I was nearly there...

[Stew]

Bow shouldnt be springy and the string tight enough that when you put the spindle in it wants to soin out on its own.

Ta.

Unfortunately bow drill is one of those visual things and you'd be hard pressed to get it working from a book or via this meduim

That just makes it more of a challenge...or one of many reasons to make it to a meet up!

 

[TheViking]

Unfortunately bow drill is one of those visual things and you'd be hard pressed to get it working from a book or via this meduim

But it would be a great feeling to do it at 15 with no visual instructions. :shock: :biggthump ack: I'm definately gonna keep trying and use another hearth. If i'm right, Sycamore is almost the same as maple right? What's best to use? Sycamore or Pine? :?:

 

[Gary]

KEEP trying - if you made smoke your nearly there - trick is to kep going and watch the smoke you want it to start spinning up the spindle - once that happens give it about 20 good strokes and the smoke will grow more and more.

Best wood is Ivy or Alder - sycamor is what I learnt with and needs a lot more pressure then speed - ivy is the opposite and needs speed over pressure.

 

[jakunen]

KEEP trying - if you made smoke your nearly there - trick is to kep going and watch the smoke you want it to start spinning up the spindle - once that happens give it about 20 good strokes and the smoke will grow more and more.

Absolutely!!!

I'm at a similar point. If I can just keep going that little bit longer without trying to fire the spindle at Gary):, with luck, and a bit more practice, I too will be able to show off a fire made from this method.

But I'm not gonna throw away my trusty flint and steel and char cloth...

 

[Moonraker]

When you want to look at various combinations of spindle and hearth wood there is a great article which compares nearly 2000 different combinations :shock: Not all the tree and shrub woods are available in the UK but it covers a lot of them. It is here:

A Friction Fire Inquiry By Storm

There is a large table which makes reading the results easy and grades the ease/ difficulty of making an ember from 1-5. It includes same wood combinations i.e. (Willow on Willow).

I think everyone has different feelings on this but it is a very well produced report.

Simon

 

[TheViking]

Mmm... nice table there, although the type is a little too small.

 

[Stew]

Mmm... nice table there, although the type is a little too small.

Just copy it into Excel and increase the font.

 

[Moonraker]

Mmm... nice table there, although the type is a little too small.

Then up the font size in your browser prefs I can read it fine here point size 14 on 1600 x 1200 screen

The also lists the species into Great, Good, Difficult, Extremely Difficult at the end (Table 2). I was interested to see he had English Ivy (Hedera helix) in the V. Difficult section after reading what Gary said. Just goes to show how these things are personal and how many variables there must be.

These are his 'Great' selection:

I have added info on availability in Britain

[NATIV]=Native to Britain and can be found growing wild

[NATUR]=Naturalised in Britain from abroad (introduced by accident or deliberately planted) and can be found growing wild

[ORNAM]= Ornamental garden introductions. Only likely to be found in gardens, parks ( especially in arboretums) or possibly as garden escapes. A few, especially the annuals, biennials may never have been introduced as garden plants.

The * notes are mine. I have not double checked this info!

Great

Achillea millefolium - Yarrow [NATIV]

Conyza canadensis - Horseweed [NATUR]

Acer negundo - Box Elder [ORNAM]

Aesculus californica - CA Buckeye [ORNAM]

Baccharis salicifolia - Mule Fat [ORNAM]

Sambucus mexicana - Blue Elderberry [ORNAM]

Sequoia sempervirens - Coast Redwood [ORNAM]

Typha latifolia - Cattail [NATIV]

Acer macrophyllum - Big-leaf Maple [ORNAM]

Artemisia douglasiana - Mugwort [NATIV]*1

Cirsium vulgare - Bull Thistle [NATIV] *2

Cytisus scoparius - Scotch Broom [NATIV]*3

Pseudotsuga menziesii - Douglas Fir [NATUR]*4

Scrophularia californica - CA Figwort

Sonchus oleraceus - Sow Thistle

*1 correctly in Britain Artemisia vulgaris
*2 Common Thistle in Britain
*3 also called Broom, Common Broom
*4 Forestry species. occasionally self seeds in Britain

You can find out more info on any of these plants at the great US Dept. of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service Plants Database

Simon