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Firesteel (aka Fire Striker)

The challenge used to be to light a fire with just one match. Now the challenge is to do it without any matches at all. It's very picturesque, entertaining, and satisfying to start your campfire with flint & steel, and when you do, it's your fire, you decide who gets to poke it. In this class we will make a fire-steel from high-carbon steel and learn to use it.
Techniques used will be drawing-out, bending, hardening, and tempering.

When the fire-steel is made we will learn to strike a spark with it and turn that spark into a fire. We will also go over the particulars of making char-cloth for catching the spark.

When the class is done you will have made a fire-steel, learned to make char cloth, and struck a fire. You will come away with your own fire-making kit consisting of  a fire-steel, a flint, a char-tin & charcloth, and a bit of tinder, enough to get started.

To bring if you can:

There will be a modest (under $10) materials fee for flint and char-boxes for those who don't bring their own.

Gift Certificates for Firesteel (aka Fire Striker) are available.

3.5 hours one session.    dates&times

Instructor: Carl West
Fee: $140 per student
Maximum 8 students, two per forge

Prerequisite:

Required: A rapid Covid test that day.
Yes, really, we're still asking for it in 2024.
It's still out there, and no fun at all.

No prior smithing experience necessary or expected.

Please wear proper clothing for visiting or working in the forge:
closed toe shoes (preferably leather, preferably high-topped. Sneakers are sufficient, sandals, crocs, pumps, mules... are not), natural fiber clothing, long pants that cover the tops of the shoes.
Click here for more safety information.


Dates and Times:
If none of the dates below work for you (or are already full), we suggest you
Add yourself to the Notification List for this class.
(The notification list gets emailed soon after classes are put on the schedule.)

This class is either:
- not upcoming on our schedule,
- or we've fallen behind in our clerical duties and not entered it in the database.
If you found it on our calendar page, we are planning to offer it on that date.

If you're interested in taking Firesteel (aka Fire Striker) and it's not on the calendar, please tell us using our Notification-List Page.

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Firesteel (aka Fire Striker)

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