Flint and Steel - making fire like a mountain man

I am a Mountainy Man by God! I can shoot straighter, jump higher, cuss worser, fight longer, smell badder, and spit farther than any man alive!  My mammy were a tornado and my pappy were a hurricane!  My cousins is the Whoopin' Cough and Diptheria!  My ol' lady is a grizzly bar, and my kiddies are Rattlers through and through!

That's mountain man bragging.  They were the Harley Bikers of their day.  Anti-social, solitary, tobacco smoking, whisky drinking heart attacks.  And, they knew how to survive.  They knew it well, or they died.  And the chosen way to make fire for the mountain man was flint and steel.

The flint

Flint is a stone, a very hard stone that can be "knapped" or chipped into shape.  The mountain men knew flint.  They used it to ignite they rifles (flintlocks) and they used it to make sparks for fire.  And if they got careless, they would be digging it out of their hide in the form of an arrow head, or flint knife.
The flint we are concerned with is either a "gun flint", a small, sharpened piece of flint, or a larger, easier to use piece of flint that the mountain men referred to as a "chunk".  This piece of flint is sharpend on three sides, the side that goes against the palm of the hand is dull, sharp flint will cut flesh as easy as a razor blade.

The Steel

A fire steel was traditionally shaped like a letter "C", placed over 3 or 4 fingers with the back of the "C" facing outward.  The striker was struck downward on the sharp edge of the flint, and when done properly, a bright shower of sparks is produced.

Now, you can produce sparks, but, how to harness them?

Char cloth

Char cloth is linen, or cotton (jean material works good, tee shirt material works better), cut into one inch squares.  When you get enough of them to fill an "Altoids" tin, (starting to see a trend here?), punch a hole in the top of the tin, and set it in your campfire.  In a few minutes, smoke will start pouring from the hole.  Take a burning stick from the fire, and place it over the smoking hole, and the smoke will start to burn, whick will cut down on the smoke, and the stink.  Now just watch the burning hole, and when the fire burns down and goes out, your char cloth is done.  Just take it off the fire, and without opening the lid, let it cool.  If you open the lid too soon, the charred cloth will go up in a cloud of smoke and flame.  Once cooled, put the char cloth in a dry place (like a small zip-lock bag).

Using the Flint/Steel/Char combination

Take the flint in one hand with fingers curled below the flint, thumb on top.  Lift the thumb and put a piece of char under the thumb near but not over the edge of the flint where you plan to strike it.  Take the Striker and place it over the fingers of the other hand, and stike down on the flint.  If the char catches a spark, blow gently on it until a good, hot glow is on one edge of the char cloth.  After that, start fire by putting the char in a "nest" of tinder, and pick up the tinder and blow from under the nest to ignite the tinder.

You made fire like a mountain man.  Success, heat and warm food are yours for the taking.  Good Luck!