Darrels decision to make a fire piston came by accident, or rather, an accident. He originally did not think to much about making them but rather acquiring one made by Steve Leung. Yet he was able to add this challenging skill to his list of primitive fire making abilities.

Darrel was happily smacking away at a piece of steel one day with his four pound sledge hammer while blacksmithing. Music was blaring, the fire was hot, the anvil was ringing, char cloth was cooking behind him. Darrel’s mind was seeing his flint and steel striker three D in his head and he was nearly finished. Then SMACK! A few moments later I was next to him trying to get a look at the hamburger that was his finger. He gave it a few days to heal up a little bit and headed out to finish the flint and steel striker he had been working on. It was not long before he was back in. The vibrations from the hammer were just too much for his splintered finger. This went on once a week for a few months before he the pain became bearable to blacksmith again.

It was January, the coldest month for Minnesota. Darrel’s “real job” was working as a manager in retail, but since we do not rely on daycare, I could only work part time to help so it was up to his skills to fill the gaps. He started to look into other options, staying primitive, to fill his need to create. There was something he had seen. As he headed to work, he asked me to look for anything I could on a tool called a fire piston he had seen somewhere. With the scant information we could find, a small lathe Darrel invested in, and a proven primitive fire piston material, Water Buffalo Horn, Darrel took a deep breathe and began to lathe his first ever fire piston.

Another maker claimed these tools were difficult to make so Darrel was prepared that his first model would be not successful. Indeed it was not, or so it seemed… Since there was no information available on troubleshooting possible problems, Darrel attempted to create a coal over and over with his fire piston before frustration sent his first fire piston flying into the dense brush in our woods. He went back inside to ponder over what the problem could have been. He inspected his tinder to see if there was any problems with that because he couldn’t think of what was wrong with the fire piston. Sure enough, his Chaga tinder fungus was not fully dry. The next hour and a half was spent looking for that fire piston. The next hit, with dry tinder, produced a coal.

Darrel has come a long way since that first fire piston. After his hand healed, he headed back out to the blacksmith shop, but he continued to make fire pistons to meet the demand for them. He began to also make them from Cocobolo and Lignum Vitae. He did not continue to make them from Lignum Vitae after the first couple because “It made my shop stink for 3 days!” The citrus smell is very strong and the wood so oily that the smell would not leave the shop, his clothing or his skin very easily. He sold on eBay for a few months before being discovered by Jeff Wagner. He sent him an email to Darrel, curious of the quality of Darrel’s work. After receiving a sample of his work, he asked Darrel if he could help him get caught up on some of the orders he was behind on. Darrel helped Jeff for sometime until his work became too much to do both, and after discovering that it was an attempt to suppress Darrel’s individual creativity. He prefers to make fire pistons from Water Buffalo Horn for its natural beauty but still continues to make wood ones as well. Along the way, he has met a lot of people asking for special custom models. This has challenged him to create models that have are inspired by the styles that make up the primitive examples yet never before made by anyone in history. He has started to combine materials, wood and horn, horn and shell, and continues to come up with designs that have never been made before in history.

His skill has not gone unnoticed. Darrel’s advertising has been minimal yet the quality of his work has quickly spread simply by word of mouth. You can see the variety of his items being recommended friend to friend in bushcraft and survival forums and at gatherings as well as being reviewed in magazines. His tools are chosen by top survival schools and carried to war by those in the military. His items have made popular gifts as well as used by scout troops. He has not let this get to him and he has remained humble. His number one goal remains the same; to provide the world with high quality primitive items that are reliable to us and beautiful enough to pass on to the next generation. He continues to come up with new ideas and continues to make the best even better, while sharing whatever knowledge he learns so that it may not be lost in time.