Flint & Steel Ignition? - I Never Really 'Got It':

Well I confuse easily .. it's the Irish in me 😃.

How do you confuse an Irishman? .. Show him two shovels and tell him to take his pick

Whenever I saw something written about flint fire-making I'd pay attention but I wasn't getting anywhere but was confused. - But NOW I know why ..

Making fire from rocks can work in both directions .. depending on the rocks or minerals: BINGO!

There's THREE separate & different methods ..
If one of your rocks is the grey marcasite form of "fools gold" iron pyrite - it has sulfer (sulphur) in it. - FeS is an iron sulfide.

A/- "Two Stones Method". If you strike your lump of marcasite/iron pyrite with a different HARD sharp edged rock or a piece of steel it will give weakish sparks that last a little because of the sulfur content of the pyrite .. It works.

B/-  But the later more modern system from the Romans times - was from the other direction - where the hard sharp 'flint' or chert stone was used to scrape or knock sparks of molten metal from hard high-carbon steel .. It works.

You Can Strike The Steel With The Flint OR Strike The Flint With The Steel ..

You might Use Other Hard Material Than Flint - Such As Diamond, Quartz ..

C/-  'Ferro-Rods' are something else again .. much more modern & scientific .. 'Ferrocerium'  is a synthetic  pyrophoric alloy invented in 1903 .. made from iron and a rare earth element cerium  .. don't worry about it - but when you use a hardened steel striker on a ferro-rod (or even a sharp flint works on ferro) - it throws really hot strong iron sparks .. It works.

- This ferrocerium is the same 1903 stuff that sparks the gas in your Bic or Zippo lighters - so a ferro-rod isn't really primitive fire lighting eh .. but it will do - and does do the job, even when wet.

Note: that black surface on a ferro-rod is a protective coating that you need to first SCRAPE OFF.

I can learn something new every day ..

Worth watching:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZsS343rkWk

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6diTROxK7I

Wow .. now that's cleared-up - I feel much better.

So your flint-lock firearms used system B/-  a hard sharp flint rock to scrape or rip molten steel sparks from the high-carbon hard steel frizzen onto the gun powder in the pan.

- And that was more or less how guns worked for around 400 years.

Flint & Steel is a technique that uses FRICTION generated heat .. as do Magnesium Fire Starters but with highly flammable magnesium tinder first scraped from a block of that metal. - A fire flame is a mixture of incandescent gases often brightly luminous. The solid or liquid fuel materials do not burn - but have to be first turned to gas vapour by the heat from the sparks and ignited.

Marty K.