Codger_64
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- Joined
- Oct 8, 2004
- Messages
- 62,217
This past week we have had some excellent posts on using the fire bow by aaronjayl and Rescue Mike. So I thought I'd add a list of the more well known methods we have discussed in the past.
1. Fire bow and drill - Materials are easily obtainable in most environments, though the preparations of the components do take some time. It seems to me to be one of the easiest mastered methods. The hand drill is a variant of this. I've never tried it, but have seen it demonstrated.
http://www.wwmag.net/handrill.htm
2. Fire piston - Another easily mastered method, construction of a working piston in a survival situation would be possible, but difficult and time consuming due to the close tolerences required in order to get sufficient compression for ignition. Burma and Borneo are cited as examples of the origin of this one.
http://www.onagocag.com/piston.html
3. Flint and steel - This method is easily mastered if the materials are at hand. A lot of indiginous rocks will function as a flint (best "nodes" of true flint come from Europe and the British Isles). This works great if you have access to iron. It can be done with just the rocks, but it is a lot harder to do.
4. Fire plow - This is a method seldom mentioned here. It can be daunting, but is doable after some practice. Here is an illustrated article from Wilderness Way Magazine:
http://www.wwmag.net/fireplow.htm
5. Fire cord - Never seen this mentioned here. A vine, rope, or cord is rapidly drawn through a notch in wood.
http://www.primitiveways.com/fire.html
6. Magnifying glass - This one isn't ancient, I dont think, since it is dependent upon having a ground glass lens. I've heard of it done using formed clear ice, but I dunno about that. I am reminded of a movie, "The Gods must be crazy", where a coke bottle thrown from a passing airplane starts a fire from the sun.
What am I missing guys? I tried to leave out chemicals, batteries, Zippos, mag blocks, matches, bics, etc. Those all require modern manufactured materials.
Codger
1. Fire bow and drill - Materials are easily obtainable in most environments, though the preparations of the components do take some time. It seems to me to be one of the easiest mastered methods. The hand drill is a variant of this. I've never tried it, but have seen it demonstrated.
http://www.wwmag.net/handrill.htm
2. Fire piston - Another easily mastered method, construction of a working piston in a survival situation would be possible, but difficult and time consuming due to the close tolerences required in order to get sufficient compression for ignition. Burma and Borneo are cited as examples of the origin of this one.
http://www.onagocag.com/piston.html
3. Flint and steel - This method is easily mastered if the materials are at hand. A lot of indiginous rocks will function as a flint (best "nodes" of true flint come from Europe and the British Isles). This works great if you have access to iron. It can be done with just the rocks, but it is a lot harder to do.
4. Fire plow - This is a method seldom mentioned here. It can be daunting, but is doable after some practice. Here is an illustrated article from Wilderness Way Magazine:
http://www.wwmag.net/fireplow.htm
5. Fire cord - Never seen this mentioned here. A vine, rope, or cord is rapidly drawn through a notch in wood.
http://www.primitiveways.com/fire.html
6. Magnifying glass - This one isn't ancient, I dont think, since it is dependent upon having a ground glass lens. I've heard of it done using formed clear ice, but I dunno about that. I am reminded of a movie, "The Gods must be crazy", where a coke bottle thrown from a passing airplane starts a fire from the sun.
What am I missing guys? I tried to leave out chemicals, batteries, Zippos, mag blocks, matches, bics, etc. Those all require modern manufactured materials.
Codger
