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Fire By Friction - Using a fire-kit made with stone tools |
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Written by Mark Whitcombe
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Page 1 of 4
The completed fire kit, with the tools used.
 The hearth board and the spindle are from an old cedar fence rail, probably about 100 years old, which I got from an old fence at Sheldon. Using the stone wedge in the right foreground, I split the spindle off the hearth, so the spindle is, in effect, harder, because it is end-grain. The grain in the hearth is vertical, i.e., it runs up and down, so that when you are drilling down through the hearth board, you are constantly working against both hard and soft wood. (It’s hard to explain ... but it makes a significant difference.) |
Splitting the corners off the spindle.
 Since I am using straight-grained wood, splitting wood off the square corners resulting from the initial split from the hearth, is much faster and efficient than any other technique. This illustrates the principle that the careful choice of materials and techniques makes a huge difference in reducing the time and energy used, and in improving the quality of the finished product. |
Planing the spindle using the unifacial chert tool.
 The edge of the chert tool that is against the wood is smooth and unworked. This means that the edge can be quite sharp, though not necessarily strong. Note the leather gloves and the leather leg pad. |
Unifacially Flaking the Spokeshave.
 The flint tool is a piece of Onondaga chert from the north-east shore of Lake Erie. It’s a fine-grained thinnish flake, that I have worked unifacially, i.e., on one face of each edge only, so that the edges are chisel-shaped, not knife-edged. You can see the smooth un-worked surface facing you in this photo. This kind of edge is generally better for most aspects of woodworking. One corner of the tool is being unifacially worked here, to make curved surface, to turn it into a spokeshave, to round off the spindle. I used the deer antler time to work the chert. (And always, either leather pads, or leather work gloves — safety is important! We don’t have the lifelong practical learning to handle tools without protection.) |
Using the spokeshave to round the spindle.
 I am pushing the spokeshave away from me, so that any spalls or tiny flakes of chert worn off, generally preserve the shape of the tool. |
Sanding.
 About as low-tech as possible! I used a coarse piece of sandstone to abrade the wood. (Concrete works well, too — but that’s too much like ‘cheating’!) |
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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.