Featherstick technique
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Ed said:A quick tip for you ;-)..... try and use the curved bit of the blade (towards the tip) and not the straight edge to make the cut.... you feathers will curl alot more.
Ed
Ed, thanks for the tip - it seems to be working better now. Thanks also to everyone else. Gary - next time I see you I'll ask for a demo!
Best wishes
Bruce
Yes Mike, the idea of one plane is so all the curls are on one side - but as you describe by alternating this slightly you get a lot more curls but they are still on the one side only.
This enables you to stack the feathersticks up with all the curls facing toward you and as such more likely to take the flame and carry it up and out.
Even if shaving off your curls into many mini fathersticks you should still stack them in the most flame friendly manor - i.e all facing the same direction.
This enables you to stack the feathersticks up with all the curls facing toward you and as such more likely to take the flame and carry it up and out.
Even if shaving off your curls into many mini fathersticks you should still stack them in the most flame friendly manor - i.e all facing the same direction.
I've found often when lighting very damp wood that scraping of the dead, waterlogged bark and then scraping the wood with the spine of the knife dries it enough that it gets burning quickly. Pounding wood with a round rock or back of a hatchet against another rock as an anvil smashes the round sticks exposing the dry inner wood.
Making small fuzz sticks is a good way to make dry kindling, even small tinder if you need to work for it. For larger wood in damp conditions I either scrape or smash it. Mac
Making small fuzz sticks is a good way to make dry kindling, even small tinder if you need to work for it. For larger wood in damp conditions I either scrape or smash it. Mac
pity we cann't get those US style strike anywhere matches over here - just the trick to go in my great granfathers Lucifer case (bit like a small ciggy case).
Unless anyone know where some proper Lucifers can be had?
Unless anyone know where some proper Lucifers can be had?
By strike anywheres, do you mean non-safety matches? swan vesta do the job for me, they are still available in the UK, or they were when I came over last year!
i have had some work done on my arm and cant do the convetional way so i kneel and on the free knee place the knife with the back of the blade across my knee so the cutting part is 90 degrees across my knee but faceing out i then draw the wood back gently with my left hand towards me so knife never moves makeing it safe and steady i can achieve quite good feathers this way but great big chips the normal way not wrong just diffrent maybe a help?
if i havent explained myself i will try to post pics later on?
if i havent explained myself i will try to post pics later on?
Greetings,
I hope this post arrives in the right place as it is my first one here.
A cool and impressive thing I saw demonstrated at Woodsmoke was lighting feathersticks with a spark. The friendly competition with feathersticks between the team one evening was both amusing and instructive to watch. Ben topped the show by lighting a candle with sparks.
From just managing to get a flame to reach 30cm high with my pathetic attempts on the course, I've since managed to create feathers smaller than about 2mm which I can light with a spark. Wish I could have done that on test day.
I hope this post arrives in the right place as it is my first one here.
A cool and impressive thing I saw demonstrated at Woodsmoke was lighting feathersticks with a spark. The friendly competition with feathersticks between the team one evening was both amusing and instructive to watch. Ben topped the show by lighting a candle with sparks.
From just managing to get a flame to reach 30cm high with my pathetic attempts on the course, I've since managed to create feathers smaller than about 2mm which I can light with a spark. Wish I could have done that on test day.
One of the things I used to find causing difficulty when trying to make feathersticks with nice long thin curls was knots in the wood, especially pine.
So what i used to do was split the wood with an axe or knife into quarters. You are then left with a ninety degree angle on the dry inner side of the wood and a curve covered with the bark on the other. Shave the wood on the dry inner side, where the knots don't affect your cut half as much. And of course from each original piece of wood you slpit you get four feather sticks.
Also keep the sticks completely vertical when you are about to cut a shaving down their length and as others have said keep your wrist and elbow locked straight so that they don't bend all over the place and put your cut off.
Good Luck,
Tony
So what i used to do was split the wood with an axe or knife into quarters. You are then left with a ninety degree angle on the dry inner side of the wood and a curve covered with the bark on the other. Shave the wood on the dry inner side, where the knots don't affect your cut half as much. And of course from each original piece of wood you slpit you get four feather sticks.
Also keep the sticks completely vertical when you are about to cut a shaving down their length and as others have said keep your wrist and elbow locked straight so that they don't bend all over the place and put your cut off.
Good Luck,
Tony
TheViking said:
Thanks for the compliment but the truth is, I'm a rank amateur and the fact is lately I've been getting hammered for my poor pics I've submitted for publication. :shock: So you're making me feel real good.
Feathersticks must be something thta british people like to do because I have never seen anyone do it here in sweden. Why spend so much time to make feathersticks when there are so many other ways that are alot easier to start a fire?
I saw a norweigan guy make feathersticks once, but he used an axe and made feathersticks on a log
):
I saw a norweigan guy make feathersticks once, but he used an axe and made feathersticks on a log
):Viking said:
Well I rarely make them myself (I can usually find a lot of fine kindling that is reasonably dry) I have had to fuzz some up when trying to make fire with very wet materials. By shaving the fuel into fuzzsticks you are exposing the drier interior of the wood and that makes it easier to turn duff fuel into warmth! Also, I find that when I've used them in the past the fire tends to be quicker and easier to build up. I put this down to the fact that after the fine fuzzings ignite the full thickness of the un-fuzzed part of the fuel is never far behind! All these things can be important in the cold and wet... which is probably why, like you say, it's mainly the brits that use them!
Viking said:
Viking, that is funny because in Ray Mears' book Bushcraft he states that one of the things to do when visiting the cabins in Scandinavia is to leave some kindling for the next occupant; this is illustrated with a picture showing a book of matches ready to strike and a bunch of feathersticks to get the fire going. The implicit suggestion is that this is the normal way of leaving the cabin. But if you've never seen it done in Sweden, how is it done normally?
Best wishes
Bruce
Mike Harlos said:
i normaly work arond 180 degrees of the stick.. until enough wood has been removed in the form of feather to leave the stick narrow enough to catch alight from the feather on the end of it..
I find it easiest to split a stick in to quarters with the axe or baton. I then work from the angle on the inside of the split by holding my knife tight in to my chest on the right - with the blade facing out and pointing straight ahead. Hold the stick tight across my chest in my left hand and then by puling my shoulders back and pushing my chest forward my hands are pulled apart and i get very fine control of the blade without being in any danger of the blade slipping.
george
george
brucemacdonald said:
Cut up small sticks of the wood, since it will be in a cabin all the wood in there are probably dry. There is also a lot of diffrent ways to start a fire here in sweden it´s all about looking in the right places, some call that knowledge.
We always say, leave he cabin as you want to find it...
If your hands are cold an old news paper, some sticks and some dry firewood (wich probably dry up in no time in a warm cabin) is enough for someone to easy light a fire. Why spend time making pretty looking feather sticks?
Viking said:
In places where fire literally means life and death people dont mess around lighting a fire, they want a fire first time, every time and in double quick time thats their aim not to carve some pretty stick.
Feathersticks are a good skill and a good way of lighting a fire but just like you wouldnt try a solar still in the arctic many bushcraft skills ONLY have their place if used in the correct context.
One of the things I found in Norway is that lighting a fire using standard british skills doesnt work very well - wood that is frozen to the core doesnt burn easy and as such a successful technique here doesnt work there.
As viking says practice and knowledge are what count.
Another interesting point I learnt in Norway was to sleep with my Parka over my head so I breathed down the sleeve - breathing into your sleeping bag is a no no but so is sleeping with your face exposed. I mentioned the suggestion once made by a well known bushcrafter on TV about 'just putting up with a cold nose' and the reply I got was frank and typically Norwegian - 'if he still has his nose he never sleeps in the cold' because frost bite will take your nose if its exposed to the elements while you sleep!
May be a couple of examples of theory clashing with reality!
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