Making a Ferrocerium Rod Handle

Hi and welcome to another Instructable by me Capsos.
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When out in the woods and you was to light a fire a Ferrocerium Rods are brilliant things, They are light weight work even if wet. All you do is with a little pressure is to drag a peace of Carbon steel down the Ferrocerium Rod and you get sparks off at the temperature of 3,000 °F

They can be expensive and they tend to come with a plastic ugly handle so I buy just the blank rod and make my own handle and here is how to do it.

They can be purchased on-line for about £3 and then just requires a handle. But these rods tend to get about 1000 strikes off it.

When making this I used,

A Sharp Knife.

A Sharp Axe / Chisel.

A Hand Drill / Battery Drill.

A Screw 1 1/2.

A Selection Of Drill Bits.

Course & Fine Sand Paper.

The Wood You Want To Use.

Staining Fluid

Dust Mask

Your cutting tools Need to be Sharp.

Your most dangerous tool is a blunt tool because you have to apply more pressure for it to cut and then becomes a higher chance of slipping and cutting yourself.

ALL ACTIONS AND INJURIES CAUSED WHEN DOING THIS PROJECT IS DOWN TO YOURSELF AND I HOLD NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY INJURIES YOU INCUR.

I had a peace of seasoned Hawthorn that had been slowly drying for about 2 years.

So using my axe i split this into half, then split the half into quarters.

Now with the quarter that has been chosen i de-barked it and got a rounded edge using the knife.

Now it looks like this and ready for the next stage

Now mark the center at the bottom of the wood and drill a hole into it about half an inch in with the drill bit that matches the center shaft of the screw so when you screw the screw in the thread bits in but does not split the wood.

Now insert the screw head into the drill chuck and tighten up.

Now get the course sand paper and start the drill up and apply pressure onto the wood with the sand paper and it will start to sand down into a smooth shape. WARNING !!! The sand paper will become VERY HOT.

Then move onto the fine grade until smooth and correct shape.

With mine I used a pencil and marked two lines onto it and then carved them out all the way around.

I was going to drill this in but I wanted to do it by hand so ended up rolling a drill bit between thumb and forefinger.

Now finished with that next onto staining it.