November 2013 Challenge - Fire

DerekH

Handsome According to my Mother
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Nov 18, 2010
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Alright folks, here's the contest you've been waiting for. Fire. Specifically, a one-stick fire...

In the dark.

The boss was impressed as heck at what they did at Beckerwest, and he wants to see what the rest of you can do. The challenge, make a one stick fire, in the dark. Bonus points if the wood is wet. More bonus points the more primitive your tools. Must use a Becker knife, but other than that is up to you. Do friction in the rain, you'll earn some serious bragging rights.

Keeping with tradition, post your entries (and only your entries, i.e. no chit chat) here. One entry per person. No more pics than a single post can hold (around 40 I believe) and no more than ten minutes if you do video. Pics must show the one stick you are using, as well as you breaking it down, and the fire being lit by your method of choice, and the final fire. More pics the better. Again, the more primitive the method, the more consideration towards the final verdict. Wet wood, more consideration towards the final verdict.

Burn baby, burn.

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Ka-Bar, Cutco, Bladeforums, Ethan Becker, nor any other entities are responsible for any harm that may come to you by participating in this contest. None are compelled nor required to participate, and participants enter of their own free will and will not hold liable any entity previously named or associated with these contests, bladeforums, Ka-Bar, Cutco, Ethan Becker, or any affiliates. Enter at your own risk, use your heads, keep the sharp bits pointed away from yourself, and good luck.

Contest is open to all, however if you are under the age of 18 your prize will be sent to a parent after they send the pertinent info along to myself or Ethan.

Prizes will consist of the following:

First place: BK10
Second place: BK16
Third place: BK11

Prize will be sent out by the boss once the contest is completed and judged. Contest will run until December 15th. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the discussion thread here:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...nge-Discussion-Thread?p=12853903#post12853903

Post "Burn baby, burn!" if you are in. Get to it!
 
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Burn baby, burn!...
One Machax, one stick, and one ferro rod.
In less than 10 minutes! :D


[video=youtube_share;gy_MgcZxwqI]http://youtu.be/gy_MgcZxwqI[/video]
 
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Burn baby, burn!

Edited with entry:

After misreading the rules last week and doing the challenge in broad daylight (which was good practice)... now was the time to do it in the dark! To do the challenge, mind you :).
Anyway, it was quite a hassle in the dark. Sky was cloudy. No moon, no stars and I didn't use a light. Had to feel my way through it. A bit dangerous, but definitely good practice.

So here's what I started out with. A stick (thin log), a baton, BK16 and a box of matches.
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First task was to seperate the bark from the log. It'll come in handy later. You'll see.
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Time for some batoning. I needed some large cornerpieces to start with (cornerpieces? What for? You'll see...). The 16 handles this kind of thickness with ease.
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More...
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Pieces!
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After batoning the log into sticks, I ended up with lot's of sticks of various thicknessess. They still needed to be processed. I ended up with one larger piece that had a big knot in it. I didn't feel like batoning through it and switch that one out with one of the "cornerpieces" which I ended up splitting into sticks.
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Time to use the butt of the 16 and hammer the cornerpieces into the ground. Yep, we're building sort of a Swedish fire...
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This is where the bark comes in handy. The ground was wet. Very wet. If I was gonna make shavings, they'd soak up the water. The bark forms a nice platform and barrier...
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Alright, now that we've got the basics, let's continue processing the sticks.
We'll need some shavings...
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...some thinner sticks
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Pile it up: bark on the ground, then the shavings, then the thin sticks
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Thicker sticks!
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Put 'em on top...
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I think that's looking good! Let's light it with a match. When I did it in daylight last week, I had to use 3 matches 'cause the wind kept blowing it out. This time it took only one. I was curious though if I had enough shavings to transfer the fire to the thinner sticks and so on... You can see the purple stick of the match in the bottom right corner at the base of the flame.
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I hope it's gonna work...
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Yep, it's working
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The knife that handled all of this with ease...
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Aw yeaaahh
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Excuse me, breeze, what are you doing?
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That's more like it. Kept feeding the fire with larger sticks of the log that I hadn't thinned down, in order to keep it going a bit longer.
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My favourite picture of this project...
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The corner pillars were starting to give away 'cause they burned through. We're almost at the end here...
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No flash... Started kinda burning in my throat.
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Flash revealed why, lol.
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Two pillars were still up, even though the fire was going out...
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And then there was only one left... And that's the end too!
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Thanks Derek for starting this contest. I enjoyed every single bit of it and learned a lot of things in the initial thread as well. Great stuff!

Cheers!
 
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Burn baby, burn! BECKERHEAD #339 is in the house!

I screwed up my first entry (pics didn't work on my end and I didn't do my entry good & not enough pics)

Becker bk16 with Ferrocerium Rod in the rain.

My stick

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processing my stick

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small piece

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As you can see the ground is very wet (the eastern us as been storming lately as you should know)

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some spliting

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some fuzzys

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splitting

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Cool pic

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More fuzz

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starting fire!

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Sparks (with light my fire faro rod)

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Flame (no unnatural tinder like cotton balls, or gas, just feather sticks!

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More flame

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Fire!

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My photographer was cold and wet so we went in at that point

The mandatory Dog

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This was very different from daylight and VERY hard and not to mention that we had a STORM also I had to strike my faro rod 43 times! just about wore my brand new light my fire mini down to a tooth-pick, but with out a doubt the hardest part was........I'm scared of the dark :( . Thanks for the challenge and god bless


BECKERHEAD #339


P.s. Please disregard the attachments at the bottom of the page.
 

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"Burn baby, burn!"

Well we finally have snow.

I chose the BK16 and a ferro rod.

The stick I chose was buried in the snow but relatively dry, sorta.











Making shavings and scraping some tinder.
I sharpened the spine on my BK16 and what a difference it makes.





Using the sharpened spine of the BK16 and a ferro rod.



Thought I was going to lose it.



Fire.





Thank you to Ethan, Kabar, Derek for the contest and my daughter for taking the pics and sitting in the snow while I worked.
I had alot of fun with my daughter and realized my headlamp needs new batteries.
 
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Surprised to not see more effort in this. Only one entry so far.
 
Surprised to not see more effort in this. Only one entry so far.

I just made one, came back here to post and read that it had to be in the dark. I'll have to have another go at this at another time, probably closer to the end date of the challenge though...
 
Burn Baby Burn!

This was another fun challenge, Thanks to Ethan, Derek, and Kabar for putting this on. I had a great time and got to practice this skill in not so perfect weather at night. For the ignition method I chose a Bow drill. Full disclosure I had the Bow, string and socket already made and they were not part of my one stick.

It is snowing!




For this contest I picked the BK-2 because for me it is very versatile. I also chose a dead section of cedar as my one stick.




I started off by removing the bark to use as my tinder bundle later. Then I split the log and started to narrow down parts for my spindle and hearth board. I tried to save as much as I could for the fire lay. Keeping everything dry was quite a task.





My photographer went back inside to warm up while I was being "too picky" with the fine carving.

Here is my fire lay with some feather sticks and my cedar bark tinder bundle. Becker (my dog) hung out and helped.



Starting the process. I had another section of the cedar log under my hearth to make sure I keep the dust as dry as I could. I should have used a barrier between my wet boot and the top of the hearth but I didn't think of it till after I was done.

Going nice and slow with good pressure and telling myself "remember to breathe" I made a bunch of black dust. So much that it spilled over off the back of the hearth board. The whole time I tried to block any falling snow with my body to not ruin my progress.



Once I felt I had enough dust built up I took a few seconds to collect myself and make sure the tinder bundle was dry enough and started to go for an ember. Speed and pressure and remember to breathe! I got an ember after a while and knocked it out gently with my spindle to let it breathe and gain strength.



Here it is. I am giving it time to grow and breathe. Fanning it gently with my hand before I transferred it into the tinder bundle.



The tinder bundle was more wet than I thought and I had to be patient and "mind the baby". It made me work and I had to blow gently so I wouldn't loose my newly formed ember.



Getting closer I got a weak flame and transferred it into my fire lay. I chose the teepee fire lay so that the outer part of the teepee would keep my feather sticks and tinder bundle dry enough to ignite and grow enough to catch the rest on fire.



Working to keep the fire going. I wanted to take it from an ember to a fire I could walk away from. For that I had to get the outer sticks to ignite and be sustainable.



After adding oxygen and adding some more small sticks that I put aside just in case I had the fire going good enough that I felt confident I could sit back, rest and enjoy it.





Once again, thanks to Ethan, Derek and Kabar for another great challenge!

Good luck to everyone else who enters.

Jeremy
 
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Awesome job guys! Burn, Baby Burn!

All right here goes!

My entry may be a little unorthodox, because you see I live in an apartment within the Houston, Tx city limits! I can't get away from the house at night, as I must watch my children as they sleep so I had to improvise a little bit. I apologize this wasn't performed out in the bush, as I am unsure whether or not I'll be able to make it out by the deadline of this contest. I could just wait and try and get out to the woods but I was just so excited to play around I had to try it out tonight! I used to flash for difficult or technical pictures and sometimes I didn't use it for dramatic effect! (And to remind us how dark it was.)

P.S. This is my first attempt at primitive fire!

Here are the tools I used. My trusty BK-2, a 25ft. hank of bank line, and in improvised grease lamp. Jutte twine in a dip lid with corn oil.
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Tree selection, finding usable wood in a landscaped area can be difficult. Yes it's raining!
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BK-2 ready for take-off.
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Wet limb aquired!
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Lights, check.
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Breaking it down now...
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Using foot to trim the stick? Uber primitive!
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Spindle cut
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And shaved
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Hearth split
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Bow assembled
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Getting to the good stuff...
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Getting everything in order
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Fire lay
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Baby tinder bundle
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Trying to make smoke
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Getting rained on
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After a couple hours of trial and error, and nothing but a bunch of smoke to show for it, my improvised grease lamp sprung a leak and burned out on me..
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Time to get this thing lit!
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[video=youtube;WwNUOl_lxQI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwNUOl_lxQI"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwNUOl_lxQI[/video]

SO as you can see, I failed to light a bow drill or "flint and steel" fire. But the trusty ferro rod saves the day again.

Thanks A LOT to Ethan and Derek as well as Ka-Bar for sponsoring this challenge. It is a great learning experience and wonderful excuse to practice a new and old skills. I really enjoy seeing other Becker blade users out there showing their stuff. As I said before this was my first attempt of many at primitive fire but I will get the hang of it. These are great skills to learn and pass down and I thank y'all for the opportunity to mess around with them! (With a small chance to get my hands on another one of the blades I love!) Thanks again guys hope you enjoyed, I know I did!

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Well it rained and then snowed tonight so I figured I give this contest a shot.
This is the first time I have made a semi primitive fire.
I live in the city and I didn't have any good wood, except the remnants of a couple of trees I cut down in the yard last spring. One was a purple tree (I have no idea what kind of tree it was) and the other was a mulberry tree.

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First try was a mulberry branch

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My baton

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Turns out it had too many knots
So I tried a branch from the purple tree
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I got a little bit past this, and felt it had too many knots

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This mulberry branch would have to be the one

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This branch still had a bunch of knots, but I had to push through
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Had to go over some spots several times
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Made short work of this branch
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Taking it down further
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My cheap fire steel/ magnesium that I've had forever
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Little bits of magnesium

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Got careless scraping magnesium.

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I figured I needed to speed this up since I didn't have a good way to patch up the cut. So, time for some lint and Vaseline.

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A little magnesium on the lint/ Vaseline and I was in business.

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The smoke really burned my eyes and throat, but I got it done.
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"Burn baby, burn!"
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Lots of lessons learned tonight.
 

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Clock is ticking folks, get your entries in before midnight eastern time!
 
wish I'd had time to do an entry this weekend - but work kind of got in the way and I'm addicted to calorie consumption.
 
Alright, this one is ended. Good luck, and we'll see how it pans out for the participants.
 
Wow.....

This one was really easy to judge....... EVERYBODY done good! real good...... Trail bum and Dresnor get the top slots with really good technique....... I am gonna give everybody else a knife because you all pushed it a bit....... I am really happy about this one because when you NEED a fire it will probably be after dark aNd wet and cold........ Dresnor, you rock buddy and Mountain Mist you are really good........ I know your area and I am impressed...... Trailbum a Big Done good..... Many thanks to Galeocerdoshark as I had seen that trick in a book many moons ago and had forgotten it......

Please email me with your name , screen name, address and phone number with good time to call and please put Becker November in the subject line.....

Am headed to see the kids for Christmas so naught will happen for about a week........

Thanks for do in' the do guys ....... Glad you all had fun........

Ethan
 
Thank you Ethan for the contest and the kind words.
Thanks Derek for getting this started.
Good job everyone.
Merry Christmas.
 
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