Practical Tips for Making Friction Fires

[Music] periods of history are often defined by the technological advancements of the particular era probably the most significant and influential of all these technologies was the ability to create and control fire a burning campfire eventually led to rockets going into outer space and the energy that gives life to the screen you're looking at right now but making fire the primitive way is no easy task for today's highly processed and refined human even for me the quest to make fire has been a long and frustrating road but after a lot of attempts and many many failures and with some good instruction from expert fire makers i finally have learned enough to be quite proficient at this craft now i want to share some tips i've learned and help you avoid my many mistakes i've brought with me a small collection of fire making tools most of these pieces are spindles of different types of wood that i've experimented with and all of these spindles have produced an ember in the past inside this yucca container i have a few stones one of which i use is the bearing block for the bow drill i found this stone on a beach and it already had this divot i'm going to begin with the bow drill method i believe that the bow drill is the easiest way to create friction fire it isn't primitive because it is quite mechanical but the bow drill is a good way to practice with different materials and to learn how to make an effective notch first i'm going to lay out all my materials this bow is made of a fairly strong branch that is naturally curved i'm using a thin strip of buckskin as the cord but strong cordage could be used as well i suggest using paracord to practice because it is nearly indestructible using natural cordage is a little challenging because the heat from the friction tends to burn and break the cordage for the hearth board i have a piece of wood of medium hardness that i found in the desert i don't know what kind of wood it is though with this style of hearthboard i need something to catch the ember so i'm placing a thin piece of yucca stock under the hole now this hearthboard has obviously been used several times and i can still use one of the holes that was previously drilled i'm making sure that the strip of buckskin is securely tied to one end of the bow then i select a spindle and this spindle is then wrapped with the buck skin strap once near the blunt end in this case the wood is a branch from a juniper tree i pulled the other end of the cord fairly tight and then secure it by wrapping it several times around the end i want it to be tight enough to securely hold the spindle but not so tight that it won't spin then the stone bearing block will be placed on the pointed end of the spindle notice that the spindle is thicker at the blunt end which is where the friction of the drilling will occur i place the heel of my foot on the hearth board next to the hole i'm going to drill this allows me to press my left hand against my leg to help keep the spindle steady with the blunt end of the spindle placed in the hole i then slowly begin to drill by moving the bow back and forth in the beginning i use very little pressure and just do slow smooth strokes to build up a pile of fine dust notice how my forearm is pressed against my leg to help keep the spindle steady being in a comfortable position that allows you to press down on the spindle is very important for success in the beginning notice the size of the opening in the notch when i was first learning this method i always made the notch too narrow the problem with a narrow notch is that the dust doesn't fall out and accumulate into a pile it is very important to make the opening of the notch large enough for the powder to pile up next to the hole slowly i begin to increase the speed and a little smoke can now be seen now i also begin to add more pressure on the top of the spindle when the pile of dust is above the bottom of the spindle and more smoke is being produced then i increase the speed and apply even more pressure on the bearing stone from my experience the bottom of the spindle must be touching the pile of powder in order to ignite it and that is an ember produced with the bow drill using juniper as the spindle depending on the type of wood size of the ember and the amount of wind an ember could potentially burn for several minutes so there is no rush to transfer it into the tinder bundle for this demonstration i'm going to use a technique that my friend chad keel taught me to propagate an ember by transferring the heat to a piece of punky wood like this soft yucca stock material you can create several embers from one and this is a good way to have a backup in case the first ember burns out too soon the real key to successful friction fire with the bow drill method is to understand the basic principles and then practice practice and practice it is especially important to practice with a variety of materials my very first ember was produced with a flannel bush spindle on a poplar hearthboard several years ago now i'm going to put away the bowdrill and i'm going to attempt the much more difficult hand drill after i learned the bow drill method i only practiced the hand drill on a few occasions and found it to be just so difficult i didn't think i would ever learn but then i was inspired when i attended a survival skills workshop called nature reconnection led by chad kio and riza alabakshi it was the first time that i watched someone do it live right in front of me and then i tried it while chad coached me and surely enough i produced my first ember with a hand drill since then i've successfully done it over and over many times and with a variety of different materials nonetheless with the hand drill you don't have the mechanical advantage that the bow drill gives you so the selection of materials is more important especially when first learning for the hearth board i'm using a flower stock of a plant called parinolina which is a low density wood that produces good powder the spindle is a long fairly straight branch but i'm not sure what kind it is the advantage of the hand drill is that you only need two pieces of wood and it doesn't require any assembly unlike the bow drill which is composed of several mechanical pieces that must all function properly to be successful i'm placing my knees on the ends of the heartboard which actually feels awkward to me so i'm not sure i'll be successful but i'll try just like with the bow drill i start slow and just build up a pile of dust at first the problem with this posture for me is that i'm not able to lean my body weight into the spindle for pressure i also can't roll the spindle very far down while in this position so you can see that the stick is wobbling a little at the top this is because it isn't perfectly straight and it is quite long a shorter stick would be easier to use nonetheless i am able to produce some smoke already towards the end when you really need to increase the speed of the rotation this is when the mechanical advantage of the bow drill is apparent unfortunately my efforts failed in this attempt there are big man-eating flies out here in this desert and one just bit me it's time to start over with a new heart board collected this dry flower stalk from a perinolina plant and now i'm going to use stones to cut and shape it to prepare it for making fire any stone with an acute edge will work to cut this material so [Applause] as you can see this piece is twice as long as the other hearthboard now i want to flatten the top and bottom uh now i am carving a shallow hole to place the spindle by performing the hand drill i can make the hole deeper so now i'm carving a v-shaped notch that will open up the hole the size of the notch is really important too small and the powder won't fall out too big and even the spindle will fall out it's crucial to pay close attention to the size of the notch a good rule is to make the notch about the same width as the hole and cut straight lines that meet just before the center of the hole so just about any flat material will work to receive an ember you can see how the powder freely falls and collects below i'm having some trouble with the spindle not spinning smoothly it seems to happen when i stop and restart after changing the camera angles [Music] the problem could also be that i'm not comfortable in this position uh this stick is a little crooked and that may also be causing a problem this mule fat stick appears to be straighter mule fat is a great material for friction fires because it has a pythi core that ignites easier than harder woods now the problem is that i've already drilled all the way through the hearth board this is when frustration can easily take over but it's important to realize that there is a way i just have to try a different approach and find the way so now i'm preparing another hole and notch okay now i'm ready for a third attempt at the hand drill i'm still having trouble with the spindle not spinning smoothly however i'm using a posture that is more comfortable and allows me to press my body weight down on the spindle as i'm drilling i'm going to try a third piece of wood as a spindle first i just sand away the charred end i think that this is another piece of mule fat but it's a shorter stick and that gives me more control i've already got a nice pile of dust and it is spinning well you can even hear the sound of dust forming from the friction clumps of powder freely pour out and now the spindle is below the top of the pile powder so it's time to drill faster and create a hot ember the ember is already smoking hot and this is a successful hand drill i could just dump the ember into a bundle of tinder but i really like transferring the amber to the spongy yucca stock material first once the ember is enclosed in the tinder bundle there is no hurry to create fire it's good to wait and allow the heat to expand and then gently blow on it to summon the fire and most importantly please be very careful when you practice making fires and be sure not to allow embers or flames to ignite surrounding vegetation especially in very dry areas like this i hope this instructional video has been useful and helps you to be successful with friction fires [Music] you