Birch bow drill

[Rabbit leg]

I am in the French Alps. I have 2 choices to practice my bow drills. Pine and birch. Pine is easy.

I have used birch many times in the past but it has mostly been with seasoned/dry wood.
The problem I am having now, is trying to make a bow drill outside, on the spot.
In a forest of birch you have the tree tunk which is silver and then you have the smaller branches
which are dark brown.
This is all green wood which does not work without drying.
As far as I know, dead birch does not season, it rots inside its bark. Punk wood.

So my question - when in a birch forest, how do find wood for a bow drill? To be used on the spot.

Dead standing does not seem to exist. Only green or rotting.

 

[Toddy]

For a quick bow, it doesn't matter if it's green, indeed it can have more 'spring' if it's green.
Last time I used birch I cut a branch (birch can be a weed tree here, and thinning them out is a good thing, rather than a no-no) about as thick as my wrist, and split it in quarters along it's length. We got three useful bows for firelighting out of it; one side had a really bad knotty lump so we gave up on that one.

On that note, I don't use long bows for firelighting, I don't go with this whole brushshaft length stuff. I don't need them that long, three or four handspans long works just fine and is a blooming site easier to carry too.

M

 

[Rabbit leg]

Hello Toddy,

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I am trying to make an ember with birch.
I use a pre-made bow and bearing block.
There are whole valleys here with just birch and nothing else. And trying to find
a spindle and hearth is quite hard.
There are some dry branches, roadside, probably cut backs, but I am trying to avoid
using these.

 

[Toddy]

Ah, got you

Inside the wood is pretty dry though, if you split it then it'll make a board, but birch burns, but sometimes it's kind of 'sticky' and it doesn't always work well as a board. Well, I think so.
Tell you what does work though, see if you can find one of the old fallen ones, and get hold of a big bit of the thick dry bark tube from it. If you get a thick bit that's pretty dry then it does make an ember if you use it inside out. Needs work right enough, but it does make an ember. I have bits in the shed for just that purpose, they're about 2cm thick

M

 

[Rabbit leg]

I can't imagine a live/green birch tree giving an ember without taking it indoors to dry. But I will give it a try. It is winter and sub zero up here in the high Alps so they are probably drier than I am used to.

The birch bark is a new method to try. I will keep my eye out. Thanks.

 

[Toddy]

Birch is often sodden wet, especially if it's sitting in sometimes flooded ground. If a tree is broken then it can pour almost like a tap. Pick your tree, pick the area it's growing though and mind that the cells that shift water up the tree are in the bark. I know areas of moss where the birches are trying to colonise and we can literally just pull the entire tree up and out. Every so often the local ranger service organise work parties to do just that and to try to keep the bogs clear.

The old birches that drop round here have thick but much distorted bark. The tree rots out and leaves a tube of bark. It's good for firelighting, rarely good for making stuff, well of any size that is, but thick pieces with that rusty inner bark still sound do work as a hearth board, and are often dry even from a fallen tree.