Secrets of the hand drill - revealed

[Jeff Wagner]

Well, I am back home at last and able to down load my photos. As mentioned previously, these weeds noticed in Kennsington Garden / Hyde Park appear very much like ones in the states called Golden Rod. The dead stems of the goldenrod can be used as a hand drill spindle. Notice the bunny in the center of the frame.

 

[swyn]

Hi Jeff Wagner, I think your photos, Particularly no 2 is Ragwort, a biannual plant. This is very very poisinous to grazing animals and produces fluffy seeds similar to thistles. These seeds will be viable for 30 years or more so should not be picked and transported. There used to be a fine for allowing Ragwort to grow on your land,this sadly (in my opinion) has lapsed. U.K. motorways embankments are covered in it and the rail companys are now just realising what a problem it is.

 

[Kepis]

Concur, that is ragwort.

We had a load on one of our fisheries, we were told by the local council that we had to remove and destroy all of these plants from our land (this was about 5 years ago), not a single bit of ragwort to found on our 7 acres now, funny thing is all of the roads round here are covered in the stuff, so it would appear the council is not following it's own policies - still no change there i suppose

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Well...lets see if ragwort stems will make fire. I assume there is no problem in handling dead stems? These were behind a fence and I was not able to break one to see what might be inside. Does it have a pithy core?

 

[storm]

After having spent a FULL day at this crack...from beginning to end...and nothing only burnt dust to show for it...I sure would like to know were I went wrong.

i'll add my two pence worth...

it would be difficult to help you unless i was physically with you, but i think newcomers to hand drill fail to get an ember because:

- the wood is cut green. it is much more advantageous to use dead, slightly decomposed and weathered wood for spindle and hearthboard.

- applying too much pressure. allow the spindle to rotate smoothly. it seems disadventageous to bear down with all of one's might. last year i went to the doctor...not for an ailment, but to use her more-accurate weighing scale to do hand drill on. she humored me and i got to take the scale outside. i did hand drill eight times on it, all using Seep Willow (Baccharis viminea) on sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri): four times performing it "normally" to an ember, four times using the floating method exclusively to an ember. i averaged all the maximum bearing-weight measurements. doing hand drill normally, it took 3.5 kilos of downward pressure; using the floating technique it took 2.0 kilos. not too much is required...

- applying too little pressure. if your spindle tip and/or socket is developing a smooth, glassy sheen to it, this is an indication that either you are applying too little pressure or that the wood is too dense.

- stamina is inadequate. when a friend first showed me how to do hand drill, i spent a couple days practicing. upon retrospect, the wood i was using (California Fan Palm on itself) was the best and easiest combo this country has to offer. but my stamina wasn't developed enough to last long enough, physically or mentally, to get the ember. thousands (literally) of embers later, i can regularly get am ember within 15 seconds--sometimes under 5 seconds with the right wood. [i do want to stress that i hold the Hand Drill as a sacred testament to our inherent inter-connectedness to the land--speediness and references to "world records" are irrelevent to me and serve to dishonor the practice on a spiritual level, for what it's worth ]

examine the wood dust you are creating. is it like a fine powder, or does it remind you of tiny, thin sticks? if you are creating mininscule, dark splinters, you're in for a rough time. but it's not impossible:

California Fan Palm ember (Bow Drill) on rock hearthboard:

people have reported success using non-wood hearthboards such as ivory, bone and shell for bow drill. but notice the splinter-like wood char that developed on that rock (which i found on a beach near Santa Cruz, CA--part of the Tafoni Association of the Monterey Geologic formation). it took me about two full minutes to generate that ember using bow drill. to date, i haven't been aboe to get a hand drill ember on any non-wood hearthboard except fungi (Artist's Conk--(Ganoderma applanatum). i have used a 1.2 meter Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) hand drill spindle on an Artist's Conk funus hearthboard at presentations i give to mycological societies over here in the states, to great success...

 

[Borneo Wildman]

Just joined and got up to speed. Previously had success with bow drill (various woods) but only tried Elder hand drills with no coal and lots of blisters.

Thanks for the excellent tips...I can't help thinking that body posture and stability might make a difference too. I would be interested to see the (Jeff's) video clip and to note the way the hearth board is (held with feet) and the position of the hands in relation to the spindle. How do I find the vid clips?

 

[Jeff Wagner]

I use a bow drill position. Left foot forward securing the hearth board. Body position is important in achieving downward pressure. Unfortunately, the video clip resides in my camera at the moment. I will see if I can make one in Mpeg version and post it somewhere for viewing. Its under 20 seconds and should not require an excessive amount of memory.

 

[storm]

Body position is important in achieving downward pressure.

very important. when you have a partner helping you, you can use the kneeling position. if you don't have a partner, you can run a flat stick from your knee to the hearthboard to keep it in place.

i always do hand drill in the sitting position (because of back injuries). it greatly decreases one's mechanical advantage by not allowing as much downward pressure to be applied. due to this position, i prefer spindles around 11-13 inches long so that my arms are parallel to the ground when my hands are at the top of the spindle.

one of my students compromised the two positions...

i like the idea of offering video clips, jeff. i'm going to put a short video of the hand drill floating technique on my website soon.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Storm - If I send you the clip, would you be able to make it available for viewing?

Mom has an interesting technique...

Good for you with the short spindles. From the one knee position I seem to have much better luck when they are about 30 inches long. I can get good downward pressure until my hands pass beyond the horizontal plane. One of these days I will have to learn the floating technique.

 

[Toddy]

Well...lets see if ragwort stems will make fire. I assume there is no problem in handling dead stems? These were behind a fence and I was not able to break one to see what might be inside. Does it have a pithy core?

Definitely ragwort, and the dead stems are still nasty stuff. The poisonous alkaloids are unaffected by drying. It is classified as an "Injurous Weed"

http://www.rag-fork.co.uk/ragwort.html

I have come across one site, however, which claims that from a scientific viewpoint, Ragwort is not really as bad as it's claimed......after all in the result of one of the papers it quotes 25% of the calves "lived"

We do have lot of Golden Rod here, but the leaf joints always stay rough. We use Fireweed/Rosebay willow herb as fire crackle to help catch a flaring flame. The unbroken stems might work very well as a fire drill as when peeled the stems are smooth. What about dried willow? There's no shortage of it.
Cheers,
Toddy

 

[storm]

sure jeff--why don't you send it to me (storm@stoneageskills.com) in october. i'll be buying more bandwidth at that time. my website got over 4000 visits in the past six weeks, which exceeded my allowable bandwidth (by a factor of 5)--so my site will be down until the first of the month...

speaking of short spindles...there's a fellow in the southwest US who, according to acquaintences, regularly uses 4" spindles. it is said that, while he teaches hand drill, he leaves his hand drill set in a bucket of water, then removes the set and twirls up an ember...

 

[Jeff Wagner]

Nasty stuff that ragwort. I have experienced the staggering in circles symptom in the past, however it was not due to the injestion of ragwort. The rossette / first year growth characteristic is consistent with horseweed and mullein - other good hand drill materials. I would put on a pair of gloves and give it a go.

I tried willow on itself only once and did not have favorable results. Perhaps a hearth board of another material would perform better. The mullein stalks over here are beginning to brown up and I should be able to go harvesting soon. It is very easy to spot from the motorway.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

speaking of short spindles...there's a fellow in the southwest US who, according to acquaintences, regularly uses 4" spindles. it is said that, while he teaches hand drill, he leaves his hand drill set in a bucket of water, then removes the set and twirls up an ember...[/QUOTE]

That would be impressive. I suppose for a short dunk, the water might not penetrate very far and a few spins would erode the wetted surface. Still, its a good trick. I do something along those lines with fire piston demos. I take a piston from a sealed bottle of water and light a fire with it in a few seconds. Due to the piston seal, the water never reaches the tinder.

As for short spindles - you know what they say...its not the size of your spindle that counts, but rather how fast you can make it spin....err.. something like that..

 

[rich59]

I have just joined the forum. When I started out with primitive fire lighting I did a lot of bow drilling with mixed results. Later on I tried out hand drilling. It seemed impossible at first. But, after a while I found it got easier and easier. I now have quite a bit of experience of English and garden trees and shrubs and would be delighted to try and advise if anyone wants to describe their problems with getting a coal.

 

[storm]

hey richard, would you mind putting a list on here of the different woods you've tried? maybe let us know which ones you like, which ones are more difficult to use?

 

[rich59]

Hi Storm,

Thanks for the question. The following applies to hand drills used on commercial softwood hearth board.

Easiest
Buddliea, climbing rose, mullein, elder, poplar (cottonwood), philadelphus, blackcurrent, yucca flower stem
Middling
Plane, Horse chestnut (basswood), sycamore, Lime (linden), forsythia,
Challenging
Blackberry, bullrush, hazel
Tried but without success yet
bamboo, oak, raspberry, willow

The more challenging bring out various technical variations.

I'm always willing to give oak a go if I can lay my hands on it as it has the most fragrant smoke. Bamboo is one of the least pleasant.

 

[storm]

thank you for doing that! hey--do you know what the scientific name is for that bullrush you mention? is it a species of Scirpus? if so, does it develop a tough pith inside of the stem, perhaps similar to the sturdiness of cat tail?

i'd love to come over there and try out some of those woods that i've never heard of...

 

[rich59]

The bullrush looks (from pictures) to be a species of Typha.

 

[Jeff Wagner]

For those having a "burning" desire to succeed at the hand drill, things are about to get a bit easier for you in terms of material availability. A supply of hand-picked mullein shafts and basswood boards will be there in a few days. These sets will make smoke on the first pass and there should be few reasons, other tender palms, for not achieving abo-fire.

 

[rich59]

I used some plain DIY shed wooden dowl and ash for the hearth, socket and drill as I have some in the garden. Using hands only I managed to get the wood to start blackening before I got a blister on my left hand and had to stop. I
Simon.

Simon, very well done so far.

Hearth
you would do fine with ordinary commercial softwood (pine) used in all sorts of building work. I agree that soft woods may usually be better. How are you on making notches? Working with a hearth board with square edges I find important. Any deviation into comprimise with rounded edges from using small branches doesn't let the powder collect in a pile properly,

Drill
Wooden dowl - 2 problems with this I have found.
a) usually too small a diameter - this cuts up the hands quickly (as you found), and also reduces the chance of getting fire with any wood
b) the punk you get is not dusty usually but fibrous or gritty. This again makes it very difficult as fine dust catches light much easier.

You mentioned sycamore? Do strip the bark before use and make sure it is good and dry but not powdery/ partially rotted.
Sycamore has some good and bad points.
Good:- It is a fairly hard wood.
With hand drilling it gives a fine dust.
Bad:- It can have some hard knots at junctions and can cut up the hands unless you carefully smooth them off
Until you get up to thicker stems it generally doesn't seem to have a softer centre to the wood. I find this a disadvantage. As you drill the tip tapers more and more and this seems to make it difficult to get a coal. The ideal hearth/ drill contact is a square end rather than a point I find. You can get round this by using a pointed tool to hollow out a centimetre or so of the tip.

I don't know what is available in your area but I live in a town/ city and waste places will frequently grow buddliea or elder. I would recommend buddliea if you can get it. (the butterfly bush with usually purple, curving over flower spikes). Hunting round some old dense bushes would be likely to reveal some dead sticks that are straight and long enough. Stuff that has been laying on the ground for a year is usually not good.

The best sticks for hand drilling are often found growing live. You can cut them and store them for later use but it can take weeks (probably less if you strip the bark) before they are useful.

Blisters
They are a nuisance aren't they. Often mild ones settle over 24 hours. What annoys me more is a sort of deep bruising feeling between the bones in my hand that can last for quite a few days.