Hi ,Lately I've been starting most of my fires with the hand drill - I use a 6-10 inch drill and use the floating technique for all my coals. My success rate is fairly high, especially in my shed where I virtually always succeed on the first try, but when you're in a damp forest after it has been raining for 2 days, the humidity levels make it a lot more difficult. It'll be a while yet before I feel that my hand drill set is as reliable as a firesteel, so for now I always bring my firesteel as a back-up! I don't bother with the bow-drill much anymore because it's not how our ancestors would have lit their fires, it has too many parts to carry and it's starting to deviate from the whole idea of simplicity that bushcraft is supposed to be about!
I don't bother with the bow-drill much anymore because it's not how our ancestors would have lit their fires, it has too many parts to carry and it's starting to deviate from the whole idea of simplicity that bushcraft is supposed to be about!
I'm sure somebody on here told me that spindles and hearth boards turned up in Scotland several thousand years ago...
The bow drill appeared in Mehrgarh between the 4th and 5th millennium BCE or the bow-drill was invented in the upper Paleolithic period, which broadly dates to between 49,257 & 14,117 years ago. Give or take...
~From Wikipedia.
I'm sure somebody on here told me that spindles and hearth boards turned up in Scotland several thousand years ago...
The bow drill appeared in Mehrgarh between the 4th and 5th millennium BCE or the bow-drill was invented in the upper Paleolithic period, which broadly dates to between 49,257 & 14,117 years ago. Give or take...
~From Wikipedia.