Day 4: Creating A Bow Drill Fire
Bow Drills: Bow drills at first seem like an insurmountable task. But with patience and practice they can reliably start fires every single time. Bow drills have the best mechanical advantage of all of the friction fire sets. My personal favorite is the Egyptian bow drill method. The reason it is so effective is because it works great with 550 cord, shoelaces, and modern string that everyone wears on their person at all times in the form of the bottom of a shirt, or shoelaces, or purse strings. The Egyptian bow drill set consists of five items: string, a bow that is kind of straight, a spindle that is as straight as possible, a socket and a hearth board.
To make an Egyptian set you find a greenstick about thumb width, preferably something springy like willow. I like to fire Harden My bow later on after the first fire has been created. To make the bow you skin the bark off of your bow stick then there are many ways that you can add a string to a stick. I like to create a figure 8 knot and slip it over the top of the stick then create a divot at the bottom of the stick where your hand rides and wrap it a bunch of times then Tuck the string inside of it. This gives me the ability to quickly adjust the tension for each different sized spindle as the string stretches.
Next you create a similar diameter spindle from an extremely dry and mostly straight stick. I like to say you can cut a banana straight to give the best visual on how to do this. Don't be afraid of taking a lot of material off of the spindle because it has to be straight. When it rolls on your Hearth Board, it needs to roll like a marble across a clean floor.
Next you make the Hearth board, the Hearth board is basically a 2x4 shaped board, about the thickness of your spindle. Lastly you need a socket on top of your spindle. This can be many things. I really like to use the brass bowl-shaped divot inside of my knife as a spindle socket. You can however use a little chunk of wood from the upper portion of the creation of your Hearth board as a temporary socket. The key is as little friction on the socket on top and as much friction on the Health Board as possible. One way to achieve this is to put green leafy material, maybe a bug or something slick on the top between your socket and spindle. Otherwise you will find yourself busting a coal on the socket instead of the Hearth board. This is a skill that is best learned from a friend who knows how to do it in person, however once learned and repeated on your own is something no one can ever take from you. Because knowledge weighs nothing.
