- Joined
- Feb 28, 2007
- Messages
- 9,786
Haven't been posting much here lately. Thought I'd share a little outdoor bowdrill fun.
I went out and collected a limb from my favorite dead cottonwood.
I gathered the seeds from some Canadian thistle plants for use as tinder. Also gathered some phragmites fluff but that proved to be pretty wet from the snow and I had to be picky about what I harvested.
Note to self. I need to carry an altoids tin in my pocket to stuff natural tinder in it as I find it. My wife keeps chewing me out for leaving seeds in my pockets and introducing it to all of her black business clothing.
Then took that limb to my little hang'n around area that I like. Its a pretty unutilized place of the park and I can let Beta off leash to play and get in trouble while I'm playing and getting in trouble.
I started bringing out my army poncho and attaching it to my baldric belt hanging of my maxpedition bottle holder/kit. As I was wearing only wool, the poncho serves as a wind stopper if it is needed. But for the most part it is a nice ground cloth for working on like today. I can prep my tinder and wood shavings and keep them out of contact from the snowy ground.
I left my damn saw in my other pack. So I reverted to using the crotch of a tree to break up my stick into a hearth and drill. This worked fine and was faster than a saw. The only downside is the break creates split channels that you may not want in your pieces.
Used my JK-kephart for the rest of the processing. Batonned one piece to make the hearth and then shaved the other piece down to make the drill. I prefer to make drill and hearth from the same piece of wood.
Another use for the tarp. Make sure to save all those shavings made while shaping your bow and hearth with your knife. Those dried shavings make great tinder for nursing your fire. Also, by having my poncho on the ground, I had a big platform to catch my shavings. It was really easy to just sweep them into a nice tidy pile after I was done.
Somebody told me that they used cottonwood bark as a head piece. They said it drill deep at first then glazed and became friction free. I just found that it drilled deep and then made my life difficult. So I split another piece of the same cotton wood to make the head piece. That worked fine.
More coming...
I went out and collected a limb from my favorite dead cottonwood.
I gathered the seeds from some Canadian thistle plants for use as tinder. Also gathered some phragmites fluff but that proved to be pretty wet from the snow and I had to be picky about what I harvested.
Note to self. I need to carry an altoids tin in my pocket to stuff natural tinder in it as I find it. My wife keeps chewing me out for leaving seeds in my pockets and introducing it to all of her black business clothing.
Then took that limb to my little hang'n around area that I like. Its a pretty unutilized place of the park and I can let Beta off leash to play and get in trouble while I'm playing and getting in trouble.
I started bringing out my army poncho and attaching it to my baldric belt hanging of my maxpedition bottle holder/kit. As I was wearing only wool, the poncho serves as a wind stopper if it is needed. But for the most part it is a nice ground cloth for working on like today. I can prep my tinder and wood shavings and keep them out of contact from the snowy ground.
I left my damn saw in my other pack. So I reverted to using the crotch of a tree to break up my stick into a hearth and drill. This worked fine and was faster than a saw. The only downside is the break creates split channels that you may not want in your pieces.
Used my JK-kephart for the rest of the processing. Batonned one piece to make the hearth and then shaved the other piece down to make the drill. I prefer to make drill and hearth from the same piece of wood.
Another use for the tarp. Make sure to save all those shavings made while shaping your bow and hearth with your knife. Those dried shavings make great tinder for nursing your fire. Also, by having my poncho on the ground, I had a big platform to catch my shavings. It was really easy to just sweep them into a nice tidy pile after I was done.
Somebody told me that they used cottonwood bark as a head piece. They said it drill deep at first then glazed and became friction free. I just found that it drilled deep and then made my life difficult. So I split another piece of the same cotton wood to make the head piece. That worked fine.
More coming...
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