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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 2 of 4
Gouging the socket stone.
 The socket rock is a piece of fairly fine-grained limestone. I chose this particular rock because it already had a large cavity in it, because of a brachiopod fossil. This made gouging out the hole much easier, using the hard chunk of Onondaga chert shaped like a large burin. The chert tool is actually from the weathered surface of a chunk of better quality chert from the north-east shore of Lake Erie. There’s nothing special about this gouge tool — other than that it is tough. |
Notching the hearthboard.
 I’ve gouged out the beginning of a hole for the spindle, centring it about one-and-a-half spindle diameters from the edge of the hearth board. The notch itself is wider at the bottom than the top, and wider at the outside than in the centre of the hole. All of this is so that the ember will drop out easily without breaking apart. |
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Separating layers of inner basswood bark to make twine.
 I have used twine made from the inner bark of basswood for the bowstring. This twine will not be durable enough — even though it’s strong enough to lift my 110 kgs. Leather thonging may not be as strong, but it’s much more resistant to the wear and tear of rubbing, so it would be the expected material. Today, I use braided drapery cord — much stronger and more durable even than leather. But this is an ‘authentic’ kit, and so I have made twine from the inner bark of basswood. I cut the bark off a small basswood tree (removed during trail maintenance), soak it (‘retting’) in the river for four weeks, separate and discard the outer bark, and then use the inner bark to make twine. Inner bark grows in annual layers just as does the wood, and separating the bark into thin layers gives much more control over the material.
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Twining basswood bark.
 Twining fibre in this ‘z-twist’ manner is a technique that humans have been using for tens of thousands of years. I am using the thigh-rolling technique here — the method generally used by women, since it’s much faster and more efficient than the alternative of finger-twisting. Huron families had fishing nets perhaps hundreds of metres long made of basswood twine, or their preferred wood-nettle. |
Trimming the twine.
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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.
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 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...
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.