Salmon Skin Leather Powered Bowdrill

My Youtube Version of my exertions

Since first making salmon skin leather I've had some of the more obvious projects in mind such as pouches and sheaths, but I also had an eye on trying making some cordage to power a bowdrill to get an ember.

 I made two sorts of cordage, one was a strip like a thong and the other was a twisted one which I initially left with some spare to reload and overcome a breakage but latterly I decided to double up for strength, I also fashioned a chunky loop one end to slide onto a bow.. I found myself with some time on my hands and decided to have a crack in the woods and took my camera along. 

I selected a trusty  bowdrill combination of Lime and Hazel for the set, it wasn't a session trying to do a set from scratch or whatever, it was simply an experiment with a view to seeing if salmon cordage could power a set to an ember. Note that there are two drills in the above picture, they are of slightly different diameters because I wanted to be prepared that if I tied the cordage in place and couldn't undo it to make adjustments I had two slightly sized options which may fit.

After a fair bit of fannying around I did the slide test to see that I had the drill locked in. If you can grab the drill and slide it up and down the bow string it isn't in tight enough.

I have to say I was a bit apprehensive and I let my stance and technique become a little tardy and I was rather tentative as I started bedding it in. However so far so good.

After cutting the notch to receive the ember I cut a forty five degree angle on the two bottom edges of the notch, this is something that is usually done in damper conditions but I'd already decied that even if and when I reached the point that I thought a viable ember had formed I was just going to keep going until I couldn't give any more so the potential excess powder had somewhere to go other than out.

And to the final action. I was pleased when I started to get copious dark powder and those satisfying wisps of smoke curling up the drill. You may recall the loop that I put into the twisted cordage, I narrowed the end of the bow to slip it on and drilled a hole at the other end to accomodate using a simple overhand which gave me a fat stopper knot, hence the fact that you can't see any cordage wrapped around the drill in the above picture.

You can also see a lighter area in the middle of the drill, even though it was tight at the start it did  have the occasional slip, I wonder if it's both due to it's slightly elastic nature and the fact that the drill bark, on closer inspection, was a bit smooth and shiny.

I have to say that I was pretty knackered by the time I threw in the towel.

But I'd got sustaining smoke-just. I reckon I must have generated the smallest ever amount of 130 degree viable dust that needed careful nuturing to get it to coalesce into a useable coal.

Having got to the stage where I had a proper coal it would have been silly not to see it out to a proper tinder bundle conclusion.

After a well earned and extended break/ breather for a brew, I can usually talk whilst bowdrilling but as I'd gone hell for leather I was puffing rather a lot, I started to look at the strip of leather setup. Having squeaked a result with the first combination I looked on this a something of a  free hit. The only changes I made was to use two limpit shells as a bearing block as opposed to a wooden one, and I abraded both drills a little to take away the smoothness a tad.

It didn't start particularly well as the cordage snapped near the handle end. I'd tied a small length onto the main piece as I figured the bit where I was holding the drill is unuseable cordage and extending it gave me more working length. 

I drilled a hole in the bow and just used the knot that joined the two pieces as an anchor. Bedding in was going well but then disaster struck and the cordage broke in the middle. I'd got my  answer, twisted cordage was the way forward on any subsequent attempt.

It wasn't the smoothest of bowdrilling sessions ever but having ticked it off I'm in a better position to make any further attempts a bit smoother with a bit of luck.

Suggested Further Reading:-

Bowdrill  and Wood Combinations

Bowdrill From Scratch

Bowdrill (Edited Version)

Firewood Bowdrill Sets

Dave Watson Friction Fire 1-2-1

Jason Ingamells bowdrill 1-2-1

Bowdrill From Scratch

Wood Pile Bowdrill Challenge

A while ago now I challenged myself to make and sucessfully use a Silver Birch bowdrill made from fire wood I had.

Recently I decided to tidy my wood pile up, it's located in my gardena nd is a mix of fire wood from my in-laws (the had a chimney fire and got shot of it), and various a.n.other wood that I've had the fortune to get hold of...A real mix and match.

With the Silver Birch challenge coming to mind plus the lack of recent bowdrill practice I decided to keep an eye out for any decent bits of wood that I could try again with.

Whilst I was involved in Scouting I used to collect every single large and small straight sticks with a view to adding them to my A frame shelter building kit, 

 

Time had taken it's toll on a fair few of them so if they survived a forty five degree pressure bend they lived, if it snapped the bits went into my Frontier stove which was both handy for getting shot of the wood and a source of warmth on a clear but cold winter day. A great excuse to get it out and fired up! I have to say thanks to Canvas Tent Shop who put this up for a prize which I was happy to win.

With bow drill in mind I was obviously keeping an eye out for straight sticks to fashion a drill out of, I actually found some very early ones which in the main were fat, short and rather punky. A bit embaressing to say that I did copious reading before starting my self-taught bowdrill journey.

This discarded spoon blank was an interesting find as it wasn't a bad shape at all and was a puzzle why I'd ditched it half done.

 I'd previously found mice in the pile which made me jump a foot in the air so I was wary of more encounters, but I suspect a Grey Squrirrel had started a midden mound by de-shelling and troughing peanuts in there. Interestingly I don't put nuts in shells on my bird table so a furry-tailed rat must have come from another garden.

A couple of other interesting pauses were to look at a woven Wren's nest that did actually get built in. Apparently males build several nests to attract the ladies and luckily he didn't use this one as it was really near the wood and I needed the shelter stuff for Cubs around that time. The fungus is a Cramp ball which appeared on what is almost certainly Ash whilst it was in the pile. It's a useful  addition to a firelighting kit as it takes a spark well when dry. Upon further examination of the wood it showed a decent colony of them.

Towards the end of my tidy the rain started coming down so I did a bit of a bodge-it set up of my 3 x 3 tarp to finish off, it certainly gave it a bit of a camp feel.

So with the tidy up finished attention turns to the bow drill set. The bow is curved but a bit short and the wood of unknown origin and is powered by the paracord that was securing the wood bundles, the bearing blocks looks to be coniferous and whilst seasoned it is very damp, the drill is almost certainly Hazel and the base Lime which is actually a decent drill/ board combination. 

The set bedded in nicely and smoked well but the board was just the wrong side of punky and two efforts on it resulted in corners pinging off the depression. I wondered as well if the first length of paparcord I used might have been an old worn bowdrill length relegated to stick tying duties as the cordage slipped a few times whilst bowing. I changed it for the second attempt but I ended up with worn cordage which I've put down the the drill being really rough.

I decided to change the key componants completely, I'm fairly sure I found another piece of Lime for the base although not 100% because there wasn't any tell tale bark on this piece like the last, and the drill was again swopped for another Hazel length that had less abrasive bark. I was pleased to get to a sucessful ember but having not practiced in a while I felt my technique rather ring rusty, and videoing it was interesting for me to look at and critique (my eldest son has said that making Youtube videos is very narcissistic!).

I've made a YouTube video from mobile phone footage to go with this blog.

Suggested Further Reading:

Scout Top Trump Bowdrill Card
Bowdrill and Wood Combinations (full version)
Bowdrill (edited version)
Firewood Bowdrills
Bowdrill from scratch in the wild
Fence Post Bowdrill Set

Fence Post Fire by Friction

I got a text a while ago from a Cub leader from my pack asking if I wanted any Cedar wood off cuts from some fence posts that he was putting in. Not so long ago I'd made a viable set out of some Silver Birch firewood so I said yes to see how the wood handles and if it gave me some bow drill sets then all well and good.

 I'd never used Cedar for fire by friction so there was no excuse not to right that. I also had some seasoned Lime that I was going to utilise but as I'd used it before the Cedar jumped the queue.

Well I say jumped the queue, the journey of discovery had to be put on ice for about three weeks due to the fact that I cracked a rib on a water slide during our traditional water night at cubs to end the Summer term, and as I was about to go on a special holiday I had to shelve it.

When I eventually started prepping the wood it was surprisingly easy to split and was a bit Lime like in density, but did have a habit of running off to one side and perhaps it was just me but cutting it seemed to create more than the odd potential splinter.

 

I wouldn't say that I'm the world's greatest carver of wood but I was pleased with my efforts on rounding a rectangular second of Cedar to form the drill which again had a handsome grain.

Whilst I knew the scent would be nice in my garage I have to report that the grain exceeded expectations. It was a good job that it was nice to look at as I felt a slight twinge in my dodgy rib so again I shelved it for a second time.

I had a session of applying pounded Comfrey to my rib and I was then able to get to the business stage of the bow drill set. The set smoked fairly quickly which was encouraging but it didn't go that dark in colour during the bedding in session and I needed to get the drill tip engaged too.

With the light depression colour and the softness of the wood I decided to do a slow and low session of bowing to warm it up. To my surprise the set started chunking out copious amounts of light coloured dust to the point where the notch seemed clogged up and I wondered if it was going to inhibit the ember development. The set really smoked and I was pleased to have a sustaining ember. Note the excess dust around the depression circumference and the light and dark colour of the original and ember material. The smell of the charred drill end was a curious one as it reminded me of somewhere between Christmas and curry powder!

I left the ember to develop and it coalesced into a sturdy one that eventually welded itself to the ember pan. When I create a new ember to record on my labour of love bow drill blog I drop it to see if it is still viable to use after doing so and it was-twice. The first time was on purpose and the wind took it a second time and whilst reduced in size it was still good to go. You can see that the depression did eventually darken.

When I carve a notch in a set to receive the charred dust I flare the bottom edge to make more space, this also helps protect an ember in inclement weather. Well I decided to go for a second attempt and with the dust production I carved the angles a little larger than usual.

As per the first ember it smoked a lot and produced a lot of dust which again is evident around the depression, and goes from chestnut to almost black in and around the ember. The afore mentioned wind was blowing on this coal and you can just see a little smoke ring!.The set queaked during the second attempt which I put down to a slightly smooth drill from the first go so I had to stop to rough up the two surfaces.

I mentioned earlier that the wood felt a bit like Lime in it's consistency, well with the two part attempt on the second ember you can clearly see just how much wear there is  and it goes some way to explaining the amount of dust, so a slow and low start is prudent. Note the splinter sticking up to the left of the set as mentioned before.

Suggested reading:-

Bow drill how to and wood combinations

Bow drill how to (short version)

Fire wood bow drill set

A bow drill from scratch

Fire Wood Bowdrills

My in-laws had a chimney fire last year and the whole episode has put them off a wood burner to the point where they've had a gas fire fitted as a replacement, but who would take all their logs off them, well me of course! I thought I'd lucked out on the first consignment that I had because I found some really impregnated fatwood in it. 

The latest batch arrived and as it was seasoned and dry I decided to prep it and stash it for later use. Most of it was either Lime or Silver Birch with the familiar birch bark in the background, and lime bark under my thumb. This gave me an idea to try and dig out any bits that I could utilise in a bowdrill set.

I've used Lime before and it's a really good wood but Silver Birch was one that I'd not got round to trying so why not make it doubly difficult and use firewood as my set?

The wood was of course going to be of a certain size and the drill was the biggest challenge, in fact I knew that it wouldn't be perfect even once I started working on it. The above picture is after it's had a rough shaping with an axe.

There was also a large knot at one end so I started shaping this to be the top hence the large tapered point, again roughly formed at this stage with a little axe work.

The baseboard was a little easier to sort but still needed a little work to get it to a stage where it didn't rock when placed on the ground. I only shaped one end to receive the drill as I wasn't going to be using the whole length.

 

And so my set was ready. The drill was ever-so-slightly oval with a very slight curve to it but I felt it was still usable...It was going to have to do! I grabbed a bow and it was the one that I used on my first bow drill from scratch in the woods trip. I used a laurel bearing block that I made when I saw Dave Watson for a friction fire 1-2-1 last year. As this was all happening in my back garden I grabbed the first leaf I could reach to lubricate the depression, and I had a faint whiff of Lavender for a while as I started.

The drill wasn't the best as predicted but was still serviceable and the set smoked quickly. I had a quick look at the powder and it was quite needle-like in shape.

I usually cut the fatter part of the notch out with a Swiss Army Knife saw, snap it out, and then finish with a blade. This removes a lot of meat fast bit then allows for a refined and controlled notch apex, if I'd progressed the saw cuts I would have been some way off the centre. 

I was bowing on a sunny/ cloudy day and typically the sun went behind a cloud and the wind picked up at this stage. I thought I'd made an ember but I was mistaken, despite the copious and very dark dust.

I made some adjustments and tightened the bow string a little and the second time saw me hit the jackpot. I wasn't convinced that the ember would sustain as it looked quite small but it persevered.

After a few minutes I tried tipping it onto the baseboard to see just how strong it was, I'd had it on the ember pan a while and it had adhered to/ started burning through it. As the baseboard was Lime it probably helped as the inner bark is good tinder.

That was pleasing to not only crack a new wood combination but to do so from a random load of fire wood. Whilst I was on a roll I decided to put the Lime through it's paces.

I couldn't find any Lime long enough for a drill so I resorted to an old and slightly thin Hazel drill that I'd consigned to my wood pile, as opposed to the slightly substandard Silver Birch one that I'd just used.

I purposely chose a piece of Lime that was slightly warped  just as an additional challenge but had integrity at one end, again I wasn't going to use all of it.

The Lime board did what Lime boards do and bed in really quickly, darkly and smoothly.

And a good ember soon followed. When I tidied the chopped wood away I found some superior Birch sections that I'll make a drill from and try with the Lime another time.

I also found what I think might be a pretty section of fruit wood and a nicely curved piece of Birch for a bit of future spoon carving. A quality afternoon, especially as I could now add another combination to my labour of love bow drill page.