- Joined
- Feb 28, 2007
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Sorry guys, no pictures although I got a few of the guy I was with on his cell phone. Maybe he'll send them to me and I can post them later. Anyhow, I brought my camera but did the cardinal sin of leaving the memory card behind at home so no juice. I've posted enough coals that I made by bowdrill in the past so hopefully there is some believe in this little story.
Left work early today with one of my technicians, but also a good guy who has been more friend than just a guy at work. This guy has been aching to do a bowdrill for a long time but hasn't had success yet. He even has one of Tom Brown's books and has been reading up on it. So I offered to take him out to Ojibway in the afternoon and do bowdrill from scratch. It was his goal to be able to do one with his own bootlace and using his buck 110 folder. Until today, I also hadn't actually went and foraged all my own bow drill materials from the woods at once yet. I cheated a little bit because I knew of a downed cottonwood that I've been keeping my eye on and sampling the past couple of months and knew it has some great wood for bow drill now.
So we left at about 2:00 pm. Walking in, we saw a downed oak tree and we grabbed a bit of that for the head piece. As we were walking through the prairie we also gathered a bunch of bushy phragmities heads and the seeds from Canadian thistle, stuffing our pockets with flash tinder. Even found a little bird nest on the way in that we snagged as a tinder bundle holder.
I took us to the downed cotton wood. I told him to forage for what he thought would be a suitable wood. Actually, I sent him scuttling through a pile of rasperry nettles, while I went right to the best parts of the tree
. I gathered up enough 'choice' material for both of us but let him choice his pieces. There was also a small oak that the large cottonwood knocked over on falling and we each harvested pieces to make our bows. His was really long, mine was similar to the one I got from Doc Canada.
We walked in a bit further into bush so we weren't right on the trail to try our luck. He wanted to go at it with his materials and knowledge first so I let him go about his thoughts on the process while I started prepping my bow drill and fireboard. It was a pretty simple affair at my end. I had already tested the wood from this downed tree and made sure I harvested a good dried piece so I knew it would work. I used a piece of paracord I slipped in my bag in the morning to make my bow from the piece of oak.
One thing is that I've always used a nice piece of moose antler that Doc Canada gave me as a headpiece, so using the piece of oak for the headpiece was a bit of a new one for me. Actually, my first trial I trilled the head piece end right through the head peace. Ouch. Must gotta a bad piece of oak. I made another one from the other half of the oak and it worked out fine from there.
I showed my buddy the correct posture and he watched as I proceeded to drill out the divot, make the notch and then produce my coal. Then I poured the coal into some of the phragmities + thistle seeds flash tinder all tucked inside the little bird nest and blew it all into flames. It all went really well and this was my first start to finish bowdrill using materials harvested on site.
Then it was his turn. He has a bad hip from an old sports injury and can't bend his knee enough to allow him to step on the hearth in the classic, wrap your elbow around your knee posture. He had to figure out a different way of holding the drill and he did. He also needed a few pointers on how to string the drill on the bow and the relative tightness of the bow. He really didn't have much chance on his self-selected materials. His drill was way too short, soggy and from a different piece than his hearth. I showed him how I made the drill and hearth from the same piece of wood, which works best for me.
I then had him use the second half of piece of wood I split to make my hearth and gave him my still functional drill to try out. It took him a bit of an effort to get his technique down. He was still using his god awfully long bow that was fitted with his bootlace. The bootlace, being quite long was flapping around and slapping him in the knees as he bowed. But eventually he got smoke. He notched the hearth with his buck 110.
Then he proceeded to go for the gusto. This took a few trials. One issue he had was that his hearth was sitting about 1/4" off of the platform instead of flush onto the ground. So the little dust piles were sort of dropping from the hearth. As I noticed this, I told him to keep drilling. He is still a young chap and still full of piss and vinegar so he kept going. Then as I saw the little mound of coal dust built up and start to fill up his wedge, I told him to go for real gusto. The smoke was just a flying and he was about to stop but, because I'm cruel, I told him, 'no keep going...go like you never went before'. He was sort of moaning in pain and really cranking at it and the smoke was flying out of both ends, headpiece and drill. The sweat was pouring of his brow. I could tell he was really working it. My shoulder was hurting just watching him.
I finally let him stop and like a trooper he removed the drill ever so carefully without disturbing the bile of coal dust. The coal had formed and was smoking independently. He was fanning away at it and to my surprise the coal appeared, not in the wedge, but actually in a pile dust around the rim of the divot hole. I never seen that happen before, but his going for gusto was clearly going like it never went before.
He poured that coal into a fresh tinder bundle and blew it into flames. The look on his face was just pure happiness and it was absolutely great to see the joy on his face at his accomplishment. It was all the more sweeter for the work and sweat he put into it. During this time, I had set up my little crappy canned heat stove and had some water boiling. We toasted his success with some hot chocolate and a shot of Irish whiskey. I then presented him with a little fixed blade and told him it was his bowdrill knife. He was super appreciative of the gesture.
Anyhow, it was a great afternoon. Makes me feel good to give back a little and to say thanks again to folks like Doc Canada who went out of his way to give me the same kind of instruction when I was trying to learn the method.
Hope you liked my story. Now go teach somebody something. It feel good to do it!
Left work early today with one of my technicians, but also a good guy who has been more friend than just a guy at work. This guy has been aching to do a bowdrill for a long time but hasn't had success yet. He even has one of Tom Brown's books and has been reading up on it. So I offered to take him out to Ojibway in the afternoon and do bowdrill from scratch. It was his goal to be able to do one with his own bootlace and using his buck 110 folder. Until today, I also hadn't actually went and foraged all my own bow drill materials from the woods at once yet. I cheated a little bit because I knew of a downed cottonwood that I've been keeping my eye on and sampling the past couple of months and knew it has some great wood for bow drill now.
So we left at about 2:00 pm. Walking in, we saw a downed oak tree and we grabbed a bit of that for the head piece. As we were walking through the prairie we also gathered a bunch of bushy phragmities heads and the seeds from Canadian thistle, stuffing our pockets with flash tinder. Even found a little bird nest on the way in that we snagged as a tinder bundle holder.
I took us to the downed cotton wood. I told him to forage for what he thought would be a suitable wood. Actually, I sent him scuttling through a pile of rasperry nettles, while I went right to the best parts of the tree
. I gathered up enough 'choice' material for both of us but let him choice his pieces. There was also a small oak that the large cottonwood knocked over on falling and we each harvested pieces to make our bows. His was really long, mine was similar to the one I got from Doc Canada.We walked in a bit further into bush so we weren't right on the trail to try our luck. He wanted to go at it with his materials and knowledge first so I let him go about his thoughts on the process while I started prepping my bow drill and fireboard. It was a pretty simple affair at my end. I had already tested the wood from this downed tree and made sure I harvested a good dried piece so I knew it would work. I used a piece of paracord I slipped in my bag in the morning to make my bow from the piece of oak.
One thing is that I've always used a nice piece of moose antler that Doc Canada gave me as a headpiece, so using the piece of oak for the headpiece was a bit of a new one for me. Actually, my first trial I trilled the head piece end right through the head peace. Ouch. Must gotta a bad piece of oak. I made another one from the other half of the oak and it worked out fine from there.
I showed my buddy the correct posture and he watched as I proceeded to drill out the divot, make the notch and then produce my coal. Then I poured the coal into some of the phragmities + thistle seeds flash tinder all tucked inside the little bird nest and blew it all into flames. It all went really well and this was my first start to finish bowdrill using materials harvested on site.
Then it was his turn. He has a bad hip from an old sports injury and can't bend his knee enough to allow him to step on the hearth in the classic, wrap your elbow around your knee posture. He had to figure out a different way of holding the drill and he did. He also needed a few pointers on how to string the drill on the bow and the relative tightness of the bow. He really didn't have much chance on his self-selected materials. His drill was way too short, soggy and from a different piece than his hearth. I showed him how I made the drill and hearth from the same piece of wood, which works best for me.
I then had him use the second half of piece of wood I split to make my hearth and gave him my still functional drill to try out. It took him a bit of an effort to get his technique down. He was still using his god awfully long bow that was fitted with his bootlace. The bootlace, being quite long was flapping around and slapping him in the knees as he bowed. But eventually he got smoke. He notched the hearth with his buck 110.
Then he proceeded to go for the gusto. This took a few trials. One issue he had was that his hearth was sitting about 1/4" off of the platform instead of flush onto the ground. So the little dust piles were sort of dropping from the hearth. As I noticed this, I told him to keep drilling. He is still a young chap and still full of piss and vinegar so he kept going. Then as I saw the little mound of coal dust built up and start to fill up his wedge, I told him to go for real gusto. The smoke was just a flying and he was about to stop but, because I'm cruel, I told him, 'no keep going...go like you never went before'. He was sort of moaning in pain and really cranking at it and the smoke was flying out of both ends, headpiece and drill. The sweat was pouring of his brow. I could tell he was really working it. My shoulder was hurting just watching him.
I finally let him stop and like a trooper he removed the drill ever so carefully without disturbing the bile of coal dust. The coal had formed and was smoking independently. He was fanning away at it and to my surprise the coal appeared, not in the wedge, but actually in a pile dust around the rim of the divot hole. I never seen that happen before, but his going for gusto was clearly going like it never went before.
He poured that coal into a fresh tinder bundle and blew it into flames. The look on his face was just pure happiness and it was absolutely great to see the joy on his face at his accomplishment. It was all the more sweeter for the work and sweat he put into it. During this time, I had set up my little crappy canned heat stove and had some water boiling. We toasted his success with some hot chocolate and a shot of Irish whiskey. I then presented him with a little fixed blade and told him it was his bowdrill knife. He was super appreciative of the gesture.
Anyhow, it was a great afternoon. Makes me feel good to give back a little and to say thanks again to folks like Doc Canada who went out of his way to give me the same kind of instruction when I was trying to learn the method.
Hope you liked my story. Now go teach somebody something. It feel good to do it!
