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Bowdrill - Fire by Friction |
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Written by Woodwalker
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Page 1 of 4
I spent a great morning practicing fire by friction and I have since decided to put this together in order to help those of us who are wanting to learn or are still trying. Although the winter isn't the normal time for people to learn this skill, with perseverance, its still doable. Use this to supplement other threads and the info in books such as Bushcraft by Ray Mears. Enjoy!
Basics of the Bowdrill
The bowdrill works because of friction, in essence, rubbing two things together creates heat energy that we can use to our advantage in the form of friction firelighting. The basic components of a set are: (skip this if you already understand the bowdrill workings)
(Don't worry if this all sounds confusing, it will be explained in more detail further on)
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 A bow - A slightly curved, light and rigid branch with a slack length of string (perhaps paracord) tied between its two ends. This component needs little in terms of shaping and the branch you choose is mostly down to what you find comfortable. I tend to go for one about an inch in diameter and as long as my inside leg.
A drill - This is a cylindrical length of wood that fits into a notch on the hearth board. It is proppelled by the bow and pressure is applied to it by the bearing block. I tend to go for one about as long as a bahco folding saw and again about an inch is diameter. One end is tapered and the other is domed.
A hearth - This is drilled down into and a notch is carved into the hearth where the dust from the drilling may collect.
A bearing block - Simply a piece of wood that comfortably fits your hand allowing you to apply pressure to the top of the drill.
In terms of wood choices, I tend to go for hazel. If you look in Ray Mear's Bushcraft book for instance, you can see the wide range of timbers that can be used. Your choice is purely down to what you have available in your region. I have used a few different types of wood and I tend to get the best results when using a drill and hearth of the same type. The bearing block just needs to be something very hard.
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Firstly , look at this well used set:
Tips of Making your set
When I started out, my problems were not in making the set, but in my technique in using it. Therefore I will concentrate on the latter. However, there are a few design pointers that make the whole thing easier.
I am going to assume you have already collected the materials, they are dry and you can use knives axes etc safely.
The drill and a socket are like hand and glove. This is because the burning has smoothed off the rough points of the tip and made it fit properly. Therefore we don't need to worry to much about getting a perfect fit when carving it out.
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I have sketched onto this piece the shape that needs to be carved:
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I don't normally sketch it on, but it shows what we are aiming for. A circular depression and an 1/8th section notch with straight sides. I tend to chop the section out with axe and knife, but you could use a saw.
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BushMoot, the best event of the year - from 1st -5th August 2008 at Merthyr Mawr in South Wales. 
I used Hazel wood. Choose the
thin long shoots of wood which i would think are a couple of years old.
If you don't catch anything at first don't worry. It may just be a case of
changing a few things.
Most bushcrafters know that Birch bark is fantastic for fire lighting
because of all the oil concealed within it. This tutorial guides you
through the process of extracting that tar from the bark.
Now we could bung a label on (which should always say they type of wine and when it was bottled). I suggest you cross-reference to a book of recipes and notes so that when you get a cracking wine you can recreate it. We are going to add a little something to the presentation of the wine by putting a foil cap over the neck. First we drop a foil cap (available for a couple of pence from a wine shop) over the bottle neck.
Right, we now have clean, fined and filtered wine. We pour it into clean (yes and sterilised) bottles with a funnel. We need to cork it. Its possible to put corks in with a mallet. I use a corking gun and waxed corks that do not need to be soaked (plain corks do)
Well, the finings have worked – the wine is beautifully clear.
As soon as I'd finished my Paracord Bracelet, I'd decided to write a tutorial on making one. A good thing considering the majority of the responses since I posted it were asking me how to do it! Here goes.. You will need approximately 3 metres of paracord with the ends already sealed/melted, and something to make a temporary knot - a twist tie or piece of string should suffice.
There was a period in my life where I lived out of a pack for months at a time and this was one of my staples.
I like to coil it like a rope on a stick and bake it over hot coals...
I have been asked a number of times recently to provide some advice of guidance on the best way to sharpen an axe. Whilst I am always happy to provide input, I thought that it might be worthwhile to put together a tutorial on the basic techniques. The techniques used in here are intended to provide not only a sharp axe but also a safe and efficient axe.
There are many different ways you can make a berry picker but this is just a design i came up with which uses a packet of kebab skiewers and some discs of wood.
The whole kit took less than three hours to finally pull together — though that really overlooks by far the most time-consuming aspect, the preparation of materials. In fact, preparation has two components, actually. The first is the selection of materials. The second is the actual preparation.