[TheForge] fire steel materials

[Hochewa at aol.com]

To All,
In the 21st century, I have found that CP Titanium gives the most dazzling  
spark but you do need a good sharp flint to make it work well.
Files could be a variety of steels some of which are the "F" grades which  
contain little bit of Tungsten which makes them very durable but not good  
sparkers.  Really cheap files could be carburized and when they are forged,  you 
redistribute the carbon out of and away from the surface.  I have used  W-1 
drill rod, which is about the equivalent to a 10120 steel and I have used  scrap 
rail which is 1080.  Both of these spark well.  I always remove  a generous 
layer from the sparking surface just to be sure that I am into the  good stuff.
W-1 drill rod is actually cheap, CP Titanium is $45 plus a pound both are  
available from McMaster-Carr.
 
Hochewa
 
 
In a message dated 2/16/2006 8:21:50 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
switz at mindspring.com writes:

I have  been making fire steels for years using a variety of salvaged 
materials  with varying quality of sparks. The best always seems to be those 
made  from old files.  I thought I had heard that files where W1.  So I  
bought some new W1 that was already just the right size to save having to  
cut down a file to size.  Sadly the spark from the W1 is mediocre at  best, 
plenty to start a fire with but not the fourth of July shower of  sparks 
from the files.  So the question is, what type of steel are  files made 
from?  Or what new grade of steel will produce a good hot  shower of sparks?