Making a Bowdrill Fire

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Video Transcription

a submission dated survival today we're gonna talk about the bold robe and proper form don't go away okay so I'm cutting my depression I always cut away for myself

I just make you two cuts away for myself like this I keep going around in a circle and when I'm cutting into the grain like that it tends to bind up cuz it greens running this way and it doesn't cut as well so then I'll just switch to my left hand yeah so you see that how it takes that corner really nice like right there catches the green so I get these little burrs again I just switch to my left hand just takes them right off simple stuff so saw how I make my depression just go around and like a glancing cut well I'm almost scraping it instead of cutting it I should do it okay so all I did we'll just get the whole started now okay so I just have to carve my notch right yeah so I'm gonna go right in the middle no it says my cut line cut in a little more I'm gonna cut into it on each side sorry I didn't realize I was slightly out of frame and again so what I'm looking at okay I'm gonna go further in from and just do the exact same thing so I'm going to get it a little further or not all the way to the middle but a tiny bit more like to go about halfway around there this is a little seashell that's almost there now I don't I don't want to make it too much water so I need to have these this front Ridge right here needs to exist to stop the drill from flying out it's something to be very careful

well now going to wide on here it'll be nothing stopping it from from coming out in the front so I'm not gonna go here and go wider I'm gonna go inside my V cut deeper in this way let's clean it up a little bit okay sound further in again I'm just trying to make a place for the dust that you saw built up all around to fall out and collect in one spot so now what I like to do is cut this in this angle back here what that allows is a wider base so it's not just a thin column holding up the Ember so I just basically just go like this so yeah let's do it on both sides okay

that will do you don't think oh you know over analyzing this too much I just want a wider base that I do then I do the top and I want to go about half way in and I want to make sure I still have some front edges here so I don't want to go too wide

using a leaf see across my desk oh I also took the dust that was around my rim from burning in the hole and I already added it to the pile I was using Greenleaf in this case sassafras which is actually the best green leaf that I know to lubricate my eye socket on my handle reason why I think it's the best is because when it breaks down when it gets crushed it has a clear Mew solution take a slime that comes out perfect of this

think Maryse

so I kept my spindle in my pocket with the point of contact facing out so I put it on the ground to get moisture or anything like that so when I'm done yeah in between throwing my pocket piecing out sort of to cook any moisture little details like that really add up okay

so it's smoking on its own so that's my amber

and try to get this one frame apologize I'm not

they had it it's safe to hold it's safe

okay so let's talk about a few things so what I like to do is have my knotch and drops the dust fall towards me not away from me okay reason why I like to do that is I find that I can see when my knotch is building up with powder because it's facing me I don't have to lean forward and try to change you know I ended up changing my angle to lean forward to see better so let me show you so say I'm I'm doing my thing looking like this right and I want to see if I'm filling up a dust I'm gonna lean forward to check and what does it do in my spindle changes the angle in my spindle okay so that's why I have this coming towards me now let's talk about form real quick form really breaks down into three categories

so breaks down of three categories you have your body form you have your hand form and you have your spindle form alright so basically the way that body form works

is

when I'm over my heart here what I like to do is make an imaginary centerline sell anti-gravity going right through the middle of my hole okay so right through the middle of my hole and it goes all the way past me on both sides so basically my front foot stops me from falling forward off my center of gravity my knee is on the right-hand side of my center of gravity stopping me from falling this way and my back foot I actually swing it around so my toes are on the left side of my center of gravity so what that does is it creates a stable tripod so I can't fall to the right my back foot it stopped me from falling to the left okay so I'm stable this way and my front foot soft me from going forward and my back foot in my knee also stopped me from going backwards okay so I have this really stable foundation okay that's correct body form now the reason why you want to have correct body form is basically it's it conserves your calories and it allows you to focus on the job that you're doing which is trying to create an ember you're not trying to hold your balance you're not trying to do anything else let's just put it that way you know if you're constantly catching your balance or you know trying to gyrate get everything just right finding the right spot you're wasting energy you're wasting time you're you're not focused on what's important so you need to fix that first okay so this allows me to be nice and solid or I can just sit here and go as long as necessary that's important because you don't want your form to hold you back from getting an ember all right or your form has failed you okay so that's the first thing that's my body form so three pieces tripod center of gravity through my socket and I make a tripod okay now the next thing is my hands my hands form

you lost my hand my handle right is basically my left hand being against my shin and I want it to basically be stable and not have any angles because if it's gyrating a rocking ain't on you no rocking and all that stuff it's gonna create friction on the other side and again what am i doing I'm a machine that's off-balance

I'm inefficient I'm wasting energy and I'm paying attention to fixing that instead of paying attention to watching if my my notches filled with dust so I can hit it with more speed and pressure at the end to create that friction temperature that reaches ignition on the powder okay now the other side of hands that's right bill the Sun hands to my right hand on my bow I want that to be pretty level you know I really don't want to be up and down because if you're not level then now I'm gonna be hitting the ground you know I'm gonna be striking the ground here trekking my leg got the pin pull the opposite hitting my hand scraping my knuckles against the ground and now my string is gonna start riding up and down my spindle now I have to pay attention to that while I'm doing all this other action and what does that do throws off my kilter again I'm I'm off balance I'm wasting my focus okay it's very important to have things locked down you know my handles a little backwards hey I gotta get this right okay my holes not centered so I have to get my hand hole just right all right and the last thing they have to get formed on your form rather you just spin the form you want to be absolutely plumb - your socket you don't want to have any angles nothing like that completely plump what that does is it creates the most friction it's all the downward pressure and all the growth rings are working against each other instead of glancing off okay you don't want to be going you know at a awkward direction kind of throw everything else off and it's gonna limit your friction don't even be straight down want everything to be rubbing as much as possible okay now what I do is I just go pretty easy not really easy but medium for me nice long strokes you guys saw me just a minute ago and without a woman what that allows the troll stop cruising dust okay and I don't have a ton of pressure but I have again medium crusher medium speed that's how I like to run at first and it will heat it heat this up and fill it up with dust and as I see it start to fill up with dust and the dust starts piling up around the socket around my around my drill because the the notch is completely full has nowhere else to go then I pour on speed which you guys saw me do and I pour on pressure and I just hammer you know and I just I don't know maybe go 20 times 15 times after that I don't like to put a number on top you know I like to go as long as this is necessary

let's put it that way that's what's important you know it's not like a science all you go 15 times you're done too many variables involved okay so this is what I mean nice and strong right right of center of gravity left of center of gravity and I'm plum okay start off just to get going not a medium speed to get myself plum like a sit here pretty much it did you - gonna gotta amber again how just showing you guys that I met but again where's my spindle go in my pocket facing out

then I'll remember again I apologize for the dirt bikes in the background I'm in common ground right now I'm not private okay CeCe again we have the buildup of powder on the outside that's because it fill up the the knotch so had nowhere else to go okay now this is a eastern white pine spindle eastern white pine hearth took it from a dead standing pine and as you might notice this is brown dust so yes brown dust works okay not just black dust brown dust works yes talk about the hand hold real quick it's just a round piece of lumber yeah branch and I just drilled through with my knife you can see the green material that I put in there so again I like to use sassafras and really you know you can use anything anything that's completely alive in green I always like to use something that's you know better if not you know I'm not gonna use poison ivy you know how many's maple leaves birch leaves if I can find sassafras like I said I think that's the best she creates like a grease inside there so let me get some sassafras I'll crush it up I'll show you what I mean okay so I stab a few piece of success for us here here's the Trident I have another video talking about sassafras so you shot a note I'm talking though

basically I would just take one of these leaves put it in my hand hold like that let me see if I can show you there you see it like a gel so again it creates like this really slimy substance and I think it's just awesome the bones will have handles guest:i with the spindle now spindle about that long about some thickness maybe a little more I'm a pretty big guy I'm like sixth floor so I like a big set some of my friends use small sets or small guys they can get away with that and I carved this so it's rounded really easy to carve that way you basically just make a a kind of cut point but you don't make it very long you just make a short point and then you just take off the point itself and you keep doing that cut it down until it's like a rounded rounded top the other side is they look almost identical it's the pointed side now what I do is on on this side though I make sure that my first cut see right here the all line up see how this one's higher then this one's lower you can't do that on this side you can't mess around with that all your cuts have to be the same height going around and what that creates is is something that curves all at the same place and it's very even and very tidy and it just it seems to work every time when I do it that way I won't have it like this the edge of my of my friction source is in a different place and it's just inefficient and doesn't create as much friction that's a real big tip that most guys don't mention I've never seen that mentioned there's another thing I never carve it's smooth see how it's smooth right here I didn't do that that's for my string you can see the angles I left so when I carve my spindle I literally just spin it carve it just like this you can even see is my cuts splenic quarter-turn call it a turn I like having those those ridges on there because when it gets really smooth your string tends to slip you're in big trouble when that happens then you basically have to reshape your spindle and change the tightness of your bow so what the heart's real quick basically I carve it down just what I wanted I don't do the whole batani splitting thing where you put your knife on the side of a side of a branch or lug and you just bash through it I find that creates irregularities it splits apart the green

it adds twists which is the worst because then your board isn't very flat this one actually isn't very flat either but it's not that bad though I mean you know I find where it's take huge huge turns and you don't want that just the flat part of the board right here which is why I used it now I like a nice flat box and step on it everything's just the way it should be it's not lifted up you know step on it I can try to drill into here because now your drawers to be sideways right so everything's flat everything's going straight down everything's completely plumb just works works really well that way so I got two members out of this hole and it's got two members out of this hole and I still have a little left on each you know if I really wanted to blast it I might be able to get a third ember out of both of these still a lot of embers left in this but I get two out of each hole that's very common for me and I think that's really important to you know conserve your resources and if you find out a bow-drill kit that works make sure you get the most out of it right so I just doubled my fires out of this yeah this is eastern white pine it does have a little resin content in it that's why you heard of screeching a little bit you can usually see it in your socket there it is right there to see the resin content there's a little band of it going around so well my drill goes through there it squeaks a little bit but don't don't just give up keep going because as you can see I just went right through and I kept going to I made embers same thing here you guys heard that was right there there's that band of resin right there from the pine but it was a small piece it's a very light doesn't smell very turpentine you know it passed the fingernail test or it makes it dead right so you can use pine it makes brown dust but as you can see it clearly works okay so the bow now this isn't necessary if I'm gonna make a bowl I'm used more than once as you tend to put a little bit of work into it I just carved a notch a stop cut right up here he's two half hitches like my branch to be basically straight this has a tiny bit of curve I'm liking it and on this side I'll undo this so you guys can see I'd like to cut my cord obviously most guys don't I'm gonna make a really nice bow I'm gonna use over and over and over what I do is I carve another stop cut right here for my string to wrap around just like that and I keep going and I finish it off this is how I finish it off you know just like you let like like all of us do really put your finger over it I just do a tuck put underneath pull through just inches on itself it's almost like a clove hitch okay so the other thing I do is not only do I put a notch in here I also cut a notch this way

like a ridge like up like a path so the string lays right into here and gets caught on this 90-degree angle right there and it just holds it perfectly you all lose tension on this just something I figured out along the way okay so this is actually my third ember with the same hole now and I got this idea to get this angle for you guys so I came back out here and I just wanted to get a close-up of the spindle spinning and I hit a large patch of resin in the wood well you know if you just keep at it

you can still persevere through resin you know if it's squeaking it's not always a hundred percent I'm gonna fail you know there's still a chance that you can succeed this is a as you can see this is a good Ember right here it wasn't an easy one but I was able to force it because my technique was there again brown dust so that that's not always an indicator it's two things here to learn Brown dust isn't always an indicator of failure and a squeaky bow drill isn't always an indicator of failure either so keep at it I owe some admission data survival thanks for joining me today on using the bow drill and proper form as always I appreciate your views your comments and your support and see you guys the next one take care you