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- Feb 28, 2007
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I usually post these things in W&SS, but today wanted to give my RC-3 (anticipating the forum knife) a bit of a work out and have a little fun with my favorite, if not slightly exhausting, method of firestarting.
Earlier today I took a walk (posted over in W&SS) and harvested some of this stuff.
Phragmites seed heads. The top picture is shows green seeds not all that great, but if you look harder you can find some plants like the bottom one with really puffy seeds. This stuff makes excellent flash tinder and that readily catches a spark or converts a coal to a flame which is what I'll be using for my tinder basket.
For wood, I used some old sticks harvested from the cottonwood tree in my backyard (I know kind of lame). Basswood works about the best that I know of for hearth and drill, but cottonwood and popular are plenty around these parts and are almost as good. The trick for the wood is that it is dried out and soft enough. If you can dimple it with your thumb nail, but not cut into it with your nail, then it is soft enough but not too soft (e.g. balsa is too soft).
Here is the sticks I used. The stick was used for both hearth and drill. They were trimmed from the tree about a month ago. I had a bundle of them behind my shed. This stick was a touch small for the hearth, but it turns out big enough. For the bow I used a piece of locust from another stick in my backyard. The locust is stronger but has enough flex to make it good as a bow.
The little piece of orange material is true tinder fungas or chaga. This piece was generously gifted to me by valcasi1. You can find them growing on live birch trees. The fungus feeds on the sap of the birch tree and falls off (and dries out to become useless) when the tree dies. I've only found one before, but we don't have too many birch around my parts. You use the tinder fungus as a coal extender. If you contact the tinder fungus with a spark or another coal it will grab that coal burn as an ember for quite a while. You can also use a piece of charcloth for the same purpose.
The RC-6 came out for show, but I actually only used the RC-3 for all the duty work. First cut the stick by notching it on all sides. Again, this is a soft wood and the cutting was very easy.
more coming....
Earlier today I took a walk (posted over in W&SS) and harvested some of this stuff.
Phragmites seed heads. The top picture is shows green seeds not all that great, but if you look harder you can find some plants like the bottom one with really puffy seeds. This stuff makes excellent flash tinder and that readily catches a spark or converts a coal to a flame which is what I'll be using for my tinder basket.
For wood, I used some old sticks harvested from the cottonwood tree in my backyard (I know kind of lame). Basswood works about the best that I know of for hearth and drill, but cottonwood and popular are plenty around these parts and are almost as good. The trick for the wood is that it is dried out and soft enough. If you can dimple it with your thumb nail, but not cut into it with your nail, then it is soft enough but not too soft (e.g. balsa is too soft).
Here is the sticks I used. The stick was used for both hearth and drill. They were trimmed from the tree about a month ago. I had a bundle of them behind my shed. This stick was a touch small for the hearth, but it turns out big enough. For the bow I used a piece of locust from another stick in my backyard. The locust is stronger but has enough flex to make it good as a bow.
The little piece of orange material is true tinder fungas or chaga. This piece was generously gifted to me by valcasi1. You can find them growing on live birch trees. The fungus feeds on the sap of the birch tree and falls off (and dries out to become useless) when the tree dies. I've only found one before, but we don't have too many birch around my parts. You use the tinder fungus as a coal extender. If you contact the tinder fungus with a spark or another coal it will grab that coal burn as an ember for quite a while. You can also use a piece of charcloth for the same purpose.
The RC-6 came out for show, but I actually only used the RC-3 for all the duty work. First cut the stick by notching it on all sides. Again, this is a soft wood and the cutting was very easy.
more coming....
