How to Start a Fire Using a Bow-Drill
If your lighter's empty or you just want to be Jeremiah Johnson for a day, try this Native American bow-drill technique.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately challenging
Instructions
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Burning In Your Apparatus
-
1
Make the four pieces of your apparatus (see "How to Make a Bow-Drill," under Related eHows).
-
2
Place your fire board on the dry ground and place your left foot across it to hold it stable, with your right knee on the ground. If you're left-handed, do the reverse.
-
3
Wrap the string of your bow around the spindle once.
-
4
Place the bottom end of the spindle in the notch on your fire board. Hold it in place by putting the top end of the spindle into the handhold notch and pressing down on the handhold.
-
5
Hold one end of the bow in your right hand, with the string side facing inward, toward your left knee.
-
6
Lean down over your left knee and press down slightly on the handhold with your left hand. Move your right arm back and forth in a sawing motion, causing the spindle to spin back and forth.
-
7
Increase the speed of the sawing motion and the intensity of your handhold pressure until the fire board begins to smoke.
-
8
Do this for a while to grease your handhold notch and "burn in" your fire board to prepare your apparatus to start a fire.
Starting Your Fire
-
1
Prepare a small tepee of twigs in your fire pit. Make sure you have enough fuel readily available.
-
2
Gather a palm-sized ball of dry fibrous vegetation, such as dry grass or inner tree bark. Wad the material together to form a nestlike tinder ball.
-
3
Keep your tinder ball near your fire board.
-
4
Place your spindle in its fire board notch.
-
5
Operate your apparatus until your fire board begins to smoke.
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6
Give it about 10 more strokes.
-
7
Lift your apparatus carefully away from the fire board. Notice that a small piece of coal has developed from the wood dust worn off by the action of the spindle.
-
8
Use a small twig to nudge the coal from the fire board into the tinder ball, like an egg in a nest.
-
9
Blow gently on the ball until flames develop.
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10
Place your burning tinder ball inside your twig tepee and carefully fuel your fire.
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1
Tips & Warnings
You only have to burn in your apparatus once.
Make sure you mark your spindle so that the same end is always pointing up.
Always use extreme care when handling fire in the wilderness.
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Comments
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dfanjoy
Sep 08, 2009
I did not get a coal just a fine light brown powder, there was smoke though but the powder wasn't even close to being hot, what was my mistake? I used a dry hard wood for the spindle and a softer dry wood baseboard. Any suggestions?
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Nilescrane
Dec 18, 2006
I DID IT! I discoverered my own mistakes, and learned a few things no one had told me: 1. The spindle should be harder than the fire board. You are trying to make dust of the board, NOT the spindle. I used a poplar spindle and a cedar fireboard. 2. The shape and extent of the notch in the firebord are important. My notch was narrow, V-shaped, and extended less than halfway into the initial burn hole. It helps to burn a hole to the full diameter of the spindle, not just a dimple, before cutting the notch. If the notch extends too deeply into the burn hole, the spindle will get pointier & pointier, and the friction will reduce. The best spindle was basically round on the bottom, sharply pointed at the top. I lubricated the hole in my socket with carnauba wax. 3. I used a 1" thick fireboard. I found that I had to FILL the notch with hot "punk" dust to get it to ignite. A little pile of dust at the bottom of the notch won't ignite-the punk needs to pile up until it is touching the friction point in the hole. 4. The "coal" didn't look red in the notch. When you stop drilling, and a wisp of smoke continues from the pile of punk, it is burning. 5. The Bow. I have seen many illustrations of people uning small bows, but I got better results with a bow 3' long. The short bow seemed to demand more muscular stamina from the arm, back-and-forth. I got more friction by pulling the FULL length of the longer bow aggressively. It also helped to scratch the point of the drill, to roughen it up once. 5. I used oakum (dismantled manilla rope fibers) for the Nest. The "punk" didn't LOOK like a "coal" until I dropped the whole smoking pile into the nest and started blowing on it-then it looked like an "ember". Just when I thought it might go out, the whole nest caught flame!
-
Nilescrane
Dec 18, 2006
I DID IT! I discoverered my own mistakes, and learned a few things no one had told me: 1. The spindle should be harder than the fire board. You are trying to make dust of the board, NOT the spindle. I used a poplar spindle and a cedar fireboard. 2. The shape and extent of the notch in the firebord are important. My notch was narrow, V-shaped, and extended less than halfway into the initial burn hole. It helps to burn a hole to the full diameter of the spindle, not just a dimple, before cutting the notch. If the notch extends too deeply into the burn hole, the spindle will get pointier & pointier, and the friction will reduce. The best spindle was basically round on the bottom, sharply pointed at the top. I lubricated the hole in my socket with carnauba wax. 3. I used a 1" thick fireboard. I found that I had to FILL the notch with hot "punk" dust to get it to ignite. A little pile of dust at the bottom of the notch won't ignite-the punk needs to pile up until it is touching the friction point in the hole. 4. The "coal" didn't look red in the notch. When you stop drilling, and a wisp of smoke continues from the pile of punk, it is burning. 5. The Bow. I have seen many illustrations of people uning small bows, but I got better results with a bow 3' long. The short bow seemed to demand more muscular stamina from the arm, back-and-forth. I got more friction by pulling the FULL length of the longer bow aggressively. It also helped to scratch the point of the drill, to roughen it up once. 5. I used oakum (dismantled manilla rope fibers) for the Nest. The "punk" didn't LOOK like a "coal" until I dropped the whole smoking pile into the nest and started blowing on it-then it looked like an "ember". Just when I thought it might go out, the whole nest caught flame!
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Nilescrane
Dec 13, 2006
I have it all down pretty good, bow, spindle, "chimney" notch, etc, but the problem I have is in getting the black dust to IGNITE into a coal. I am using a spindle of oak, and a fireboard of pine or cedar. Sometimes, I drill all the way through the fireboard to the ground, lots of smoke, black dust, no coal. Wht hardness of wood should the spindle & notch be of? How hard do you have to press? Help appreciated.
-
Nilescrane
Dec 13, 2006
I have it all down pretty good, bow, spindle, "chimney" notch, etc, but the problem I have is in getting the black dust to IGNITE into a coal. I am using a spindle of oak, and a fireboard of pine or cedar. Sometimes, I drill all the way through the fireboard to the ground, lots of smoke, black dust, no coal. Wht hardness of wood should the spindle & notch be of? How hard do you have to press? Help appreciated.
