Friction Fire Woods in the South?

storl

storl

Joined
Apr 17, 2007
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We get a lot of customers in here asking us to teach classes for Boy Scouts, first time campers/hikers, and just general outdoor/survival skills. I don't get outside enough, so I figure this is a good excuse. I am going to start out with some day hike trips and would like to have some skills to show people. People ask how to pack a backpack, signal, read maps, select a campsite, and other basic tasks, but probably the most frequent request I hear is how to make a friction fire.

I can build a fire and keep it going just fine in about any condition and don't have a problem finding and making a tinder bundle using natural materials, but the friction fire part has me thinking a bit.

My question is what kind of woods would you Southerners recommend for the different parts? The caveat is that I need stuff that is plentiful in middle and southern Georgia (we'll say metro Atlanta and below), so that mostly gets rid of cedar and the other standbys that I am used to in the mountains. Pine is too resinous and there are not really a lot of other soft woods around there for a base board.

Any recommendations? I know a friction fire can be made with any wood if you try hard enough, but I want something that someone can do without destroying their hands for an hour straight. I don't want people to get frustrated their first time out. I know that practice is the only way to get proficient and the first try might lead to failure, but handing someone ironwood and telling them to go to town is probably not the best way to get people interested in this kind of stuff.
 
Hey storl,

I've never had the privilege of visiting Georgia, so I don't know what grows there, but I would guess you have one type of Willow (Salix spp.) or another. That would be where I'd start.

ETA, just checking Trees of Georgia, and it says you have Box Elder (Acer negundo) - a pretty good wood for bow drill. It also says you have Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides), another good choice. I've never tried Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) but I think kgd has and was successful.

ETA (again) I just saw you have Basswood (Tilia americana) which is my favourite of all the woods - you've got it made, brother! :thumbup:

Doc
 
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Bamboo is good to work with, I know you got that, and like Bindle says, don't get so hung up on species, go with the finger nail test on a piece of wood. If it fits the criteria, wear it out. I use wood from the maples in my yard, sometimes a coal, sometimes not. Good luck. Moose
 
I'll add a second for willow. It is one of my favorite woods. When dry, it is just about right for making friction fire. While it doesn't grow everywhere, it is prolific when it is found. Green, it is excellent for crafting into cooking utensils and baskets. The bark of withes makes a decent cordage. I have mentioned recently that it contains the main ingrediant of asprin. It makes a fine charcoal for tempering pottery. Dry beaver cuttings make good supports for shelters. I've used it to make a skin boat frame and it worked well. It is ok as a firewood, but burns pretty quick without the heat of a hardwood.

I've never tried river cane for friction fire, but it should work, even if you need to haft a foreshaft of different material for the lower spindle. As a hearth? Dunno.
 
Sycamore, Boxelder, Red Maple, Eastern Red Cedar, Willow, Basswood, Elderberry, Sassafras. Also, Eastern White Pine is very good for the bow drill, but that is only as far south as ATL.

For boyscouts, etc., I can (help) teach friction fire, etc., just reach out. Would prefer north of ATL though. :D
 
moosez45 said:
Bamboo is good to work with, I know you got that, and like Bindle says, don't get so hung up on species, go with the finger nail test on a piece of wood. If it fits the criteria, wear it out. I use wood from the maples in my yard, sometimes a coal, sometimes not. Good luck. Moose
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bamboo?? you mean river cane?
 
hung-solo said:
bamboo?? you mean river cane?
Click to expand...

Yes and no. What I meant was Bisseti bamboo grows like kudzu, if its there its everywhere. Alot of people here started using it for privacy fences, and now it has grown like wildfire, and can be found just about anywhere in East Tenn. Moose
 
Thanks for the advice, guys. I'll have to try willow. I'm not sure how common it is in the area, so I'll look around and see what I can find. Someone on here gave me a link to maps of all the trees species in North America, which has been very helpful.

I know the fingernail test, but everything around me is hardwoods or pine (I hate southern pine). I'll see if I can find any of the trees mentioned near my area.
 
Even in pine plantations, look around riparian easements like lakes, rivers and streams. The willow I find here in SW Tennessee and in Arkansas grows mainly near water.
 
storl said:
Thanks for the advice, guys. I'll have to try willow. I'm not sure how common it is in the area, so I'll look around and see what I can find. Someone on here gave me a link to maps of all the trees species in North America, which has been very helpful.

I know the fingernail test, but everything around me is hardwoods or pine (I hate southern pine). I'll see if I can find any of the trees mentioned near my area.
Click to expand...


I don't know anything about friction fire or what woods to use, but someone above mentioned Box Elder and I know for a fact that we have a lot of that in this area, so you could look for some of that.
 
storl said:
We get a lot of customers in here asking us to teach classes for Boy Scouts, first time campers/hikers, and just general outdoor/survival skills. I don't get outside enough, so I figure this is a good excuse. I am going to start out with some day hike trips and would like to have some skills to show people. People ask how to pack a backpack, signal, read maps, select a campsite, and other basic tasks, but probably the most frequent request I hear is how to make a friction fire.

I can build a fire and keep it going just fine in about any condition and don't have a problem finding and making a tinder bundle using natural materials, but the friction fire part has me thinking a bit.

My question is what kind of woods would you Southerners recommend for the different parts? The caveat is that I need stuff that is plentiful in middle and southern Georgia (we'll say metro Atlanta and below), so that mostly gets rid of cedar and the other standbys that I am used to in the mountains. Pine is too resinous and there are not really a lot of other soft woods around there for a base board.

Any recommendations? I know a friction fire can be made with any wood if you try hard enough, but I want something that someone can do without destroying their hands for an hour straight. I don't want people to get frustrated their first time out. I know that practice is the only way to get proficient and the first try might lead to failure, but handing someone ironwood and telling them to go to town is probably not the best way to get people interested in this kind of stuff.
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Storl,

I've done my share of bow drills and so on, but I'll state that identifying the wood from a tree it is no longer attached to is at the very least impractical - and generally unnecessary. The ol' fingernail trick can tell you most all you need to know. The fireboard should be a soft wood, or at least softer than the drill shaft. The handhold should be harder then the drill shaft. The rationale should be self-evident when it comes to fire making with friction alone.

If you can push your fingernail into the fibers of the wood fairly easily, that's a soft wood. If you can barely get a dent, but it does yield, it's a medium wood. If you cannot indent the wood with your fingernail, that's a hard wood and needs to be on the top forming your handhold. The material you use for the bow is less critical, just about any sapling, seasoned or unseasoned will get the job done so long as you have a bit of natural curvature and enough length for a loop of fairly loose strung cordage. A common mistake is making the bow too tightly strung, you'll be launching no missiles from the bow used in fire making!

The fingernail scale for determining wood hardness works in any part of the world. As long as you have more than one species of tree in a given area, you should be able find the materials to make a bow drill.

The wood you choose is ultimately less critical then your technique. It took me hundreds of hours of practice to get a burning coal out of the fireboard, this after many tens of hours of being told I had to practice with "green" wood to get the technique perfected. When the drill point gets to the point where it is too hot to touch to a finger for more than a couple of seconds, you're getting close, but it's got to get a heck of a lot hotter to form a smoldering ember.

I was also given a branch that was both too crooked and too wide a diameter to get the angular velocity necessary to start a coal up on the fireboard, another way to force you to learn to improve the state of the tools and to further improve your technique (at least among the old school types, not sure how they teach this now). It took two hours to trim back the crooked branch's material to a cylindrical shaft and pare down the diameter until it was just about 1/2".

Smaller drill shafts get the point hot faster, but they can be unstable and bend as you put your upper body weight on the hand hold. To make them stiffer, you have to reduce the length until the shaft can become impractically short and the bow (especially if you are getting tired) can dig into the ground or upset your tinder pile. I like leaving at least the inner bark on to give me a bit of traction under the cordage, it also reduces the time to setup and start a fire.

A slightly thicker drill shaft with a length of just less than a foot or so of a medium hardness wood with a reasonably round and fairly smooth surface gets the job done pretty well. The notch in the fireboard is another fine point. If you fail to get a good coal after a few minutes, the notch may need to be reshaped (while cussing usually) in order to give you a chance to convey the hot coal into the tinder pile.

You should also grease the handhold to keep friction from building up heat on the wrong end of the works. Sappy plants can make a makeshift "grease" assuming you properly prepared the handhold and drill shaft with a well rounded profile smoothed out with whatever abrasives you can find. The two should fit together like fine machine parts to get the maximum efficiency. Don't use anything that can melt with heat (animal fats, etc.) that can end up going down the shaft, making it slippery, or worse, dousing your hard work on the fire board.

I found that the biggest challenge was keeping my own sweat out of the damned fireboard when going at it for 20-30 minutes, with furious bursts 10 minutes at a time. In general, if it takes more than about 10 minutes to produce an ember, either your technique is wrong, your materials are not well dried and seasoned or the dimensions of the drill shaft and bow are not appropriate and you aren't producing enough friction to make a coal.

In learning this technique, if you are serious, endless perseverance helps.

Good luck,

-E
 
Thanks for all the advice, everyone. Maybe I will just show how it can be done and tell them that it takes some practice to perfect.
 
erichsen said:
Storl,

The fireboard should be a soft wood, or at least softer than the drill shaft. The handhold should be harder then the drill shaft. The rationale should be self-evident when it comes to fire making with friction alone.
-E
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Most of your advice seams good, but I am not aggreeing with you on the harder drill over a softer hearth. I prefer to use the same piece of wood as drill and hearth. I have had sucess with different woods as each piece, but I truley find it much easier with the same wood. If you are using a harder drill then the hearth, you have a greater chance of drilling through the board before getting your coal. Just my oppinion.

erichsen said:
I found that the biggest challenge was keeping my own sweat out of the damned fireboard when going at it for 20-30 minutes, with furious bursts 10 minutes at a time. In general, if it takes more than about 10 minutes to produce an ember, either your technique is wrong, your materials are not well dried and seasoned or the dimensions of the drill shaft and bow are not appropriate and you aren't producing enough friction to make a coal.


-E
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Are you really drilling for 10 or more minutes at a time:eek:?? Once your hearth is burned in and your notch is carved out, you should be able to get a coal with in a minute. Usually about 40 seconds.

If I was drilling for 10 mintes my biggest challenge would be picking my arm up off the floor.
 
tonym said:
Most of your advice seams good, but I am not aggreeing with you on the harder drill over a softer hearth. I prefer to use the same piece of wood as drill and hearth. I have had sucess with different woods as each piece, but I truley find it much easier with the same wood. If you are using a harder drill then the hearth, you have a greater chance of drilling through the board before getting your coal. Just my oppinion.



Are you really drilling for 10 or more minutes at a time:eek:?? Once your hearth is burned in and your notch is carved out, you should be able to get a coal with in a minute. Usually about 40 seconds.

If I was drilling for 10 mintes my biggest challenge would be picking my arm up off the floor.
Click to expand...

The notch is easy enough, but it takes me 5-10 minutes to get burned in to a new fireboard if I'm starting from scratch. I never assume I'll have a ready made bow, drill shaft or fireboard ready to go. Once you have the fire going, you or somebody else gets the task of making sure it stays burning so no further bowdrill will be necessary. I have a bad habit of losing the fireboard I used to make the fire after the fire is already going. I wouldn't be surprised if someone didn't chuck the board into the fire while I wasn't looking. ;)

-E
 
Hey Storl....

Paw paw is excellent if you can find a large recently dead trunk large enough to be useful...It is almost light enough to remind you of Balsa......

All Best.....

ethan
 
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