How to Make Feather Sticks

A feather stick is simply a long, thin and dry piece of wood which will be used as soon as your tinder is burning to progress your fire to bigger sticks.

Any wood will work well and i am going to use pine, it really does not matter. I will say however that it does need to be dry and soft enough for you to cut.

The only thing you want to be sure of is that you have a sharp knife that is comfortable to hold and you should wear gloves as i have seen people with lots of knife experience cut themselves. So now get your wood and shave small strips at an angle almost parallel to the wood and stopping just before the end, leaving the strips attached so that it has the feather effect (the picture should help this explanation)

Use this to get your fire going from your tinder pile (your cotton swabs or bark or dead grass, whatever you use for tinder!)