Gyroscopic Investing

Hi, Craig:

I really enjoyed your snow/fire video.

What does the feather stick, do?  What advantage is there over just scraping wood shavings all the way off the stick?

Thanks,
- A

Usually I'll prep the fire and leave a hollow spot in the middle of the thing to reach in with a lit feather stick to get it all going. In that video I kind of was just messing around to test out that knife as well so I did't make full use of the feather stick and just caught it on fire when it was already lying inside the tinder bundle. A few feather sticks piled on top of each other is an easy way to catch a spark as well and that is another thing I'll do to get things going. But yeah, wood scrapings work fine as well.