mayfly.net

I recently made fire by friction using a bow drill. You can see what I mean by reading this explanation or consider the history of the technique on the excellent Pitt Rivers Museum web site.

Anyway, the 4 stages in the picture are, from the left:

1. First attempt. Lots of stop and start drilling. I got a very small ember but couldn’t keep it alight 🙁
2. I didn’t bed in the drill enough and it kept jumping out, so abandoned 🙁
3. I got a nice ember, but my tinder wouldn’t take, I think it was too damp 🙁
4. I took a break, dried the tinder thoroughly, got a nice ember and this time the tinder took fine – success!! :))

I was using a bought drill set from Dave Watson and got help from the excellent folks on the BCUK forum. Having figured out all the different wood I was using, and seen how the various pieces fit together, I should be able to move on from here to making my own set from what I can find, which is the real trick.

This was immensely satisfying!

Been getting into two forums recently that seem to be very friendly and highly informative. Song of the Paddle and Bushcraft UK. So here’s a plug – try these places if you like the outdoors.

“In two decades a quarter of a million farm hands were made redundant and replaced by machines. Their cottages went to the retired people, the weekenders, the executives who motor 25 miles to the industrial estate, the computer consultant who sits in the old parlour and communicates electronically.”

Went fishing in British Columbia during the Vancouver thing. Spectacular all round!

I share of lot of Jack Hargreaves‘ ideas about the ‘country’. It is encouraging to know he is regarded as the patron saint of sheds. An extract from the FAQ for uk.rec.sheds reads “Heroes? Our patron saint is Jack Hargreaves, who used to introduce the TV show ‘Out Of Town’ from an amazing shed full of obscure tools which might well come in useful one day.” From Jack’s Back. I’m told the box set of ‘Out of Town’ DVDs is coming up. I can’t wait!