It's been a very long time since I played with the primitive skills I once spent so long learning. The recent discovery of this forum has really brought the interest back and I look forward to contributing further.
Some recent threads on making a fire with the Bow/Drill technique started a bit of talk on the matter and I thought I'd take the time to do a write-up on what some call a "cheater" drill adapter that makes the job so much easier.
First, though, let me expound on that whole 'cheating' concept. To call it such kinda wraps me the wrong way because I do not believe there can be anything even close to cheating when it comes to surviving. You do everything you can to stay safe and keep breathing, period. Some will cry, "Oh, but the indians didn't use that cheating contraption!!!" To which I would ask, how do you know? Just because we haven't found it in the archeological record doesn't mean it was never used. Furthermore, one would be wise to remember that primitive cultures dropped stone tools like hot rocks when more advanced technologies became prevalent. The worst shard from a cast-iron skillet is head and shoulders above a stone chip for cutting and stabbing.
So, please don't think of it as not being "pure". If anything it's an extension of the mindset and provides you with a half-dozen skills to practice to make.
On to the tutorial, such as it is.
We start at the beginning. I am a huge fan of the Yucca flower shaft for drill material. The yucca cactus is used throughout the country as a decorative yard planting. Let the shaft dry on the plant. One shaft is long enough to make a ton of drill bits.
I wasn't driving more than five minutes before I came across a plant. That's my work truck in the back ground.
The shaft has a pithy core similar to cattail, but it is more robust overall.
For the handpiece, I use a chunk of hickory. It's dense and glasses over really nice when used a few times. This glassy surface, combined with natural oils, cuts down on the friction between the drill and the handpiece. Less friction here means more energy transmitted to the other end, the working end!
Because this is going out over the airwaves, so to speak, I chose to use my fancy bow for the demonstration. It's a cow's rib with a hardwood handle glued and pegged to the one end. This was then wrapped with cow rawhide and sewn with cow sinew. Something every upwardly-mobile woods walker should have!
And finally, the last piece in the puzzle. Drumroll, please.....
This is the Wise Man's drill adapter/enhancer. It starts life as the rear lower leg bone of a deer. I use southern whitetail deer, but I'm sure that Mule Deer and others will work. I have not seen a similar morphology in other animals, though.
You can see that one end has a permanently-secured hardwood tip that mates to the hardwood handpiece. No need to keep replacing one or the other as they will last for thousand and thousands of fires. I can't recall how long I've had this set up, but I can tell you it's going on twenty years of steady use and I haven't drilled any deeper into the hickory since it mated and glazed with the drill's top.
Cut the knuckles off each end of the bone and you're left with something that looks like this.
You can see that you'll have some ridges to sand down to accentuate the square cross-section. There isn't a lot of work, but if you happen to start with a dried bone, not a fresh one, you can soak it in water for a few days and it will soften right up. A few minutes with a rock and you have a very square tube of calcium.
You really don't have to get anal with it and make it super square, but you can if you want. It will sure look pretty.
Once you have it shaped to your heart's desire, you need to cut a hardwood tip with a tenon that fits down into the bone. This is then glued in place.
Both ends of the bone are wrapped with wet rawhide and then covered with a bit of glue to prevent moisture from getting back into the now-dried skin thong. Not entirely necessary, but a nice touch. The wrapping prevents the bone from splitting, which it will want to do, but you can use cord and pitch glue. I suggest staying with natural materials because it's the cool thing to do, but you could make something out of epoxy if you have to.
And the biggest reason for using the wise man's drill ------>
That's about an inch and a half of working drill bit! That's right folks.
With the standard drill bit, you have to find a straight piece that's at least four inches long. Longer is better, but that means you'll probably need to whittle it to a straight-ish shape. And the, once you've got it good and broken in, it becomes too short to use after a few fires.
Because the bone adapter has squared corners, it really grabs the string of your bow - never rounding off or slipping due to a lack of friction.
Because the bone is a larger diameter than the drill bit, the bit will turn more revolutions than the bone does, just like the handle of a screwdriver in relation to the bit of the driver. That means more of your energy is going to the bit and smoke verily jumps from the hearth.
And just to show how fast this is, I made a video. One minute from start to fire, and that would have been shorter if I had had a bit more meat in the hearth board. Anyone know where I can host 324mb of video? It's pretty dang cool, if I do say so myself.
That's it, folks. I hope you enjoyed the read as much as I enjoyed getting back into the game. Stay tuned for more.......
Some recent threads on making a fire with the Bow/Drill technique started a bit of talk on the matter and I thought I'd take the time to do a write-up on what some call a "cheater" drill adapter that makes the job so much easier.
First, though, let me expound on that whole 'cheating' concept. To call it such kinda wraps me the wrong way because I do not believe there can be anything even close to cheating when it comes to surviving. You do everything you can to stay safe and keep breathing, period. Some will cry, "Oh, but the indians didn't use that cheating contraption!!!" To which I would ask, how do you know? Just because we haven't found it in the archeological record doesn't mean it was never used. Furthermore, one would be wise to remember that primitive cultures dropped stone tools like hot rocks when more advanced technologies became prevalent. The worst shard from a cast-iron skillet is head and shoulders above a stone chip for cutting and stabbing.
So, please don't think of it as not being "pure". If anything it's an extension of the mindset and provides you with a half-dozen skills to practice to make.
On to the tutorial, such as it is.
We start at the beginning. I am a huge fan of the Yucca flower shaft for drill material. The yucca cactus is used throughout the country as a decorative yard planting. Let the shaft dry on the plant. One shaft is long enough to make a ton of drill bits.
I wasn't driving more than five minutes before I came across a plant. That's my work truck in the back ground.
The shaft has a pithy core similar to cattail, but it is more robust overall.
For the handpiece, I use a chunk of hickory. It's dense and glasses over really nice when used a few times. This glassy surface, combined with natural oils, cuts down on the friction between the drill and the handpiece. Less friction here means more energy transmitted to the other end, the working end!
Because this is going out over the airwaves, so to speak, I chose to use my fancy bow for the demonstration. It's a cow's rib with a hardwood handle glued and pegged to the one end. This was then wrapped with cow rawhide and sewn with cow sinew. Something every upwardly-mobile woods walker should have!
And finally, the last piece in the puzzle. Drumroll, please.....
This is the Wise Man's drill adapter/enhancer. It starts life as the rear lower leg bone of a deer. I use southern whitetail deer, but I'm sure that Mule Deer and others will work. I have not seen a similar morphology in other animals, though.
You can see that one end has a permanently-secured hardwood tip that mates to the hardwood handpiece. No need to keep replacing one or the other as they will last for thousand and thousands of fires. I can't recall how long I've had this set up, but I can tell you it's going on twenty years of steady use and I haven't drilled any deeper into the hickory since it mated and glazed with the drill's top.
Cut the knuckles off each end of the bone and you're left with something that looks like this.
You can see that you'll have some ridges to sand down to accentuate the square cross-section. There isn't a lot of work, but if you happen to start with a dried bone, not a fresh one, you can soak it in water for a few days and it will soften right up. A few minutes with a rock and you have a very square tube of calcium.
You really don't have to get anal with it and make it super square, but you can if you want. It will sure look pretty.
Once you have it shaped to your heart's desire, you need to cut a hardwood tip with a tenon that fits down into the bone. This is then glued in place.
Both ends of the bone are wrapped with wet rawhide and then covered with a bit of glue to prevent moisture from getting back into the now-dried skin thong. Not entirely necessary, but a nice touch. The wrapping prevents the bone from splitting, which it will want to do, but you can use cord and pitch glue. I suggest staying with natural materials because it's the cool thing to do, but you could make something out of epoxy if you have to.
And the biggest reason for using the wise man's drill ------>
That's about an inch and a half of working drill bit! That's right folks.
With the standard drill bit, you have to find a straight piece that's at least four inches long. Longer is better, but that means you'll probably need to whittle it to a straight-ish shape. And the, once you've got it good and broken in, it becomes too short to use after a few fires.
Because the bone adapter has squared corners, it really grabs the string of your bow - never rounding off or slipping due to a lack of friction.
Because the bone is a larger diameter than the drill bit, the bit will turn more revolutions than the bone does, just like the handle of a screwdriver in relation to the bit of the driver. That means more of your energy is going to the bit and smoke verily jumps from the hearth.
And just to show how fast this is, I made a video. One minute from start to fire, and that would have been shorter if I had had a bit more meat in the hearth board. Anyone know where I can host 324mb of video? It's pretty dang cool, if I do say so myself.
That's it, folks. I hope you enjoyed the read as much as I enjoyed getting back into the game. Stay tuned for more.......
