Review of the Überleben Zünden Traditional Bushcraft Fire Starter

Hello everyone, it's Helder here. Today I wanted to go ahead and review this UBERLEBEN ZUNDEN fire starter. That's pretty much the last time I'm going to try to attempt to pronounce that name during this review. But from what I understand, it roughly translates from German into survival, for let's say the company name, and then the ZUNDEN part would be fire, fire starter. What's cool about this is this is a relatively new company. I think they were founded in 2016, which is this year. And they're basically bringing back a little bit of the flair of, let's say, bushcraft and using these whittled, let's say, wooden handles. And it just feels good, just feels right, just feels pretty natural. So I kind of dig this ferrous rod right from the beginning. So basically what we have is we have this ferro rod here, and we have a piece of steel. What's cool about the little inclusion that they have here, it has a little bit of ruler, it has a bottle opener, has somewhat of a little hex configuration here that I'm sure you can use for something, a little bit of a scraper here at the end that you can use for all sorts of stuff, either wood or even roughing up your tinder to be able to catch the spark a little bit better. So what this ends up coming with is it comes with the actual rod, comes with a lanyard that I'll probably end up replacing with a 550 cord as usual, and it comes with the piece of steel that we went over with before. And what I want you to think about also is when this does come straight from the manufacturer, there is some type of lacquer or paint that's on here that we want to go ahead and scrape off so that it starts to expose the actual ferro rod that's underneath. You can tell as that silver part starts coming up. So you want to make sure that you go ahead and do that, you know, that way it'll make it much easier to get to the actual source to be able to create that spark. So really what the idea is here is that we want to take this piece of steel, we want to go ahead and scrape across this ferro rod, and what ends up happening is we're sending pieces of this spark onto our tinder that we want to catch on fire to maintain that little flame or even amber so that we could go ahead and get our fire started. So right now I'm actually in my backyard, I'm in my little fire pit here, and it's something that I suggest to our Natural Training Center members. We live in cities, so instead of having an excuse and saying, well I can't really build an open fire in the local parks or in the city parks or anything like that so I can't practice my fire building, well get yourself an inexpensive or build yourself an inexpensive fire pit, put it in your backyard, and you're able to practice these type of skills. And then when it's called upon, either recreationally while you're at camp and need to do this, or in an emergency situation, you're going to bode much better because you have the experience. Alright, so let's go ahead and demonstrate a few of these applications. I'm using something like charred cloth or some kind of press board, fire starter, whatever that kind of gets an amber that you need to blow on and add air to then go ahead and be able to catch your bird's nest or whatever. I'm going to sit there and I'm probably just going to use smaller strokes, okay, I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see this, but just using smaller, just sitting here right sending these type of sparks right onto there, alright, because that way I'm going to have much more success of lighting that as opposed to throwing it, okay. Now I can also throw these type of sparks, okay, but now I'd probably use that more so when I'm going ahead and starting, let's say, my cotton balls that are soaked in petroleum jelly, alright, something like that that I know that as long as one of these sparks catch it, it'll sustain, it'll give me a flame and give me a little bit more time to be able to work with it. So the comparison that I think about when I'm working this way, let's say, is I think of a shotgun and I think of the choke on a shotgun. If we're just shooting and we want to get, let's say, more targeted and we have a slug in there, we're going to get that smaller diameter. If we open up that choke and put some birdshot in there, you're going to get that spray, right, where all these little pellets end up going out and you're hoping that one of those pellets strike your target so that you accomplish the mission. Very similar to what we're doing here. Up here I'm sending that, the birdshot, so to speak, right, and just kind of sending it from up above. When I'm down here, more targeted, right, working on the actual slug part as far as that analogy goes. So hopefully that makes sense. This fire starter actually came with some of the jute twine, which is a great little fire starter also. So I'm going to go ahead just for the demonstration purposes and break some of this up and we'll go ahead and see if we could get a spark to catch it on fire. All right, it's windy and actually wet. That's why I actually put this masonry stone in here to create the bottom that's soaked and keep it a little bit separated. But now the wind, of course, is messing with me, but you can see I went ahead and opened up this twine, almost looks like strands of hair now. So it's nice and open up, bigger surface to be able to catch a spark, and at the same time for the oxygen to be able to do its thing while it's in there. You can tell not much, right? One little spark, everything burned right up, even with the wind blowing on it, right? So all gone, but you can tell how quick that actually went, right? So something else you want to take into account. But practicing this type of stuff is going to let you know, okay, well I know what this tinder is going to do for me, or this fire starter is going to do for me. So that's how you're going to address your fire building. But once again, this is a demo, not a tutorial, so I don't want to get into too much detail. So let's go ahead and try a different fire starter. Now one of the fire starters that I keep, as far as source, right? To get my tinder started, are cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly. They're definitely a favorite with the Natural Training Center members, and even if the weather, if it's damp, if it's wet, any of that stuff, it still bodes very well, and gives you a lasting flame. So it's very forgiving. So it's definitely something that I like to keep. I keep this little fire starter kit with all sorts of stuff in here. The petroleum jelly, keep them in a little Ziploc, that way they're always with me. And I want to go ahead, now here is where I'm going to shoot, let's say, the bird shot analogy, right? So I'm going to go a little bit, and I'm actually sending those sparks, so that one of them will go ahead and hopefully catch. Let's give that a shot. So there we go. Hopefully you can see the flame going. Now look how much longer that's going, right, than what we actually had going with the twine. And that's going to give us some time to go ahead and catch this little bird nest. Sorry for the purpose of this demonstration. I know it's sloppy, but I'm looking through a camera, so it gets to be a little bit of a pain. But you get the gist of it, right? Beauty about these ferro rod, and combining them with the right fire starters. Even with this windy, windy day, you can tell it's still going. Not adding anything, and the fire starter is still really what's ignited. So keep that in mind. Now once again, it's been a few seconds, our fire starter is still going. Now if I wanted to go ahead, and let's say I have my solo stove here, and if I wanted to go ahead, for the purpose of this demonstration, and move that cotton ball, for multi-purpose fire starting, so to speak, I can go ahead, pick it up, bring it over to the solo stove, you can tell it's really still going, and that should work its way down, and get all the other very dry tinder that I had going from earlier put into there. So you can tell that was the same cotton ball, started it once, let's say theoretically could have started this fire with it, brought it over, started a second fire with it, all from just some stuff I had laying in a bag, and our very trusty ferro rod. So once again, if you're looking for multiple ways to be able to start a fire, even if something's just a backup, of course I carry a ton of matches and lighters and everything else, this is more of a last resort, so to speak, but it's also a skill building thing. So I have a lot of fun just going out there, doesn't matter how many matches or lighters I have on me, and just going ahead and practicing, because then if I really do need that skill in an emergency situation, it's there. I'm not going to learn it on the move, so to speak. So I really, really like the way this feels, I like the way that it works, hopefully this review showed you enough for you to see if it's the right one for you to add to your go bag. So as usual, I will put all the specs in the blog post with weight and dimensions and price, very inexpensive for what you're getting, very good quality, I'm impressed with these guys so far, and hopefully they'll keep putting out products and I will keep reviewing it. Once again guys, this is Helder, I hope that you enjoyed this review.