How to Find Sparky Rocks in Your Area for “Flint and Steel”

Just start breaking rocks! The term “flint and steel” leads a lot of people astray; especially when they learn that they do not have flint in their area. All you really need is a rock hard and sharp enough to remove microscopic pieces of steel from your striker or tools. You don’t need a geology book, and you don’t need to know the names of the rocks you find.

Rocks tend to get smoothed over time, so breaking them to expose fresh edges will usually yield much better results than just testing them straight off of the ground. Riverbeds are great places to start your search as they often have piles of rocks and gravel that you can easily browse through. Quartz comes in many forms and can work very well; with the benefit of being extremely easy to spot and it is widespread throughout the world.

However, even if you don’t have readily identifiable quartz in your region, there are still likely to be stones in your area with the qualities that you need to make sparks.

In the first portion of this video, I walked along a riverbed for about a minute and half picking up rocks that looked like they might have potential. I intentionally disregarded the classic white quartz to demonstrate the variety of different looking stones that would make sparks.

I wasn’t picking rocks up at random, but you can start there. The more you experiment with rocks, the more you develop an eye for ones that are well suited for this. All of the rocks that I grabbed threw sparks, but some worked significantly better than others. Breaking a variety of rocks gives you options, and lets you discard the underperforming stones.

While riverbeds are great places to start your search, suitable rocks are likely waiting for you in the woods too. In the second portion of the video, I found a green rock that caught my eye and it broke with a beautiful sharp edge. I have no idea what kind of rock this was, and that’s really the whole point. Geology is fascinating, but people were using hard sharp rocks before we had any understanding of their composition or how they formed. If that interests you, then this will be even more fun, but don’t let your ignorance here intimidate you.

The third portion of the video shows a bunch of different stones that have worked for me over the last year or so and then ends in typical fashion with a fire and a goofy dog.

This video is a combination of some shorter videos that I’ve been posting on Instagram, so forgive me if you’ve already seen them there. For anyone that is interested, there is a lot there that doesn’t make it to YouTube, so feel free to check it out at https://www.instagram.com/nwprimate/ . You don’t need an account to see the photos, videos, or associated write-ups.

Music

Chaël – Sparks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kyQWkxsnt8
Luca Stricagnoli – The Last of the Mohicans (Guitar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kbv1OpIpaA