Pocket bow-drill-2

The final design of my pocket bow-drill kit is now completed.

It works incredibly well and I am really pleased with the result, both for making fire and drilling holes using a flint tip.

My favourite combinations of wood for the bow-drill are a Hazel drill and Willow hearth.

Pocket bow-drill

I am now working on producing a mini or pocket bow-drill based on my larger version here

The design and specifications are not perfected yet, but yesterday I achieved an ember in 9 seconds.

I hope this size and design will be good for teaching fire by friction as I find they struggle to achieve sufficient pressure on a full sized set.

Bow-drill

A friend (Will) of mine was shown how to make fire by friction by Patrick Cave-Brown. He used a system based on the Egyptian Bow-drill. Will had made several different bow-drill sets on his pole-lathe and gave them to me to test. From those tests I designed a set specific for me which we then made and this is it.

The drill is made from Ash and has a tapered hole in the bottom into which a wooden plug is inserted. The plug in this picture is made from Hazel. The other end of the drill has been reduced in diameter and fits into a hole drilled in the bearing block (made from Yew in this case). The base of the bearing block sits on the "shoulder" of the drill and once a polished finish is achieved between the two pieces of wood an almost frictionless joint is achieved! The fastest I have produced an ember with this system so far is 10 seconds and have never failed to achieve an ember while using it. My preferred woods thus far are a Hazel drill tip and Cricket Bat Willow hearth.

I have now pressure flaked some flint "drill bits" and set them into wooden plugs using Lime bark cordage as a lashing and a mix of pine resin and bees wax.

The primitive "drill bit" is then inserted into the end of the bow-drill.

Here I am using it to drill a hole through a piece of antler and it works incredibly well.

Poplar, wet tinder and a brew

Found this fallen Poplar tree while out walking.


The bark can be used as a bearing block for the bow-drill and I have used it to make floats for fishing nets.

The bark is also good to burn as it burns slowly, smouldering rather than flaming and gives off a a lot of heat (the end of a long piece can be placed in a fire and once smouldering, used to carry fire with you).

To make a fire for a brew, I collected a hand full of damp leaves from the ground and rubbed them vigorously between my hands to break down the fibres and remove moisture. I placed these on the ground and using flint and steel, sparked onto a piece of Crampball fungus and once glowing, placed it on the leaves. I then placed another handful of buffed leaves on top leaving a small cavity around the fungus. By gently blowing, the glowing Crampball produces heat and the cavity acts like an oven to hold heat and gradually remove moisture from the leaves. Eventually the leaves will dry sufficiently for a flame to appear.

Once the fire was sufficiently large enough to burn small fuel sized sticks, I added the poplar bark.

After the billy can of water had boiled, I was able to enjoy a cup of vegetable stock.

I also found a nice specimen of Artists Fungus on the fallen Poplar tree. When you mark the white underside with a blunt stick it turns black.


Here is a rather nice example I found on another website.