Bamboo fire saw for Tokwan
In a thread a couple of weeks ago, Tokwan and I were discussing the bamboo fire saw. It rekindled my desire to get a flame by this method and so I went out to accomplish it. Its been a couple of years since I last attempted it so I pick up some bamboo I had stored away and gave it a shot. After several minutes of fumbling around making the set and sawing, I blew an ember to flame.
I'll try to post the video up tomorrow sometime.
Bamboo in wild versus urban
Very good video and technique. If you had not mentioned it I would have assumed you were "off your mark" intentionally to keep your face out of the video.
This video does bring up an interesting point: In the many wild areas I mostly see very thin bamboo less than 1/2" diameter that gets frozen down to the ground in the winter but in city areas there are stands of much thicker bamboo 2" or more in diameter. This invasive, non-native weed is very useful for many things, shoots are edible etc. Probably a good thing larger varieties are not growing wild in most wilderness areas, but I wonder if the slightly warmer temps in cities protect it or just that people planted these species there.
Other thought is that if you bundled several thin canes together and rubbed, would it work almost as well as one large thick split cane, just as long as it was dry not green. Anyway your video was very helpful, whether I am successful like you or not the physical activity will surely warm me up. ;-)