My First Nurding.

[decorum]

I'd never seen this type of fire until last week (thanks Paul ) and having time to play in the sunshine I thought that I'd get a bit of practice in

Having just wedged the splits open three people told me that they'd seen it before - can't please'em all!! :BlueTeamE

Best comment? - 'Dun't give orf much eat duz....OOWW!!'

Don't you just love to play in the sunshine .

 

[Lodian]

How do you light it?
As i wouldnt mind trying it.

Ryan

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

Suppose all the sap/resin gets drawn out and burns ?

Nick

 

[decorum]

Just use your typical tinder and kindling in the splits. You just need to carefully feed it until the log (pine) has caught properly. You can cheat a bit - if you have access to a chainsaw .

 

[John Fenna]

So that is what they are called!

 

[decorum]

The resin will certainly help. The total, usefull, burn time for the log (approx 12 inch dia) was a bit over 3 hours (plus the 15 minutes it took for me to be certain that it had caught properly) and if the weather had been cooler I'd have kept it going.

 

[rich59]

I love it. First saw the idea when dear Ray used a chainsaw on a log. I like the wedges idea.

I did one by binding some split logs together with spacers a while back. And you can get a similar effect by standing a set of straight sticks/ logs on end and wedging them tight from the outside (flying buttresses of wood).

 

[Fallow Way]

Really really glad you tried that again, it was easier wasnt it? I was very glad how everyone stuck at it and just trusted me that I wasnt pulling their leg It can be a very simple, reliable and practical means of fire, as with everything, it is a skill that needs to be learnt and practiced, well worth spending a nice day in the sunshine playing with

I am sure you have found your own personal preference for setting them up now or will do as you use them again and again, that is one of th key things I have found with Bushcraft, what you learn is someone else`s experience and preference, you then need to make it your own.

 

[decorum]

Did I spell nurding correctly?
I was in a predominently deciduous wood and it took me a looong time to find a downed donor pine tree (I'd have prefered a smaller diameter log) and to be honest I very much considered changing the technique to much along the lines of rich59's post (#7) - but I was enjoying my wanderings too much (Pity about the 40 plus bites though - I don't normally get bitten and I think they were making up on lost time).

Putting the hazel wedges in was a mix of brute force and a dash of caution as splitting to a pre-decided depth is a lot harder than just splitting; next time I may try doing the splits prior to cutting the nurding log from the main log. I passed on the offers of having the splits put in by chainsaw as I won't usually have that option - one comment was 'I've seen it tried, never seen it succeed!' - he has now .

 

[commandocal]

That looks a good method never seen that before,Althought i have the least idea on how to do it i will see if i can light a few logs like that tomorrow,would one be good enough to warm a shelter?

 

[Toddy]

I didn't know it was called nurdling, and it's such a good idea, especially when timber is available. I have used one stabilised in the shingle of a beach and it worked very well, held a pot safely over the top for dinner and then boiled up a kettle for tea and was still warm to sit around for well over an hour later.


Lidl's sell a version of them, seasonally, it's pine about 20+ cms diameter and costs well under a fiver.......comes tidily wrapped in plastic and a string handle attached I think they're intended for the bbq crowd

cheers,
Toddy

 

[reddeath]

never seen this b4 - do u burn the wedges or are u lighting fre inside the splits??

 

[decorum]

At this moment I've absolutely no idea or experience of how good this type of fire is for heating a shelter. As the fire is designed to be up off of the cold wet ground I'd certainly be wary of where hot chunks could fall and roll - especially if I were sleeping nearby. The first pic shows six wedges but I removed the center two wedges prior to trimming the remaining four (which were required to keep the splits open) flush to the top of the log. The wedges did burn - but only because I left them in to keep the splits open. The tinder and kindling in the splits was the outer bark that I'd stripped off the log and what I think was Paper Bark Birch bark (first time I've used it and I've really got to find some more!).

 

[sandbag47]

decorum, i can send you some if you can't find any..therse a bunch of trees shedding like mad near my work
p.s good thead i like it

 

[decorum]

Thanks sandbag47, very generous of you. Even though the wood's mainly deciduous I don't normally have a problem finding a bit of pine, it was the typical case of not being able to find it on the day I particularly wanted it - the syndrome of paying full whack for something when you've been searching for it for ages and then finding it in a sale days later. Non-the-less a very generous offer and again, thankyou. :notworthy

 

[Biddlesby]

When I tried this, I had great difficulty lighting it. I eventually got it to work by lighting a fire on the top and letting the embers drop down.

 

[sandbag47]

thats ok decorum....i was offering silver birch bark....mind you i've only got about a ton of pine at the bottom of the garden for the fire.....mayby i need some more

 

[Mike Ameling]

Interesting concept. You obviously get lots of draft, and the burning sections all reflect heat back onto the other parts.

It does kind of remind me of when some friends and I played around with some hollow log sections. We stood them upright and started a small kindling fire inside them. We quickly figured out that we needed to add some air holes underneath. Setting the log sections on a couple small rocks solved that problem. They burned like crazy! You had that whole "chimney" effect. The only real problem cooking on it was controling the burn/heat. We had to block off almost all of the bottom draft with dirt. They burned more than long enough to cook up a good pot of stew. But they also did not give off much heat to the sides. This was nice during the summer heat.

Ah, the things we do when we ... play.

Mikey - washing the mud from my toes in the rising water - out here in the flooding Hinterlands

 

[decorum]

Erm, yeah... now I come to think of it an offer of sending birch bark in the post does make a lot more sense .
There's a plentiful supply of birch on site (mainly Downey) and the tinder donor was actually Paper Bark Birch: http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/whiteb.html . As opposed to our own native birch trees which lose 'feathers' of bark this species appears to moult sheets of the stuff and it seems to be a lot tougher too. Two of the problems with Paper Bark Birch are that it doesn't particularly like being in a shadey position and can hybridise with other birch species quite easily (I'm not at all sure how easily the other species cross-pollinate) - which is why they were felled in the first place and why I may have a problem sourcing much more.
When the fire took a hold in the centre of the nurding the effect was very similar to that of a kelly/volcano kettle - not too much heat radiated to the side but like a mini jet-engine roaring out of the top. The intense heat of the fire caused some of the embers to take on what I think of as a charcoal like feel and appearance - almost feather light, crumbly and still showing grain and growth rings.

 

[Nomad_Of_Soul]

Great post but i was wondering if this officially makes you a nurd (geddit). Sorry i couldn't resist, I'll get my coat.

This is weird, the post wont show the word s o r r y (without spaces).