Wow! I haven’t even watched to the end before subscribing and wanting to congratulate you on an excellent video. I have just started to bow drill, with average success, and you are covering lots of my initial lessons learned, and giving me great ideas for improving. Well done!!
This is going to be my first year in bushcraft. I'm preparing for fun in my retirement. This channel offers the most comprehensive fire skill Instruction I've seen in u tube so far. Fire and next fire mentality is vital.
Reminds me of me lol primitive survival is best par none...imagine how many plp would die out in first 3 to 4 weeks if they were just set out with just the close on there backs lol sad tho all these lost arts
If you are an elderly person and are interested in this fire making, don't get in a hurry, don't be afraid to fail. You can do this even if you use this for your exercise program. That's what I did and it took several days for me to learn all of the little nuances that you will pick up on. I had just retired when I tried to learn this , because I think it is a very important skill to teach your grandkids . I'm real stubborn and it took me days to learn the little nuances that it took to get the fire every time. I can now even do this with " green wood". It takes hours and hours of hard exhaustive work, but this is a fun challenge at any age . I bow'd and bow'd for days in hundred degree weather and after several hours of exhaustion I got the fire . I almost had to crawl to the house . The feeling of victory over defeat was sensational ! I was 68 at the time . After a few days of this and learning how to pick the right material I could get it done in 3 to 5 minutes with the right wood and technique. . If you're not there don't beat yourself up. This is something you can do . just enjoy the process and know that at absolutely any age this can be done . I get giddy just thinking about it and all the failures that were nothing but stepping stones to " Victory " !!!
I put 2 or 3 grains of sand in the fire board hole. They will increase the amount of wood dust which is what will smolder first. Sometimes a fire is needed quickly.
I recently found you channel and have loved watching all the fire-starting videos. I do a lot of 18th-century reenacting and was looking for different tinder ideas for starting a fire with flint and steel and came upon your channel. Will definitely be trying the bow drill soon! Was thinking of an idea for a video, how would you start a fire without having a knife or ax to prepare this bow drill or a flint and steel on hand
I am close to getting a sugar maple bow drill drill/board but I’ve made a balsam fir bow drill straight from the wild on a rainy day with a knife and paracord. I can do the bow and hand drill consistently with good materials though. Thanks for doing what you do.
I'm 73 and I learned bow drill fire about 5 years ago when I first retired. It took me several days to get this stuff down but I'm a little on the stubborn side. I after learning the best wood to use I got bored and started to use hard wood ,green wood and all kinds of wood not mention. When I made my first fire in hundred degree weather I almost had to crawl home but I still felt great about it. I'm listening to all of your videos and am adding anything new to my list of success and failures. Although I never counted any failures as anything but education. I watch all the videos that y'all are making and remember all of my humorous failures. It's a lot of fun to figure out what the problems are. My grown sons make fun of my efforts and they say " hay dad I'll buy you a cigarette lighter they are real cheap. To which I laugh at because they don't understand that it's the historical challenge that Im interested in . Lol
I have also practiced making my own braided string out of willow and mamosa trees it's a lot of effort to succeed in doing so . The string doesn't last long even if you can't the bow to where the string doesn't run on it's self. I started using a spindle that was almost an inch in diameter to make my braided cord last a little longer . If one uses a large spindle then you need to carve both tips to the diameter of a pencil which makes it easier but much longer a task .
I seem to get bored if I get the bow drill fire to quickly. I like to challenge the don'ts if I'm feeling pretty confident . I do love to do this friction fire stuff .
With perfect white pine materials I got a bow drill coal in about 6 seconds. I used a lot of pressure and went really fast as an experiment and I got it
A crucial detail we believe. Considering the amount of physical exertion used in making friction fires it’s important to know when it’s ok to stop. The secondary smoke coming directly from the char dust pile indicates that it’s ok to stop.
If I had several months to store and dry the wood, wouldn't I have just found a lighter during that time. I am assuming if I ever use these techniques, It is because I am somehow caught unprepared and need a fire faster than 7 months.
I am a bit jealous of the availability of trees you seem to have. It's not uncommon to have nothing but fir and pine for miles and miles here and if you are lucky some birch. The only oak and maple you can find is on someones lawn and I don't think they will appreciate me taking it with me. It seems like counter to the spirit if I have to buy a fireboard from a furniture store.
You can still do it on the spot out in the wild with the right materials and conditions, but there’s a higher chance for failure due to moisture in the materials. Our last Bow Drill video showed us being successful in rain/snow conditions but it was only because we had the right dead materials and even then it was more difficult than it would’ve been with materials that had been kept indoors for several weeks. In a survival situation we certainly would not discount using Bow Drill method if we had the right materials growing around us. In the last video we used a maple board and ocean spray drill. The cedar spindle we made did not perform as well.
And I thought I had invented the rock with a divot in it for my bearing !? I guess common sense flows deeply in the making of this kind of fire ! 😢 Oh well, it is still fun to make.
Thanks for heart dude and I can assure you that my heart is in this kind of stuff . I think I could go back in time and love every minute of it. I make my own longbows flint knap my stone points for my arrows and spears too. I have harvested only one black bear in the years I've been doing this stuff.
Months of drying is totally unnecessary. If you cut your cedar to the finished thickness, weeks will be more than enough. In a dry environment, even less. Hours, if dried near a heat source. It is also a myth that bow staves should be dried for years. Getting your stock close to the final dimensions is crucial.
Osage can be found in river bottoms areas in most of the South and in Central America. Large nobbey fruit can be seen from a ways off if it is a female tree the male trees are best for the bow wood because the limbs on the male trees will grows much straighter . The trees die much sooner if they are in enough of a thicket to be starved for light.
