Lets talk about Bow drill fire

[CedrikG]

First of all, sorry if there is missing letter often in the following thread, there is a lot of lag and letters don't always appears ...

Some of you guys know that I really .. really like making primitive fire. It is almost an obsession, honestly. I want to understand ... EVERYTHING of this art.

In the last few years i've made at least 5-10 friction fire a week. Overall, I calculated that I made about 1500 primitive fire. I am pretty proud of that, but still today i have fail that I cannot explain why.
You guy's know, of course that not every species of tree works for the friction fire. I noticed that while making a successful ember it produce a sticky ball of dust, dark brown or dark it does'nt matter.
If it does not work, the dust is black, and feel like coal at the touch. Actually, that dust feel like it is already burned and ... IT IS. You can try to put a flame directly on the dust and it will not even make an ember.

Now ... I would like to know ... WHAT make that dust already burned when it fall in the notch ...
One theory could be that the wood is to hard. But no, many ''soft'' species of wood doesn't work here. By the way, the nail test to see if the wood is hard or not ... really just tell if the wood is hard... or not hehe. Really for the friction fire I tried hundred of ''soft'' wood resulting in fail after hours of work.

While many people has success with populus, they just will NEVER make an ember in my area. Why? Wood is very soft ... but that damn dust is always burned when it fall in the notch... (over 100 trys on different day, different season, different tree, different species of populus)...
My theory for those inexplicable fail would be the composition of the tree itself. Some tree has a big amount of sapwood, small heartwood. Other are opposite, big amount of heartwood ''dead wood'' and a small amount of sapwood. Maybe some tree possess substance in the sapwood ...

Maybe the age of the tree - branch ... Maybe the Year line has a role to play ?

Thanks for giving your opinion !

 

[rich59]

Hi Cedric,

Love the question. I'm pretty passionate about friction fire too. Most of my coals these days are by hand drill. When things don't go as expected I love to try and work out why.

I recall getting burned black stuff that didn't light sometimes with bow drill. It doesn't seem to happen with handdrill that I have seen so far. When I did get this problem I thought it might be that the powder was burning in the drill hole before falling into the notch. One possible test of this would be to drill in the dark and watch for light from the drill hole. If this was the cause then a fix might be to use less pressure, or a smaller diameter drill, or slower drilling, or phase the drilling so you drill light enough for light smoke first and the speed up.

What do you think?

 

[Cyclingrelf]

Wow - this looks like its going to be a really interesting thread. I'm afraid I haven't got the expertise to be able to add anything, but will be watching to see how you guys get on with answering the question

 

[CedrikG]

Hi Cedric,

Love the question. I'm pretty passionate about friction fire too. Most of my coals these days are by hand drill. When things don't go as expected I love to try and work out why.

I recall getting burned black stuff that didn't light sometimes with bow drill. It doesn't seem to happen with handdrill that I have seen so far. When I did get this problem I thought it might be that the powder was burning in the drill hole before falling into the notch. One possible test of this would be to drill in the dark and watch for light from the drill hole. If this was the cause then a fix might be to use less pressure, or a smaller diameter drill, or slower drilling, or phase the drilling so you drill light enough for light smoke first and the speed up.

What do you think?

Yes, not a bad idea to try to make an ember in the dark! Will know real fast if it burns before falling in the notch...

Yeah ... after talking to many people they all say reduce pressure and slow down. As for the drill I will try the opposite, bigger spindle instead of smaller one. I dont want the drill to be smaller cause it will generate even more heat. I want a bigger amount of dust and slower rotation, a bigger spindle will do both.

Thanks man for replying I will keep you updated on the result, I am working it today

 

[CedrikG]

Maybe that varying spindle size could be very important, as other people stated on other forum ... Spent the last 4 hours in the forest working on bow drill. I made an ember in 2 min using a small species of willow, Bebb's willow. I like that species because it is super unpredictable. Some branch will simply be the best bow drill material you can find, kicking balsam fir tree bottom anyday. Other time it will never ever make a coal, giving a dust that is the same as most hardwood species that does not work , ehhe.

Then I made a first set of populus, ... populus tremuloide. My spindle was about 15 inch long ... I prefer my spindle that long, especially when I know I might not get an ember anytime soon, lol. It was about 1 inch in diameter, normal sized spindle. Well believe it or not my spindle went from 15 inch to 4 inch That took 1 hour and a half of none stop work to bring it that size. So I made a new one, 14 inch same diameter. Well 2 hours later it was 4 inch

As time goes, my dust went finer and finer, and very very very similar to the one I know works fine ... it stick together. So I tested it and put a small ember in the dust, and it became a big ember. In other word, because my last sentance is bad, that dust was GOOD. Unfortunately, I never made an ember. Man .. it is crazy how ... slloooowww you have to go on the bow, and ... literally NO pressure on the spindle ... a LITTLE to much pressure and the dust become dark and burned.

SO after all that work I sit in my small shelter and watched the rain ... I split a piece of bebb's willow and a populus. The willow seems to contain a lot of oil in the wood ... it is super smooth, very slippy. It is the same with some conifer such as thuya, pine, balsam. The wood is a little shiny, you understand ? Populus is not ... at least the specimen I had in hand was not.

Maybe this has a role to play ...

 

[rich59]

Cedrik,

Can I pursued you to try a half inch diam drill?

With a big drill diam maybe the dust stays in the hot zone too long and so burns. With a small drill maybe it will fall out before burning away.

 

[lannyman8]

Cedrik as rich said, try the smaller spindle im sure it would make a big difference, i normally tend to use a spindle about 1 - 1.5 cm so around half an inch as rich said....also stick with the slow drilling and little pressure, just enough to get a very little amount of smoke, fill the notch with dust fully then give it more pressure to light the dust with the heat......

give it a go and see how you get on dude....

best of luck mate...

 

[CedrikG]

Hehe, yes I agree I believe it could be something to try.

I am spending the day in the forest tomorrow I will try that