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The Miracle of Fire-by-Friction |
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Written by Dick Baugh
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Page 2 of 2
What about "bad" woods?
I used a piece of local willow sapwood, a material on which I have
wasted countless hours in the past trying to light a friction fire.
Never any luck. Always produces a coarse gritty char. This time I did a
different experiment. I charred some of the willow with a match and
then ground it off with a file. It was now very fine, much finer than
the results of a bow drill. This very fine willow char would ignite
almost instantaneously at 700 degrees. Conclusion: the more finely the
char is divided the lower the ignition temperature. This hypothesis was
tested further by grinding off some un-charred mule fat wood with a
fairly fine file. This material was slightly gritty feeling compared
with the char that falls into the notch of a mule fat hearth board. The
coarser mule fat char failed to ignite at 800 degrees. I did the same
thing with char cloth, the favored tinder for flint and steel. Char
cloth failed to ignite, even at 800 degrees.
Conclusions
The miracle of fire by friction is that you don't have to heat the char
up to the temperature of a glowing ember to make it ignite. You only
have to raise its temperature up to the point where it takes off of its
own accord. When powdered charred wood is heated up to some critical
temperature it begins to spontaneously oxidize. When it starts
oxidizing its temperature rises, causing it to oxidize even faster.
Eventually it reaches an equilibrium temperature limited by how much
air is available and starts to glow, ignition. The critical temperature
where this process begins depends on how finely the char is pulverized.
Fire by friction works only because these two events, pulverizing and
heating, happen simultaneously. Woods that don't work disintegrate
before they reach this critical condition.
Things that can cause problems:
a. If you don't have enough muscle power then you won't be able to
raise the temperature high enough. Remedy: teamwork. Have someone else
help you. Even if the helper can only get the wood temperature elevated
to 300 degrees, then it will make the job easier. Remember that a bow
drill is the easiest in that it uses your muscle power most effectively.
b. If the structure of the wood is such that it disintegrates before it
reaches 800 degrees then it is a wood that should not be used. I
strongly believe that some softwoods such as willow and aspen don't
work because they fall apart before they reach the critical temperature.
c. Volatile substances such as water or resin in the wood. Evaporative
cooling will prevent the char from reaching the critical temperature.
Fire-by-Friction: The Spiritual Aspects
What is a cynical, agnostic engineer doing talking about the
"spiritual" nature of something which can be fully explained by the
laws of physics and chemistry? All I know is that there are some things
that make me feel good and starting a fire the way my ancestors did
10,000 years ago is one of them. What makes me feel even better is
getting a group of people to contribute towards the starting of a fire.
I can think of no better way to bond a group of people. We all take
turns at twirling the spindle, each according to his or her own
ability, we all gently blow on the ember to bring out the flame and the
smoke carries our thoughts and our hopes skyward. On the evaluation of
a weekend course I gave a couple of years ago one of the students said
"Starting a fire is a sacrament". I guess it is.
Thank you to Dick Baugh at www.primitiveways.com for supplying this article
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