Egyptian bow drill

[philaw]

I just had a go at friction fire making for the first time ever using my first ever home made kit, and managed to produce a decent sized coal! It felt really amazing! I dropped the coal onto my pre-prepared pile of cotton wool, but couldn't get it to take, and the coal eventually flew off because I was blowing hard but not protecting the coal.

The point is that I followed the tutorials on BCUK, and it all worked, and I'm now very very very happy. I made a hole through the spindle for the cord, like in the egyptian bow drill tutorial, and it didn't slip a bit. The wood was a piece of very dry and fairly light hard wood two inches thick that I just split in half, using half for the board and half for the top piece. That's it. I'd been put off from trying because I thought it would be impossible for someone as thoroughly cack-handed as me, but the bow drill worked first time, even if the tinder didn't! If you haven't tried yet, get the right wood, and follow the tutorials. The importance of building up the speed slowly shouldn't be understated, especially for people that lack a little stamina. I fluffed out my cotton wool a bit more and tried to get a coal again, but my arms were just a bit too worn out.

I'd been meaning to pay up the membership fee for ages, and I'm gonna do it right now.

Thanks everybody.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Congratulations on your success. It is indeed a great feeling of accomplishment. If you are short on suitable shredded bark for preparing a fiber nest may I suggest punk wood as an alternative. The secret to using punk is to position the coal towards the inside, much the same as when manipulating a fiber bundle. You can sandwich the coal between two pieces, but three pieces placed in contact with each other seems to work better for me. A few slivers of dry wood shaved off with your knife and placed on top of the growing coal will ignite.

Another tip - after having expent all that energy to make your coal its a good idea to light a fungus or other extender. If the initial coal fails, you have an instant back up ready for a second go.

 

[rich59]

Fantastic - philaw!!!!!!!!!

Getting a coal from your own effort is such a boost. Yea!

The slow buildup is indeed one of the key points. It allows the wood to thoroughly dry out and warm up before putting in the bigger effort to get a quick pile of hot powder.

I don't have any experience of cotton wool from a coal. It takes a flame really well. But with a coal you are dealing with a glow and not a flame. If it would not take then I would suggest actually squashing some of it down tight to take the initial transfer from the coal. Otherwise there may be too much air to too little fuel. I will go and try it myself !

 

[philaw]

It's great to think, too, that I was able to just use a piece of wood I'd collected to use for a knife handle. Thanks for the tip, Rich. I'd honestly not considered that the cotton wool would fail to light, because my fire steel makes it do an impression of the hindenberg. I guess that if I sit the coal more securely in the ball, and really blow hard on it, it'll stand the best chance. Jeff, I like you idea of using something an 'extender.' I had the temptation to drop the coal in my alcohol stove to keep the fire burning, but it would've been a hollow victory!

 

[Jeff Wagner]

In my experience, there are two kind of tinders. Those that flame up easily like birch bark. These are useful when making fire with charcloth or fire steel. The second are those that grow a coal to the point of flame. This type is most useful when making fire from a coal. While both are valuable fire making materials they are unfortunately not interchangeable. For your bow drill you want the second type. You can test the properties of a prospective tinder to see if it will carry a coal prior to the actual bow drill event. Just touch a match or cigarette to it and blow.

 

[rich59]

I had a go with a big wad of cotton wool last night. I created a coal and put it in the heart of a well compressed bundle of the cotton wool. The glow would extend into the cotton wool but try as I might I could not get it to a flame. I blew, blew hard. I waved it about to get drier air through it instead of moist breath - lots of glow but no luck in the flame department. Yet, when I put a match to it it burned away like mad.

It seems that I could not get the temperature of the glowing cotton wool to ignition point.

My favoured tinder is a pile of shredded leaves with a piece of wood on top to weight it down a little. Rub some of the leaves into dust between the palms of your hand and press this dust pile into the side of the heap. Then create your coal and blow it slowly and gently at first into the dust pile starter and then into the whole pile. It should give first a fabulous amount of smoke followed by bursting into flames as the glow goes from orange towards brighter and yellower.

I had another go with my favourite household tinder - a roll of newspaper (works a treat with charcloth. I got it to get to flame one out of three attempts - inserting the coal into the end of the roll. The other times the coal disintegrated or blew away with the stronger blowing needed to get the heat up to ignition point. So, not reliable yet! I obviously need more practice.