what woods for fire by friction

[atlatlman]

could someone please tell me what woods for fire by friction as i have heard so many conflicting answers. some have said hearth board should be soft and spindle should be hard.some have said wood should be of same material.i have just started to make my own set out of a dead willow trunk from my garden i was just wondering if the hearth and spindle could both be made of this same material.thanks

 

[Toddy]

A willow hearth is a goodie Burrs through quickly though. I usually use a hazel tip in the spindle if I'm using willow.
Both are commonly found British trees so they're easy to become familiar with.
If you get a bit of the willow that's battoned off the branch...no pith is what I'm getting at, it can be very effective as a drill/ spindle too, but it really needs to be dry.

It'd be interesting to hear how you get on.

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[leon-1]

Hi mate, here is a little list.

Ash drill and Willow hearth
Cattail stalk drill Lime hearth (may work for handdrill as well)
Elder hearth and spindle
Elder drill and Pine hearth
Elder drill with a clematis hearth for hand drill
Elder hand drill and a willow hearth
Hazel drill and Cedar hearth
Hazel drill and Ivy hearth
Hazel drill and Lime hearth
Hazel and Pine hearth
Hazel drill and Sycamore hearth
Hazel drill, Willow hearth
Ivy and Alder
Lime drill and Cedar Hearth
Poplar drill and Cedar hearth
Sycamore for drill and hearth
Willow for spindle and hearth board

I hope this list is of use to you

 

[torjusg]

Bird cherry on alder I find to be good. Also wild rose on alder.

 

[rich59]

Hi Gary, welcome to the challenges of friction fire.

There are probably few woods and combinations that have not been successful for someone somewhere. However, some are definitely easier than others. In fact sometimes I suspect that an individual's technique or bow drill set might actually work better with different woods than someone else's. Also sometimes different samples of the same wood can behave differently. And, the dimensions can also play a big part.

If you want to see what info there is on different wood combinations then you can't get much better data than the following web sites:-

http://www.hollowtop.com/Articles/Friction_Fire_Woods.htm
http://www.uq.net.au/~zzdlittl/aussiefirebow.html

Willow on willow is actually a good place to start, although some old samples have turned powdery and may give more a cool pile of sawdust than the hot pile of charred dust you are looking for.

Read around a lot on the web, pick and choose from the ideas. Then try it out. Then stop to think what did not go well, make a change and try again.

I took me a few months to get my first coal. Others on here took a deal longer than that.

 

[Neanderthal]

Here is a list of the woods I've managed to use. Same wood for hearth and drill.

Sycamore - Hardest
Willow
Ivy
Lime - Easiest.

Keep at it mate it will be worth all the effort it when you crack it.

 

[Biddlesby]

In my limited attempted combinations, I have found hazel on poplar to be the best.

 

[leon-1]

I should of mentioned an all Ivy set (drill, hearth, bow and bearing block).
Sycamore drills work well on Ivy hearths.

 

[Gailainne]

Very strange

I tried this last year after watching RM, to be frank I did'nt think about the complexity of hard versus soft or combinations, I tried what was immediately at hand, which was;

Drill : was a cut off section of the wood used in a basic windbreak, about 300mm long. (broken section so tried it )

Base: basicially a bit of 1" by 2" pine I had, around 400mm long

Bow: shrug, branch off a tree growing from a stump in the garden.

String: paracord

After a few attempts, I made a few adjustments

Drill was reduced from about 300 to 200mm
string was made a LOT looser, friction drives it not tension
Upright and close works better.

This worked very well.....I still have the burn marks in my right thigh to prove it, (got careless showing the system to next door and let the live end touch my leg.