I don’t know about the rest of you out there wherever you are but personally, I really don’t dig the standard Ferrocerium Rod handles that are available all over the place from online well known Bushcraft companies to even hand made items …

I decided to rather make my own, I headed out into my local wood and took down a single Hazel Stem from a coppice tree – about 5cm in diameter, all of the wood was chopped up and taken home for other projects.

This process is really simple and can be done pretty much by anyone, if you aren’t happy with your result, you can simply make another and once you have the desired handle, simply crack the old one open (If you have already inserted your Ferro rod) to remove the Rod out!

What’s Needed:

• Ferrocerium Rod (Blank) you can buy these online at the usual places, I recommend you go for the longest Rod you can get with at least a minimum diameter of 8mm, but 10mm is more ideal! I have found 8mm x 80mm Rod blanks for only £3.75 plus delivery!
  PLEASE don’t go for any length shorter than 80mm!!
• Carving knife, the Mora range are great for this purpose and I do recommend buying carving knives from them, in this case and in the below Photo’s, you will see my Mora Companion Heavy Duty, this is a good Bushcraft knife that is great for beginners! It only cost me £15 and so far has handled every task put to it including Battoning (the act of splitting wood using a knife and a wooden mallet)
• Drill with the right size drill bit for your Ferrocerium Rod
• Saw, I used my Bahco Laplander, of all the folding saws I hae used, this one is simply the best so far, I got it on a clearance deal on ebay for only £16 with the delivery – some shops sell it for £25 and you sill have to pay delivery
• A good piece of green wood (recently cut wood – for the purpose of easy carving and processing), about 5cm in diameter and at least 10cm long. Mine was much longer as I find it easier to care items like this when you have a large handle to hold. Maple, Hazel, Oak. Ash and others are good examples, perhaps avoid toxic trees such as ‘Taxus baccata’ a.k.a. Common Yew

Photo’s with method:

1: Take the bark off of the end of your wood to the length of your preferred handle – mine is about 7cm long, then using your saw of choice, make a Stop Cut (a Stop Cut is slicing a ridge around your wood to a certain depth, mine was between 8mm to 10mm, the purpose of a stop cut is that when you split the wood away later, it will stop the split at the cut), make sure that the stop cut will end roughly the same width as you want your rod handle to be,

2: Photo above and Below, see how I split the wood and expose the stop cut, now go around and roughly split the wood until you have the basic shape of your handle, the rest you will carve off with the knife. The best method to split the wood is by standing the wood piece vertically and use a Bodgers Mallet to knock your knife blade down, any pice of wood can be used as a bodgers mallet, the best option being round, thick enough to hold and semi heavy so green wood is good!

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3: Here I’ve done some shaving of the sides with my Mora knife, just to get a general idea of the center of the handle, then drilled my 8mm hole, I made it about 25mm deep. The other reason why you need to use freshly cut wood is that it will stil be full of moisture and as long as you drill an exact same sized hole as the rod diameter, then once dry, the Rod will stay put in the Handle without the need for glues and epoxy etc!

4: In the Photo’s above and Below, I’m carving the handle down, if you have a long Branch Like I did, then you can sit in a position and wedge the branch between your crossed legs so you can use your knife as a draw knife. Only do this if you have experience with knives and carving! Otherwise just use a vice or shaving horse. Once you have cared enough off of the sides, you can use the Saw to remove the handle from the branch, you can  then insert the rod and either go on to carve the end of the handle or just wait until it’s dry to finish it off

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5: Finished product, I will probably not sand and treat this one, it was mainly an experiment and I just really needed a Ferro Rod with a decent handle!!
I have purchased a larger 100mm rod and will endure to make a nice handle for this which will have some leather lanyard and other leather work involved if possible, this will be a bigger project so I will be sure to post on it once complete with a new step-by-step guide.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day