to drill through the brass fitting, and if you use a small drill bit and a vise you can quickly drill a small hole through the end of the sparker.

If you thread this on a keychain you will always have the means to start a fire. It weighs fractions of an ounce—only a couple of grains (4,000 grains to a pound) and is tiny enough not to get in the way.

This is a great project for a mini survival kit, and I have one of these on my keychain. It takes virtually no space and adds an unnoticeable amount of weight but it does make me feel a little more comfortable with my survival ability.

My father was a State Park Ranger, so I grew up in the woods. This fuelled my obsession with building survival kits. I can’t help but imagine there are a lot of ten- to fourteen-year-olds out there that would love to build a survival kit and use the tools in it to start a campfire.

Material:

•   Ferrocerium striker for welding torches

•   Split ring

•   Knife

•   Tinder (Tinder is easily combustible material that will glow under a shower of sparks. I like to use a very fine steel wool or cotton balls pulled apart)

Tools:

•   Vise

•   Drill

•   ⅛-inch or smaller drill bit (depending on the size of your key ring)

Procedure:

1.     Place sticker tip in vise to securely hold it while drilling.

2.     Using the ⅛-inch drill bit, drill through brass base, taking care not to drill into the base of the ferrocium rod itself, or break through the base of the striker.

3.     Thread the striker onto your keychain.

To use:

1.     Find tinder (0000-grade steel wool works great) and fluff it until it makes a loose bed to catch sparks.

2.     Bring striker down closely to the tinder so that any sparks will land in the center of your combustible tender.

3.     Using a knife, bear down on the striker and slide the blade down (in a scraping not cutting action).

4.     Once the tinder catches a spark and begins to glow, gently blow it until it can be used to ignite a fire, much as a match would be used.

Small brass-tipped welding igniter tip

Lessons Learned:

Gaining the ability to make fire, and the trust implied with gaining this ability, is a rite of passage that is being lost in the modern world. There is something primal that is triggered by a campfire. It also calls for a frank discussion about responsibility, and that having the ability to do something does not always mean that something should be done. It calls for an understanding of cause and effect, and how careless handling of such a powerful tool as fire can cause irreversible damage.

Plus someone gets to use power tools . . .

Note:

Proper, safe, and conscious use of power tools is needed to complete this project. It may be appropriate for the adult to drill the hole, and the child to place it on the split ring.

This is also a difficult way to start fire; it takes practice and a concerted effort to strike a spark and catch it in the tinder—which in itself is another lesson.