Two weeks ago my son Nick and I ventured into the Florida scrub with the intent of producing an ember using material from the Florida state tree The Sabal palm. We watched a video of Gundog5 entitled "Bow Drill fire-All Sabal Palm Success". My son said "hey that looks easy I wanna try that" I looked at him and thought to myself "easy my a$$".
Now you see I have never been successful in making fire with the bow drill cause i never really persued it. It always seemed to me like a waste of energy and it was easier to use a Flint & steel, ferro rod, matches or my favorite a Bic lighter. Well, my attitude changed after seeing my son struggle with the bow drill two weeks ago. I felt that I needed to learn this after my son failed and became angry that it didn't work and that it was useless and a waste of time. I went back and researched the web at all the bow drill instructions and videos till I was practically blind lol. There's alot of good info out there BTW.
Well I went out and found some really dry Sabal palm fronds and some dried Brazilian Pepper tree limbs. My plan was to use the Brazilian pepper as a drill and Bow & sabal palm for the hearth and handhold. I found a piece of Brazilian pepper with a nice shallow bend and fashioned it using 550 paracord for the bow string. A straight piece of it became the spindle.
I made a handhold of dry Sabal palm boot and the hearth was a piece of really dry palm frond. My first attempt was a failure after numerous attempts. I took a breather (I was breathless and my old knees were cramped up).
After a 20 min respite I made another divot and notch and gave it a go. I cranked that bow till I almost collapsed and Viola there was a waft of smoke coming from that pile of dust. I almost passed out...I could'nt believe it! MY FIRST EMBER WITH A BOW DRILL!! ESTATIC isn't the word, Happy, Happy, Happy is more like it! At 61 years of age I felt like a youngster with his first real knife!
So far I've been successful at 3 attempts after that first intial success! I have some pix to share...sorry I was solo so I have no pix showing the actual work, only pix of the embers (3 different ones)... some are blurry as I had noodle arms after generating tremendous energy whew!
Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum. My first ember.
Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum. My second ember.
Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum. My third ember.
Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum. My Drill set.
Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum. My Drill set
Thanx for looking!
Dom
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