Best British fire lighting woods

[Swan]

This is the first time i have posted a thread so just thought i'd say hello to all you fellow bushcrafters out there.

I'm a fairly amateur bushcrafter and have recently begun to experiment with the bow-drill and long-drill fire lighting techniques, which i have really enjoyed. But also quite successfully, completely knackered myself out on.

Can anyone reccommend the best woods (to be found in british woodlands) to use for these techniques? I understand that you should use hard wood for the drill, and soft wood for the plate you drill into, but what kinds are best?

Thanks for your time.

 

[Shewie]

Hi Swan - well done for breaking your duck.

As a rule you should try and use the same wood for the drill and the hearth although this isn`t always true.

A couple of easy to find ones are Hazel, Birch, Sycamore (very good), Alder, Lime and Willow. Try and find some which is dead standing and not too soft.

Good luck and keep trying

 

[Gray]

Hi Swan, I've got some useful info on fire lighting and tree identification which i'd be more than happy to forward to you.
Best Regards
Gray

 

[dwardo]

Hi Swan, I've got some useful info on fire lighting and tree identification which i'd be more than happy to forward to you.

Best to PM over your email Gray
Stops the SPAM scumbags gettin hold of your address using webcrawlers n such, damn their bits to a firery place !

 

[Swan]

Thanks for the advice mate, i'll try them out.

 

[spamel]

I think the soft and hardwood combination is something that was once written in a survival book by somebody and has been copied verbatim in future books without the author having any practical knowledge of friction firelighting. If one is hard and the other a lot softer, then the harder wood will consume the softer one without creating that ember. Wood from the same species, or even the same tree or branch (!) are usually winners. I've had great success with sycamore on sycamore, the first set I learnt (After proving to my wife it was possible by using a Bosch power drill to get her off my case! ) was with this combination. Willow on willow works well too, but my most successful has to have been the hazel and mystery wood that we later came to the conclusion was Rowan. It's a massive learning curve even after you finally have success as the combinations you can use are endless.

Good luck with it.

 

[rich59]

On the issue of different wood combinations, I hear the point about physics and 2 materials of equal hardness producing the most heat. But in reality we are not rubbing equal materials when doing bow or hand drill. The drill is spun and is with the grain of the wood. The hearth stays still and the grain direction is across the line of drilling.

Storm did a major exercise creating a spread sheet of a large range of woods for both drill and hearth and measuring level of difficulty/ ease to get a coal. If you analyse the data you find that using the same wood on itself only makes a marginal difference.

For the practical issue of shaping the hearth board it is useful to have it fairly soft. Also it is my observation that hard wood hearths need narrower drills, otherwise they polish.

But, mostly it comes down to some woods being better than others - mostly fine grained, dry woods do well, while coarse, oily woods do badly.

Then there is the frequently observed fact (and found also in Storm's analysis) that hazel on ivy is really easy compared to most other combinations.

 

[spiritofold]

Standing dead hazel is normally a good one for friction fire, easy to carve with flint if you want to really try being abbo. Still loads of nettles around to make string for your bow as well, though it dont last as long as paracord

Make sure you have a bundle of tinder prepared. Practice, practice practice! Dont give up!

Perfect the technique with one type of wood then play around with other types.

Andy >>>>>--------------------------------<>

 

[bushcraftbob]

I've just managed to crack the bow drill for the first time, and I used Hazel on Lime. I found it easier than willow on willow and hazel on hazel.

cheers

 

[mortalmerlin]

I think a lot of it is technique, once you have cracked it life is easier.

The woodlore people say Willow, Alder, Lime, Ivy and Sycamore and use the same wood for drill and hearth.

I have found that you can also get duff bits of wood from time to time that just seem more difficult to work with.

 

[job_cod]

down here in the south there is alot of dead standing Sycamore which i know to work well((i havent the knee to actually do it...yet!). I would say that the best wood for the job is the easiest to come by in the location that your at.

 

[BigShot]

job_cod...

...when you say you've not had the need to actually do it yet, are you saying you've not tried friction firemaking?
If so, I suggest you try it, because if you ever really need it and haven't done it - you'll be in a spot of bother. I drove myself bat***t crazy trying to get one going earlier. I really wouldn't want to try it for the first time in a bind.

Did I succeed?
Well... I'm trying again tomorrow. Haha.

 

[spiritofold]

Being taken out of your comfort zone and then having to make fire using friction really seperates the men from the boys. Saying that, when you do become proficient with the technique it should'nt matter where you are. You've always got that method stored in your head. Even if you dont have a knife, you can still use flint or stone to do the carving up of the wood.

There have been a few times that i can think of when try as i might, i still coud'nt get an ember though, the skill just left me. I guess that was the woodland laughing at me

 

[WoodWildling]

agree there. sometimes it just doesnt work. I have used lime on lime with great success.
the other thing i would say is use a longish hearthboard, then when you wear through one hole eventually, you can just saw it off and more the spindle along. Also try for the smoothest spindle - it really benefits if you put a little more time in making sure it is smooth. (Of course if you were in an actual survival situation it would be different......

 

[Cobweb]

I've got an ember from sycamore on sycamore before, using the big bow, thick spindle and 1/2 inch board, but at the moot Toddy showed us a neat little set with the bow as long as my forearm and a spindle that was as thick as my finger and my mum who had never tried the bowdrill before got a lot of smoke but twanged out just before an ember could be made.

If I remember rightly, Toddy said it was hazel on hazel, it was a lovely piece of kit Perhaps you could pm her for more details?

 

[Ogri the trog]

Hey Swan,
I know that the friction techniques are seen as a bit of a Bushcraft Milestone, but they're not the only primitive methods that are feasable. Dropping sparks onto scraped birch bark is a classic, as is taking any ember and blowing it into flame in a buffed nest of grasses. Either method can be used on various fungi. It took me years to get to grips with bow-drilling and another year after that to get the hand-drill, so don't feel you have to master these methods before moving onto other things.

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[Cobweb]

Just found the post where Toddy describes her bowdrill :http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=105529&postcount=10