Moonraker
19-04-2005, 22:34
Very nicely illustrated web page produced by a guy called Mark Whitcombe based in Toronto, CA describing the bow drill technique using a kit made with only stone tools.
Really excellent photographic guide (photos by his daughter Gillian Whitcombe), not overly complicated and great tips/ details at the end.
Site is here:
Fire-by-Friction - Using a fire-kit made with stone tools (http://homepage.mac.com/laddie/fire_by_friction.html)
There is also a link to another similar guide, equally well produced, to making Basswood (lime) bast (bark) cordage which takes you right through the entire process, just using equipment made in the field.
Making Basswood Twine - A means of understanding a lifestyle (http://homepage.mac.com/laddie/basswood_twining.html)
The written end section on the 'Fire-by-Friction' entitled.....
'Time, knowledge, and skill — putting this into some sort of context of life ‘in the land'
.....is well worth reading as it touches on some fundamental aspects of what the 'lore' of (as we term it) bushcraft is about, to me.
Here is the part which really drew my attention:
People living ‘in the land’ would not have likely been concerned with matters of time, for many reasons, but most importantly perhaps because they distributed efforts over time. Out hunting, they might well notice a good fire bow shape, or a fine source of bark for tinder, or a particularly good socket rock. They might gather the material then and there, or they might store that knowledge in their mental map of the landscape — which map must be so much more complex than we can fully understand, mostly because we use the landscape for so few things, and therefore have such a limited narrowly-dimensional view of it.
The issues of skill and knowledge are quite difficult for us to understand as well. Selecting, modifying, and using stone tools would have been second nature to them — common sense — whereas we have to think through these steps very carefully, or risk blundering along using the limited techniques we are familiar with, instead of having ready access to a much wider range of more efficient techniques. Take the use of a flat rock to abrade the spindle. It was a student of mine, totally frustrated with slow laborious planing and spoke-shaving, who showed me that by forcefully rubbing the spindle on concrete, she could achieve much more efficient results.
For me, this whole exercise of making a fire kit using stone tools gives me what I think of as significant insights into the lifestyle of a person living ‘in the land’ — a much fuller understanding of their relationship to the environment around them. The value for me is not in producing the flame, though that’s a wonderful feeling. It’s in more directly understanding how fully our ancestors had to integrate all aspects of their existence in order to live.
On a personal note, these are JUST the type of well illustrated, uncomplicated yet enlightening guides I find most useful when trying to work out how to do stuff.
Simon
Really excellent photographic guide (photos by his daughter Gillian Whitcombe), not overly complicated and great tips/ details at the end.
Site is here:
Fire-by-Friction - Using a fire-kit made with stone tools (http://homepage.mac.com/laddie/fire_by_friction.html)
There is also a link to another similar guide, equally well produced, to making Basswood (lime) bast (bark) cordage which takes you right through the entire process, just using equipment made in the field.
Making Basswood Twine - A means of understanding a lifestyle (http://homepage.mac.com/laddie/basswood_twining.html)
The written end section on the 'Fire-by-Friction' entitled.....
'Time, knowledge, and skill — putting this into some sort of context of life ‘in the land'
.....is well worth reading as it touches on some fundamental aspects of what the 'lore' of (as we term it) bushcraft is about, to me.
Here is the part which really drew my attention:
People living ‘in the land’ would not have likely been concerned with matters of time, for many reasons, but most importantly perhaps because they distributed efforts over time. Out hunting, they might well notice a good fire bow shape, or a fine source of bark for tinder, or a particularly good socket rock. They might gather the material then and there, or they might store that knowledge in their mental map of the landscape — which map must be so much more complex than we can fully understand, mostly because we use the landscape for so few things, and therefore have such a limited narrowly-dimensional view of it.
The issues of skill and knowledge are quite difficult for us to understand as well. Selecting, modifying, and using stone tools would have been second nature to them — common sense — whereas we have to think through these steps very carefully, or risk blundering along using the limited techniques we are familiar with, instead of having ready access to a much wider range of more efficient techniques. Take the use of a flat rock to abrade the spindle. It was a student of mine, totally frustrated with slow laborious planing and spoke-shaving, who showed me that by forcefully rubbing the spindle on concrete, she could achieve much more efficient results.
For me, this whole exercise of making a fire kit using stone tools gives me what I think of as significant insights into the lifestyle of a person living ‘in the land’ — a much fuller understanding of their relationship to the environment around them. The value for me is not in producing the flame, though that’s a wonderful feeling. It’s in more directly understanding how fully our ancestors had to integrate all aspects of their existence in order to live.
On a personal note, these are JUST the type of well illustrated, uncomplicated yet enlightening guides I find most useful when trying to work out how to do stuff.
Simon