A bient t. Salut. Bill's mention of scrounged modern materials for fire starters he found out about as a kid, caught me at a similar point in my remembrances. I had been raised in and around the aluminum and magnesium foundary business. My Dad always had machine shops at these and I learned to located magnesium turnings under the lathes whenever he'd been doing a run of magnesium castings.
Steel wool tinder on massive steroids.
While you're out gleaning the dental labs for epoxy firestarter putty Bill, you might keep an eye out for metal foundaries. 0001 Pascal Chauvaux of France sent me a message in french stating the name of the material which makes up the flint side of the magnesium striker. It's called ferrocerium and it's the same material which is in modern lighters. Andre, Just goes to show what a tender feets I'm is. I'll post the following information I've discovered over the years on this subject.