Yucca and Cedar- New favorite bowdrill combo!

[Md 25v]

I have been really impressed lately with Yucca's ability to make friction fires with the least effort of and material I have tried. The only problem is that Yucca is not very dense so I usually get only one or two coals per hole before it is time to drill another one. All the drilling, burning in, notching was getting annoying so I have been trying other spindle and baseboard combos with Yucca. So far my observations are that Eastern Red Cedar and common Willow make the best base boards when paired with a Yucca spindle. They are a bit harder than the Yucca so it takes a long time for the Yucca spindle to bore through the baseboard but they are not so hard that they cause the friction point on the spindle to become polished, even with light pressure and high speed. This translates to easier coals, especially when teaching beginners.

Here is the tinder bundle we started out with. It is some of the outer most bark from a dead Cedar tree. Rolling it, like in the video, is all that is needed for tinder prep. Notice all the dry dust falling out by the end.


[youtube]1RPM4cClpWk[/youtube]



Once you have your tinder prepared you are almost guaranteed fire with this combo. I was camping with BF member duzzy this weekend and he made his first friction fire in less than five minutes from the bark being pulled off the tree. Here is my breakfast camp fire from this morning being started with the Yucca/Cedar bow set.


[youtube]hwnUfX6PumQ[/youtube]

 

[kgd]

Hey, I never actually thought of placing the tinder bundle under the hearth like that. As long as your bundle doesn't draw up moisture from the ground it should work. Will try that out next time. Good idea!

 

[Md 25v]

Hey, I never actually thought of placing the tinder bundle under the hearth like that.

That's the way I was taught as a kid.
It seems to me that making your coal on something else, just to transfer it to the tinder pile is an unnecessary extra step. As long as you can find a dry spot to set the tinder pile you should be good and that shouldn't be an issue since your tinder pile should be set somewhere dry even if you plan to transfer the coal into it. I never really thought about it but now that you mention it I don't really recall seeing other people on WSS doing it this way either. Different strokes

 

[ROCK6]

That's the way I was taught as a kid.
It seems to me that making your coal on something else, just to transfer it to the tinder pile is an unnecessary extra step.

You know, I've actually failed at transfering the coal before (dropping it) and lost the coal. It does make pretty good sense to put your tinder below the notch to catch the coal or make the transfer much easier...

ROCK6

 

[omniviking]

good job.

could always have something thin under the whole pile to catch/ hold everything.

 

[kgd]

I worked up a coal today on some phragmites and it worked great!. Will be playing this one out into the future. Thanks for the tip!