SparkMax Firestarter Review and Upgrades

The SparkMax 1.0 by Ultimate Survival Technologies. Let's check it out. The little SparkMax is a great tool. It's very compact, has an aluminum body, has a compass, fire starting capability, and as you can see we've upgraded it somewhat. So we're going to take a look at how this thing works and some of the upgrades you can do to this great little tool. You've got to improvise to survive. Fire is a very important part of survival. It covers a lot of different aspects. Heat, light, you can boil water, you can cook your food. It's good for morale and it's also a good way to signal. So we're going to take a look at the Ultimate Survival Technologies SparkMax 1.0. Just a very compact little tool. It's got an aluminum body to it and then we have these little screw off caps. We have a striker. It is serrated so there's some advantages to that and then on the other side we have a ferro rod and then we have this little lanyard loop with a little chain. You can replace that with some paracord and then at the top right here we have a liquid filled compass. So this is a pretty cool little tool and after I demonstrate the fire starting capabilities we're going to look at some upgrades to this. So it makes it really handy and these are fairly inexpensive. In fact they're $14.99 at Going Gear. I was down there a few months ago and actually picked this up just for personal use but after just kind of messing with it I thought it would make a great review and something we could take a look at. First I want to demonstrate the ferro rod or the ferro rod. With these little teeth it should grab hold. One of the things you do is hold the striker still and then just bring back your rod but you're going to need to get rid of some of this surface to be able to create a spark and once you get this surface cleaned off just bring your rod back and leave your striker still. We're going to take a little bit of this Vaseline cotton ball. This is one of my favorite fire starters as many of you know. It's really cheap and easy to do. Let's create a spark and it lights right up. Now one thing we can also do is take that little serrated edge and we can tender using just wood. So if you don't have Vaseline and cotton balls you can create some very fine tender. This will just help get your fire started. Of course with a knife it would make it a little easier but as far as an all-in-one tool this will do it. Guys it doesn't take long to get a good fire started especially in dry conditions. Just making sure that you get that air underneath the wood and you've got a good start. From here you can build as large a fire as you want to. Guys fire is so important in a survival situation. Again there are just so many uses and there's just something therapeutic about building a little fire and this little liquid filled compass is holding true north. Now I love to take tools and upgrade them to more of an effective survival tool. I mean there's already a number of different tools here. We're going to take a little bit of Gorilla Tape and some paracord and we're just going to add to the effectiveness of this as a survival tool. Now we've taken off the two end caps so we make sure that we don't cover up the threads. We're just going to wrap some Gorilla Tape. Of course you can use standard duct tape. You can use electrical tape for that matter. This just gives us a little bit of tape for a survival situation and we can unroll this and use it. Next we're going to take our paracord and we're going to tie a very simple knot. This is really easy to do. We're going to use about five feet of paracord and we want to make a loop with a short end right here. You want to make it longer than what you need and we can adjust that as we go. Lay it across the side you're going to start with and then take the long end and bring it around. You want to completely bring it around the base of the fire starter. Now this can be used on flashlights or a lot of different things. Then we're going to lift our loop and we're going to come up under it and then we're going to wrap it again and this time we're going to wrap over it. Now you want to again hold this really tight making sure that it stays secure and then we're going to go under it and then we're going to go over it. It's a real simple paracord weave. Again just make sure that you keep this tight bringing it under good and tight. We're going to bring it around and we're going to bring it over. Bring it under and then bring it back over tight and then bring it over. I'm going to bring it under make sure everything is good and solid and tight and then we're going to bring it over. Now you want to tighten this down make sure that it's as tight as possible. This will give you as much paracord as you can use. We still have a little more room so we're going to go back under now we're going to go over and once we go over we can bring it back through the loop this time. Now once we get it to where it's through take your end and then just pull it. This is going to pull that loop down and secure your paracord. Bring it good and tight. Down here on the end we're just going to tie a simple knot. This will help to keep that from unraveling and then up top we're going to also tie a simple knot. Next we're just going to cut the ends at the knot and then we're going to light those edges. Wet your finger and just kind of mushroom that out just a little bit and now we've got a nice little weave. We're going to reattach our end caps and now we've got some if we need it. We can also put paracord here at the end if we want to have a little lanyard or we can leave this little chain and secure it. So now we have fire starting capability. We have a compass right here on the end. We have tape underneath and we have paracord on top. You could even tuck in a little fishing kit if you wanted to or other things. You know the sky's the limit but the big thing is is just improvising whatever you have and using it as effectively as you can. And as I always say, improvise to survive. There's a lot to that. Whatever you do guys, just be prepared. It can be done very simply and again I got this at going gear. I think it was $14.95. You can get a 10% discount using suit zero zero on whatever you order from going gear. These also carry a limited lifetime warranty and to support the channel you can go to patreon.com slash suit zero zero. If you want some suits gear like this long live the republic t-shirt you can go to teespring.com slash stores slash suit zero zero. I'll have links down in the description below. Be strong. Be of good courage. God bless America. Long live the republic. But what's really cool is so we can create quite a and we're just going to add to the effect and it go over we're going to come back and go fire fire fire fire