Bow drill with Willow.

[Longstrider]

I have heard and read in various places that folks find willow to be a good wood to use for bow drill, both as spindle and hearth. I can make a good coal with a variety of woods but so far willow just defeats me (almost) every time.
I have been using dead willow cut from the standing tree and trying it there and then and have only ever managed one, very tiny coal after a great deal of effort.
I have been out this evening and found a large willow that has split and dropped a bough into a ditch so it will be cut away and disposed of by the landowner (my boss) soon. I have gathered a few pieces of green wood from this bough that will be suitable for both spindles and hearths. I plan on drying them out at home and trying with them once well dried and hard.

The question is, am I wasting my time? I suspect that the willow I have used prviously has been a little "too far gone" having started to break down due to being dead in the tree, but as I will need several sets of bow drill kit for a local cub scout group this Summer I was hoping to get them all made soon. If the willow is going to do the trick I'll not worry about gathering other woods, but I need to get gathering if the kids are going to struggle with the "good" willow like I have with my previous attempts with older wood.

 

[PC2K]

hmm... willow is the easist for me!
I usually look for sawn of willow branches, that parkservice saw off. I look for the branches on top of those piles that have been there for quite awhile. The piece on the botom seams to be, too wet or they started to grow again! All i can say is make sure the wood is dry, knot free and keep on trying!

 

[rich59]

Hi Longstrider,

I have been preparing a session with my local scouts this last two weeks! I have therefore been trying to refine my skills.

I have looked at each part of the bow drill set in turn to work out what will work well for the lads.

The first thing I looked at was the bow. I found that a straight bow about 3 feet long was much easier for me (and probably the lads too). I also thought about tensioning the bow string and developed a "wind up key" idea that works well.

With the spindle I have looked at 3 different woods. Hazel, sycamore, and willow. I can get fire with all of them, but the easiest of these was willow. Both the other two tended to give a quite gritty punk that had to collect quite a pile with significant weight through the bearing block before I got a coal. Also, hazel coals seemed to be reluctant to continue to smoulder and would sometimes go out.

But, willow smoked very easily and gave a fine punk that easily formed a good coal with absolutely minimal weight through the bearing block.

My hearth was sycamore

So this week I will be handing out 3ft bows, sycamore hearth boards and willow spindles. I have a variety of bearing blocks including sycamore board, stone, towel rail end and ice cream scoop.

The willow I used was freshly harvested green, stripped of its bark and dried in an airing cupboard.

My game plan is first demonstrate, then hand out kits and get them to help each other with the different tasks, then if they do well I will take the kits away and give them axe, knife, cordage and some bits of wood to make up a working kit.

As we are going camping this weekend as well they might continue on the last part then as well.

Probably over ambitious, but the lads thrive on leader enthusiasm

 

[Rod]

Hi Ian,

I've just made my first bowdrill set. At long last...

Spindle is a piece of green stripped & air dried hazel about 1 cm in diametre and my hearth is a piece if dead sycamore. The bough was on a living tree. I stripped the bark / squared it up with my small axe. Bearing block is ash.

I had the biggest ember on the first attempt with it and didn't even break a sweat. No hyperventilating for me. Repeated the process four times - just to make sure. Will post some picks soon.

Hope that this isn't rubbing your nose in it

cheers

 

[AlexRowan]

Rod, I'd be interested to see the pics... esp the 1cm thick spindle!

 

[JonnyP]

Hi Longstrider,

I have been preparing a session with my local scouts this last two weeks! I have therefore been trying to refine my skills.

I have looked at each part of the bow drill set in turn to work out what will work well for the lads.

The first thing I looked at was the bow. I found that a straight bow about 3 feet long was much easier for me (and probably the lads too). I also thought about tensioning the bow string and developed a "wind up key" idea that works well.

With the spindle I have looked at 3 different woods. Hazel, sycamore, and willow. I can get fire with all of them, but the easiest of these was willow. Both the other two tended to give a quite gritty punk that had to collect quite a pile with significant weight through the bearing block before I got a coal. Also, hazel coals seemed to be reluctant to continue to smoulder and would sometimes go out.

But, willow smoked very easily and gave a fine punk that easily formed a good coal with absolutely minimal weight through the bearing block.

My hearth was sycamore

So this week I will be handing out 3ft bows, sycamore hearth boards and willow spindles. I have a variety of bearing blocks including sycamore board, stone, towel rail end and ice cream scoop.

The willow I used was freshly harvested green, stripped of its bark and dried in an airing cupboard.

My game plan is first demonstrate, then hand out kits and get them to help each other with the different tasks, then if they do well I will take the kits away and give them axe, knife, cordage and some bits of wood to make up a working kit.

As we are going camping this weekend as well they might continue on the last part then as well.

Probably over ambitious, but the lads thrive on leader enthusiasm

Nice one Rich.........I have just acquired a load of willow (a big branch fell from a customers tree). I want to make a bread board, but I have not used willow for friction fire lighting, so I will give it a go. Let us know how the scouts get on...........Jon

 

[Longstrider]

Hi Rod, I find hazel spindles to be my easiest to get a coal with. I use them on a hearth of either elder or ivy. Elder spindles work well on ivy hearths too. All of these woods were cut green and air dried (I am yet to try sycamore) My problem has been getting willow to work despite many folks saying it was their favourite! I have only tried willow that I have cut as dead standing wood so far though. Now that I have cut some green willow I hope to be able to get it to work once it has dried thoroughly.

What took you so long to catch the bug and make a set anyway? See you in Wales?

 

[JonnyP]

Hi Rod, I find hazel spindles to be my easiest to get a coal with. I use them on a hearth of either elder or ivy. Elder spindles work well on ivy hearths too. All of these woods were cut green and air dried (I am yet to try sycamore) My problem has been getting willow to work despite many folks saying it was their favourite! I have only tried willow that I have cut as dead standing wood so far though. Now that I have cut some green willow I hope to be able to get it to work once it has dried thoroughly.

What took you so long to catch the bug and make a set anyway? See you in Wales?

Hi LS..........Just wondering how you use elder as a spindle, as it has a pithy center, so you can't sharpen it to a point, where it meets the bearing block. I wedge in a piece of hardwood to overcome this, how do you do it ?

 

[Longstrider]

EEK, just remembered that my elder was the only wood of all my successful bowdrill kit that I cut when it was already dead !

I made my spindles (and hearths) out of a piece of elder that was 2 1/2 to 3 inches in diameter. I split it down to make a flat hearthboard (I recall I got 2 hearths from each section of wood) and simply whittled another split piece down to make a few spindles out of it. (4 spindles to the log, making them each out of 1/4) On the hearths you can see the pithy core, (or more to the point the hole where the pith used to be) but the spindles are solid wood. The only thing I have tried using younger, thinner, pithy cored elder for is the hand-drill courtesy of the nice piece J.Lenton gave me. The only things I have made with the hand-drill (without using thumb loops) so far have been blisters, a little smoke and a heap or ten of charry punk. So far no coal, but I live in hope


Edit to ask if anyone else knows the superstition about having to tell an elder what you are going to do before you cut it in case there is a witch in it?

 

[Rod]

Rod, I'd be interested to see the pics... esp the 1cm thick spindle!

Hi Alex,

Am away paddling this weekend but will take my set and get some pix when we 'park up' for the night.

cheers

 

[Rod]

What took you so long to catch the bug and make a set anyway? See you in Wales?

Hi Mate,

Don't know, I was shown how and did on my first bushi course, but never felt the inclination to repeat. I guess because I was taught to use the most efficient method available to you, having hyperventilated at the time of 1st using a bowdrill I stuck with my firesteel.

I've had the bits drying in our wood store for several months and got the bits out and made the set last weekend. I spent a bit of time thinking about the bowdrill and how you could make a set that wasn't as hard work. Seems I may have made one

Looking forward to Wales

 

[bartjen 2]

[I've made several fires with willow, works well if not to soft. Just bare in mind the thumbnail depressure. Just see the sign of the nail, if to deep it isn't good. Sycamore and alder works very well too, jsut need too work a little more but you can make more fires with it. The coal is smaller buth just as hot as with wiillow. greets

 

[bartjen 2]

I've read that moost off you use different woods for spindle and heart but in my experience I have got the best results using the same wood for the spindle and the heart best being from the same branche. As bearing block I'm using a piece of bone with a depression in it; never heats up and smokes.

 

[eraaij]

There are a lot of different kinds of Willow. Some are easy to get a coal with and for me, others just don't seem to work as well. I discovered that fact the hard way. So just experiment with a diferent tee/shrub of the Willow family.

-Emile

 

[rich59]

Nice one Rich.........I have just acquired a load of willow (a big branch fell from a customers tree). I want to make a bread board, but I have not used willow for friction fire lighting, so I will give it a go. Let us know how the scouts get on...........Jon

The scouts got on fine. Before the night I tried out varying the hearth board as well - comparing sycamore with commercial pine. The pine did better so that was what I used on the night. The scouts were delighted to be able in a group of 3 (2 on the bow, 1 on the bearing block) to consistently get a coal and then blow it into flame with some tinder.

Then at the weekend camp we made up a bow set from scratch, tried out a few spindles and hearth boards before eventually getting a coal again with the same willow spindle on pine hearth we had used in the week. Conveniently we had camped close to a tree with some cramp ball fungus so we used that to get the tinder going before cooking our meal on it and having campfire games till sleep time.

One of the lads had brought along a ray mears book and kept me on my toes discussing finer points of fire making.

 

[JonnyP]

The scouts got on fine. Before the night I tried out varying the hearth board as well - comparing sycamore with commercial pine. The pine did better so that was what I used on the night. The scouts were delighted to be able in a group of 3 (2 on the bow, 1 on the bearing block) to consistently get a coal and then blow it into flame with some tinder.

Then at the weekend camp we made up a bow set from scratch, tried out a few spindles and hearth boards before eventually getting a coal again with the same willow spindle on pine hearth we had used in the week. Conveniently we had camped close to a tree with some cramp ball fungus so we used that to get the tinder going before cooking our meal on it and having campfire games till sleep time.

One of the lads had brought along a ray mears book and kept me on my toes discussing finer points of fire making.

Excellent, well done those scouts. I bet you inspired them as you did me on the hand drill. Good idea using two of them on the bow. Was the pine, pallet wood.........