Fire Steel R Cool...er, HOT!

[Blackhorse]

Just got a new knife in a trade and the sheath is the bushcraft style, drop pouch, with the tab loop on the side for a firesteel. Oh me! And no firesteel in my Cave of Wonders! OK...after a bit of googling I found what I needed at:

http://firesteel.com 

I picked up one of the bare 3/8" rods with pre-drilled lanyard hole in the 4" length. It's called the Armageddon model. Ouch! I'll use the hole to slide a pin through and carve a neato wood handle to match the handle of the knife (which happens to be Desert Ironwood Bur). The rod plus shipping was about $16. The company that makes the knife has a firesteel just like what I'll end up with...but theirs is more than $75 plus shipping. 

So I figured I'd DO IT MYSELF!

 

[BriarBrad]

Goinggear.com

Has a bunch of cheap quality Ferro Rods

 

[Blackhorse]

The same size rod (3/8" x 4") at Going Gear turned out to be $14.99 un-drilled. They would have shipped it First Class for $2.07 (which is pretty cool) for a total of $16.06.

At Firesteel dot com it's $9.99 un-drilled. Add the hole for the lanyard and the cost goes to $11.59. Add shipping of $4.95 and the final cost was $16.54. So this one cost more to ship as First Class wasn't an option...but it came drilled, which I wanted. Ultimately that feature cost me about fifty cents. 

Now think, just for a minute here, about drilling this stuff. NOT ME! They must have some pretty special equipment. But me doing it is sorta like playing catch with a vial of nitro glycerin. lol

Anyway, it looks like the two places are really pretty close on price, depending on size, etc.

 

[BriarBrad]

I drill them all of the time with no event. They are very soft in nature.

 

[Blackhorse]

Wow! I thought I read somewhere that it was a really bad idea to drill 'em. Good to have the real story via first hand experience. Thanks.


Gee. Not even a teensy gout of screaming blue hellfire?