This is NOT A REVIEW, just a comment. I haven’t had the thing for long enough to wring it out, and, well, despite the assertions of some “experts” that some ferrocerium rods spark much better than others, so far to me they all seem much the same. For better or worse (or both) they’re much, much easier to use, more sparks and much hotter, than real flint-and-steel… which in turn is much hotter than iron pyrites. Honestly, if you really need to have the best-sparking ferrocerium rod, maybe circumstances are such that you can’t make a fire anyway, short of a flamethrower.
Yesterday I received a fetish object I shouldn’t have ordered, an Exotac “nanoStriker” XL ferrocerium rod, a pretty little jewel of a thing, very precisely machined in such a way that it’s just a skinny capsule for carrying, but you unscrew the pieces and screw them back together differently and there’s a rod with a handle and a tungsten carbide striker. The rod is actually threaded for replacement, they sell kits of a new rod and replacement o-rings to keep it very waterproof.
This one is a little different than the run-of-the-mill of this model in that it’s 1. titanium, and 2. completely unmarked, “sterile” in the military sense, no brands or country of origin or anything… “the Secretary will disavow…”. I had wanted the early titanium/sterile version of the non-“XL” nanoStriker, was bummed that it was always damned expensive for a tiny item, sold out quickly, and went out of production quickly. I gather that the “non-XL” nanos has some problems with the thinner rod breaking.. so when this became available on Massdrop in the improved version, for at least somewhat less, I “bit”. Shouldn’t have, but did.
I’d love to wear it around my neck, but of course that’s where my tiny titanium flashlight has lived for many years, and… well, starting a fire in dire straits might happen once or twice in a lifetime, but I use the flashlight at least a few times every single day, I’d REALLY miss it. Mutter. Hate to see it just end up in a drawer, but I carry too much stuff daily as it is. Sigh.
– Robert the Wombat
The titanium version doesn’t seem to be generally available. I got mine from https://www.massdrop.com/buy/exotac-titanium-nanostriker-xl (www.massdrop.com).
