Bushcrafty Pencil Sharpener !

[old4570]

For a while I have wanted to try ....................................... a pencil sharpener ! You know , to see how bushcrafty it might be . The idea being to make fine shavings of wood that can be used to start a fire . And today I went to the trouble to see how good an idea it might be .
A) Scraping wood is better / finer and starts burning better .
B) A hand full of wood shavings might be good to pile onto scrapings .
C) The shavings hold flame better once burning , so if you need to transfer the flame .

Something to try I guess ... It works , maybe not as well as I hoped ( initial start ) , but it works .
In Europe they sell a Jumbo pencil sharpener , the one I used is a regular pencil sharpener .

Find a close match ( stick / branch ) trim if needed with your knife to fit the sharpener and make some fine slivers / shavings of wood .

 

[leukos]

Proof of concept!

 

[lampeDépêche]

Thanks for trying this out.
So, it sounds like the shavings from the sharpener are not fine enough to catch a spark on their own, but would be a good kindling for the next phase of fire-building.
The sharpener is neither large nor heavy, so I think it could earn its keep in a medium sized or larger BOB as part of a range of fire-starting options.

 

[Monocrom]

I have one of those sharpeners. Got mine at Staple's. Works well.

 

[old4570]

The shavings do catch - eventually ! Just maybe 5 times harder than wood scrapings ..
I dropped some rather large chunks of burning ferro onto the shavings and they smoldered , rather than catching alight . ( Maybe 10 times harder ) .
Yeah .... As stage 2 material = I think so . ( If they were FatWood ? shavings )