This thing is a monster. My machax and my bowsaw had a filling meal at the Wood Processing In The Woods Buffet tonight. THis is the firepit in my backyard, it's about 3-4' in diameter.
I've never tried the upside down pyramid fire building technique before and wanted to give it a go. The bottom logs are 5-6" in diameter or so. Everything was cut with the bow saw and the Machax, including batoning with the Machax. This entire stack is 3-4' tall from the bottom of the firepit. The idea of this method is to lay out the largest logs at the bottom. Then the next largest go side-by-side on top, perpendicular to the previous layer. Each layer is smaller than, and perpendicular to, the previous layer. Then have a tinder bundle and a kindling teepee at the top.
I lit a tinder bundle composed of birch bark, pine boughs, and a small piece of charcloth I'd made. I ignited it with a ferro rod.
20 minutes or so in, and you can see the coals starting to drop and ignite the larger wood underneath.
The above is 45 minutes in. I still haven't touched the fire at all.
This was my mistake, I put wet, almost rotting pine at the bottom, but it dried quickly and ignited faster than the 2 layers of ash above the fire, thereby burning the higher layers more quickly. As it was the fire lasted about 3 hours, so we ended up putting more logs on to burn. But wow, what a bed of coals!
All in all a great night, we went through 2 bottles of my Blackberry Cyser, 1 bottle of Elder Mead, and a bottle of Chaga Pyment. A good time was had by all.
I've never tried the upside down pyramid fire building technique before and wanted to give it a go. The bottom logs are 5-6" in diameter or so. Everything was cut with the bow saw and the Machax, including batoning with the Machax. This entire stack is 3-4' tall from the bottom of the firepit. The idea of this method is to lay out the largest logs at the bottom. Then the next largest go side-by-side on top, perpendicular to the previous layer. Each layer is smaller than, and perpendicular to, the previous layer. Then have a tinder bundle and a kindling teepee at the top.
I lit a tinder bundle composed of birch bark, pine boughs, and a small piece of charcloth I'd made. I ignited it with a ferro rod.
20 minutes or so in, and you can see the coals starting to drop and ignite the larger wood underneath.
The above is 45 minutes in. I still haven't touched the fire at all.
This was my mistake, I put wet, almost rotting pine at the bottom, but it dried quickly and ignited faster than the 2 layers of ash above the fire, thereby burning the higher layers more quickly. As it was the fire lasted about 3 hours, so we ended up putting more logs on to burn. But wow, what a bed of coals!
All in all a great night, we went through 2 bottles of my Blackberry Cyser, 1 bottle of Elder Mead, and a bottle of Chaga Pyment. A good time was had by all.
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