ivy vine firebow

[petrochemicals]

A lot of people rate vines for friction fire, clematis, ivy are the ones that spring to mind. A year ago I was interested in getting hold of some and attempting a friction fire utilising them. Problem is vines are vines and they are rarely straight, or thich enough to shape. I did get some ivy last year, and threw it in a box to season, here's the result.


I carved a small bit of ivy for a drill and inserted it into a larger piece of wood, trouble is that the ivy is so twisted in grain, chunks would pop out and it still was crooked. The first set was straight enough after initial binding but soon loosened and became unworkable. Also the initial ivy hearth hole split the top off. It was not going well.


I left it a while, recarved the bit a bit smaller, with a more uniform squareness to it., about 1/2 an inch in width, and split a new straighter thicker piece of wood 4 ways down the centre, inserted, and bound.




Hey presto a coal. Ivy does seem to be good, but the dust from it is very very loose and doesn't seem to stick as a lump very well.


Pete

 

[Toddy]

I like ivy as a hearth board, but like willow or elder, I split it so that the centre of the timber is downwards and the curved outer edge is where I burn in and then notch out to the side.

Thing with all of those is that they do split and it makes it easy (relatively that is ) to do it without metal tools.

M

 

[petrochemicals]

Like this?


I think I did it all with a hatchet, except the notch I did with a junior hacksaw, I think a flint axe would have been just as good. As for ease of splitting, it does split very easily around its narled grain!

 

[Toddy]

It does split with a stone axe I have some ivy that's four inches thick and it splits fine
Elder branches break easily and if you hit one sharply on the ground it'll crack the end; that can just be wedged open until the branch splits.

M

 

[petrochemicals]

I've done a bit more to it. The ivy I have is very hard. I tried using a smal, medium, and large bit of ivy in the drill to get coal. And I could get the small one( less than half of an inch diameter) up to temperature very quickly, trouble is a small drill means little dust and tiny embers. The medium ( up to 5/8ths of an inch)worked the best, easy ish up to temperature and great at generating a coal. The large (6/8ths of an inch) I could not get it to work. I would achieve a bit of smoke but no real dust, it was too larger area to bear pressure on for this particular ivy wood. Thinking of the way some people cut the tip of the drill off, and the way the socket and drill always seem to elongate with use, I tried cutting a 'U' shaped notch in, going through the middle of the heath, this finally achieved a coal, but it was very hard going. Taking this on board, I went back to the medium drill bit, and cut a u shaped notch in it's hearth and this worked best of all, it was quick up to temperature, easy to rotate, and built a large coal. I think the drill sides, where the grain is exposed on two sides, wear quickly, and the hearth centre seems torecieve most of the effort and wears quick.

 

[petrochemicals]

In the interest of finding out and sating my curiosity I did a bit more today.


I got a thinner drill compared to the original to somehow gear the drills and find out about speed and pressure. I put a smaller bit and a larger bit in both. With the large drill the small bit of ivy was hard work and took alot of effort to hold the furious way I had to speed the bow through, the pressure was easy, but the stress of the speed to get a small bit hot was hard work. It generated a lot of dust but the coal was hard to come by. With the large drill and larger bit (5/8th inch dia.) it came by a coal quickly and easily, slowly to warm up and then a quick burst to really make fire. With the small drill and and large bit the coal did come easily, but it did take quite a bit of effort, a long period of quite frantic bow work, probably to comprnsate for the lack of pressure. But the small bit and the small drill was the easiest yet, quicly and easily I had a fairly large coal, without having to apply much pressure or insane speed. 20m of hemp rope later.