- Joined
- Mar 15, 2000
- Messages
- 45,835
At the Beckerhead Gathering, I elected to watch Moose use my bow-drill kit to make a fire rather than try myself. And I'm glad I did. I learned a lot.
Probably the two biggest things I learned are:
(1) You have to fill up your notch and get a good smoke going, but you don't have to go overboard with the spinning.
(2) In my past attempts, I probably had a bunch of coals but just didn't know it. I was always looking for a glow. The pile doesn't have to glow at first.
I watched Moose light up several coals, and in appearance, they first looked like piles of charred dust. But... they were smoking.
Moose would wave his hand back and forth over them, and the charred piles would come to life.
So with some cedar I grabbed back in hunting season, I made up a quick kit this morning, using my BK-2.
Here's the burn-in of the hearth board.
Notched (and back cut).
Every durn thing around my back yard is green, so I thought, What the heck. I'll try some dryer lint.
Following Moose's lead, I popped a coal right out of the box. It didn't take long at all.
I kept it smoking and dumped it over into my lint ball. After a little blowing, I had a very nice coal going.
But sadly, that was it. I blew that coal six ways to Sunday, and I kept it going for a long time.
I tried breaking up some little fibers of the lint and feeding them to the coal. But no luck.
I'll give it a go soon with some better tinder. Thanks to Moose's tutorial at the Gathering, however, I'm a lot more confident about producing a coal. Thanks Moose! :thumbup:
Probably the two biggest things I learned are:
(1) You have to fill up your notch and get a good smoke going, but you don't have to go overboard with the spinning.
(2) In my past attempts, I probably had a bunch of coals but just didn't know it. I was always looking for a glow. The pile doesn't have to glow at first.
I watched Moose light up several coals, and in appearance, they first looked like piles of charred dust. But... they were smoking.
Moose would wave his hand back and forth over them, and the charred piles would come to life.
So with some cedar I grabbed back in hunting season, I made up a quick kit this morning, using my BK-2.
Here's the burn-in of the hearth board.
Notched (and back cut).
Every durn thing around my back yard is green, so I thought, What the heck. I'll try some dryer lint.
Following Moose's lead, I popped a coal right out of the box. It didn't take long at all.
I kept it smoking and dumped it over into my lint ball. After a little blowing, I had a very nice coal going.
But sadly, that was it. I blew that coal six ways to Sunday, and I kept it going for a long time.
I tried breaking up some little fibers of the lint and feeding them to the coal. But no luck.
I'll give it a go soon with some better tinder. Thanks to Moose's tutorial at the Gathering, however, I'm a lot more confident about producing a coal. Thanks Moose! :thumbup:
