Fire by friction

I've always used matches or lighters to get things going but a friend was showing me his ferro rod firestick and got me thinking I'd like to go a little more old school. Searching online for one to strike against my Opinel carbon knife I found a few videos on hand drill and bow drill and thought it sounded like something I wanna do. So I stopped shopping and went wandering around my garden looking.

It's been about a week, I've not had fire yet but there's been some close calls, lots of smoke and a few coals. Hopefully there will be fire soon but in the mean time I'm getting to know the plants in the garden a little better, my arms are toning up nicely and it's a rather nice process all in.

Has anyone managed to make fire with a hand drill?

Back when I was a Boy Scout, I tried to do it with just a board, a stick, and my hands but never was able to do it that way. I was able to do it with a bow drill though. Takes a lot of effort but it's worth knowing you could do it if you had to.

A magnifying glass is awfully handy too. As long as you've got good sunlight and don't lose/break your magnifying glass, you've got fire almost as fast as with matches. Ferro rods are great when it's rainy and dark though.

I used to live in a town that was famous for friction fires. "The mortgage rubbing up against the insurance policy."

Maybe you should take the middle road and learn to use a flint & steel with charcloth?

Yes. It's not terribly hard if you are using the right types of wood. It is always a workout though.

This book helped me immensely.

Ultimate Guide to Wilderness Living: Surviving with Nothing But Your Bare Hands and What You Find in the WoodS

I do cheat on the cabling for the bow and use different pre made cables. Leather shoelaces works ok.

Never had any success when I tried this at YMCA camp in my youth. Glad to hear your arms are "toning up nicely"!

Proinsias said:

Has anyone managed to make fire with a hand drill?

Click to expand...

No.
Most people think it's easy to start a fire just because we saw it in the movies or on youtube. It's not.

I tried the flint stone method and had to read a lot first. Otherwise I, the 21th century guy, would have not been able to do what they did in the stone age.

I thought about demonstrating the bow method to my Boy Scouts. Did more research and decided against it. Way too much hard work.

BSAGuy said:

I thought about demonstrating the bow method to my Boy Scouts. Did more research and decided against it. Way too much hard work.

Click to expand...

Demonstrating it for a group would be the kiss of death!

Exactly my point.

Bhugo said:

Demonstrating it for a group would be the kiss of death!

Click to expand...

This is an interesting thread.

When I was a child, I started a fire and the Township firemen had to put it out.

But I didn't continue in those ways.

But fire is neat.

Fire by friction is no easy chore. I have used a fire plow to much better effect than a hand or bow drill. With any of them, getting a good bit of dust worked up first is almost a requisite. When you produce a tiny ember, the dust will light as well and help grow the ember. Then, easy over to the tinder and so on.

It's never a 5 minute process.

Char cloth helps; so does a Bic lighter, if things are given.

Cerro rod, flint & steel; awesome- but starting a fire with just what you find, like a shipwreck survivor- that's another thing.

When it's wet, even pros struggle.


AA

Ivanstein said:

Fire by friction is no easy chore. I have used a fire plow to much better effect than a hand or bow drill. With any of them, getting a good bit of dust worked up first is almost a requisite. When you produce a tiny ember, the dust will light as well and help grow the ember. Then, easy over to the tinder and so on.

It's never a 5 minute process.

Click to expand...

Yes. If you use super dry wood for the base and spindle you can build enough dust in the notch in a while. Quaking aspen works good for both if it's super dry, I mean super dry. I also used red maple for the spindle and it worked up a pile faster. I was looking for them but I think I left them up at our deer camp. Once you get a decent spindle and base you can keep using them. Finding a good rock to press down with is difficult. I altered one to make a nice pocket on the bottom.

the bow can be green. Any stout cording will work. It has to be a perfect tension, which is not much. That's the hard part. Getting that to work right takes forever, or at least it did for me. Once all those things fall into place, a little sweat and you can get a little coal. I have never done this without causing blisters on my hands.

Doing all this with stuff you round up in the woods on a moments notice is an impossibility in my eyes. It took me many attempts and an embarrassingly long time to make a coal. I would never count on this for survival. The magnesium starters are great comparatively speaking.

Thanks for the feedback.

It's slow going but I am making progress. This guy's video has been helpful. I don't have any pine trees to harvest pitch from, but my neighbour does, if I'm still getting smoke without fire in the next few days I may ask my neighbour if I can try to find a little pine pitch on their patch.

Bhugo said:

Doing all this with stuff you round up in the woods on a moments notice is an impossibility in my eyes. It took me many attempts and an embarrassingly long time to make a coal. I would never count on this for survival. The magnesium starters are great comparatively speaking.

Click to expand...

I'm not planning on relying on this in a survival situation, more of an alternative to reading a book in the garden on a sunny day with a cup of tea.

hydro-magic said:

A magnifying glass is awfully handy too. As long as you've got good sunlight and don't lose/break your magnifying glass, you've got fire almost as fast as with matches. Ferro rods are great when it's rainy and dark though.

Click to expand...

Plastic Fresnel lens works well. I carry a small one in my wallet for needing a magnifier in a pinch, and it's large enough to do the job. To protect it, I left it in the cellophane envelope.

A flashlight reflector works well, too, but these might have become smaller, and the removable type rarer since LEDs have replaced incandescent flashlight bulbs. With the old type, you remove the reflector, pointed it at the sun, and put some kindling at the focal point.

Not exactly on topic, but while cutting grass Saturday I got the whiff of hot grass about to catch on fire. Stopped the more and found grass caught against a belt. Once before I had a stick do the same thing. In both cases I stopped before it caught on fire, but it was certainly headed in that direction.

Proinsias said:

I'm not planning on relying on this in a survival situation, more of an alternative to reading a book in the garden on a sunny day with a cup of tea.

Click to expand...

Let me know if you get it to work. It became an obsession for me to do it. It's pretty cool when you finally see fire in the tinder bundle. Good luck.

Proinsias said:

I'm not planning on relying on this in a survival situation, more of an alternative to reading a book in the garden on a sunny day with a cup of tea.

Click to expand...

Sometimes I let people strike fire when starting a BBQ or camp fire. It's always fun, not only for kids.
Otherwise I'd just use a lighter, that's a 1000 times easier.