Posted on 07/09/2006 1:39:37 PM PDT by Momaw Nadon
I am going camping next weekend and think it would be cool to start a campfire using a fire bow drill.
I have all the parts, but can only seem to get just a bit of smoke at best. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
I put pine tar on the string to keep it from slipping.
The wood for the fire board is cedar, and the spindle is made of poplar.
I watch Survivorman on the Science Channel, and he makes it look so easy, but it is not easy!
While I think it's really cool what you're trying to do, I have to ask...why?
I watched Survivorman last night on dish, he started a fire with a lens from a camera (bring a magnifying glass), but it did take him 45 minutes. I say, bring matches.
He also made this bundle of highly flammable stuff, like dry moss, the stuff you pull out from the inside of bark (the hairy stuff), very thin, very lightweight stuff.
That's a quart of camp gas.
I can light a fire with one match.
Oh, and a P.S.,...I did get a call from Billy Joel and he said that "I Didn't Start The Fire".
The Teepee fire lay always works...
Some lighter fluid
A roll of TP
An incendiary device
Soak TP with lighter fluid
Ignite with match
GTG!!
Seriously though, good luck with that.
SZ
Not that time. The deer got me on the Land Nav course, LOL!
Also helps to rub the pointy end of the stick along the side of your nose (the oily part of your face).
It is cheating if you are not doing it as a survivalist, but trying to do it in the old ways.
If I was doing survivalist activities, I would have my hudson bay company style tinderbox (or tobacco box as some call it) with a magnifier, filled with char and tinder... and flint and steel. Forget about bow drills. They take a lot of time and never are what you want to use in a survival situation. Shoot, in the old days, a lot of people had a smudge pot with coals in it so they could make a fire fast. And flint and high carbon steel can get you started almost as quickly as a match. And it surely wasn't uncommon in the old days to use your flintlock. a little powder in the pan, and pull the trigger.
But even better for survival situations is a fire piston. One pop and you have ignited your bit of char or other starter material.
Of course, blowing up a fire from such small beginnings is an art as well. Shredded bark, IMHO, works better than dryer lint or pocket lint, because it holds it longer. Punk wood, some mushrooms, char, then shredded bark, chips, splits of pine, or other wood like that.
There are a few secret ingredients that are cheats, but work.
old style would be wicks dipped in a little beeswax, so they are about the thickness of a birthday candle.
modern things:
Potato chips!
Dried orange peel. These work best once your fire is into the kindling stage, and you are trying to ignite some bigger pieces.
The paper liners from a box of altoids, or similar.
Its kind of fun bringing a fire up from embers, not rebuilding a fire almost dead, but stirring what looks like dead ash and finding a glowing bit and bringing it back to life. I did that almost every morning this last winter, and what worked best was cottonwood bark and cedar chips and thin splits of wood, preferably pine or spruce.
Birch bark works best - white birch. It has oil in it.
And, since I am allergic to white birch, I get revenge ... LOL
Lot more cottonwood around here than birch...but I do understand!
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