Choosing The Right Wood For Bow Drill, 8 Things To Consider

hello youtube i'm david with the david west channel out here in the walking trail again i wanted to give you some pointers on what you can look for uh when you're hunting for wood for a bow drill set now i know that we haven't had any rain here in seven days so that's good conditions the humidity today is going to be low i am familiar with this fallen jack pine right behind me i've actually used parts of it for a fireboard for hand drill so i know that it will produce embers but what you want to try to find especially in conditions like this is dry as everything is is wood that's up off the ground you want wood that no longer has the bark on it you want it exposed to the south side to the plenty of sun exposed to the wind and you see how much wind we've been having lately slightly degraded not punky of course but it needs to set there for like years and just the density of it is is somewhat degraded does it have a good long fairly straight piece for the spindle so let me turn this camera around after looking over all of these crooked branches you see the bark is off of it you see a lot of them is are up off the ground of course exposed to the sun and the wind and everything i don't know what that's going to look like when i get in there and look down on top of it it might be as crooked as a snake but from here it looks like there's a good straight section right there for my spindle all right here is the angle that we were looking at it see how straight that spindle looks right there then when you turn it up it's got that big curve so what i'll do is cut it off right here where the curve starts and you can incorporate like this this junction right here this y branch you can cut all of this off and utilize it to get more length so i'll cut that off right there cut all that back and that'll give me a good long spindle this base right here where i broke it off is good and dry so it's going to make a good fire board so let's take it back to the house and see if i did choose a good specimen let's start breaking it apart corona razor tooth saw 20 at lowe's and home depot great little saw not the fastest cutting saw but affordable and like i said we're going to utilize most of that y right there and while we're at this stage rather than making our knife knock off all these excess nubs and most of that y joint there let's use the saw for that i just want to show you that up close before i take the saw and cut it off at a point because i'm not sure what kind of wood that is right there so i'm not going to use it for the hot end so i already know that it's going to a point for the bearing block and don't really want to show you all the time it takes to process the fire board and the spindle because it's just more the same stuff i've got over 100 videos in my bow drill playlist so i have some in-depth tutorials there but let me tell you i'm going to go ahead and split it on that crack right there whichever half has sits down the flattest and i think is thick enough to do the job that's what i'll use for the fire board and the spindle i'll just go ahead and continue making this pointy and you know truing up the truing up the cylinder of it all and putting the hot end on here like i've told you over and over again i come down a quarter of an inch do facets all the way around come up an eighth inch do facets all the way around come up a 16th of an inch do facets all the way around and that gives me the hot and the shape that i like so i'll show you some of the processing but uh we'll skip through most of it [Music] so look at all the fat wood that's still in the spindle and the fire board we still make it work though that does be a little bit sticky it won't want to drop down inside the notch like it's supposed to we keep working with it we'll make it produce so all right let's give it a try uh all right you see how it's drifting to the back right there so i'll cut a nice wide notch trying to make it drift back this way some pointy spindle i'll go ahead and leave the point on there but i will take the edges off these edges here so i can dive on down into the board like it's supposed to all right i'm gonna go cut a notch i'll be right back all right virginia pine on virginia pine fat wood bearing block pine needles for a tinder bundle uh hey we got ignition let's just let it sit there and coalesce a little bit did try to block the wind which is coming from this direction that's better we don't want to blow it to coalesce it does better if it just gets to sit there without any blowing or wind and just sort of tighten up and come together how about that fatwood baron block try to get out here in the sun so you can see it there's the shade can you see the melted fatwood there just as slick as can be that wind is constant so i don't dare hold it up to the camera for a close-up uh but i do want to let it coalesce so we try to get in the way of the wind if i can apparently we chose the right materials didn't we and all the conditions are right too all right y'all you can go out on in conditions like we have today and you know that it hadn't rained in seven days and you know that the humidity is is low like it's going to be today i'm already familiar with those materials because i used it for a fire board for hand drill and just make sure it's up off the ground in the breeze in the sun and make sure that the wood is degraded which means that the wood is hung around has been down for years to get a little bit better density to the wood and then you want to make sure that there's a long enough piece on there to make a good long spindle so if you live in upstate south carolina now is the time to be practicing on the spot bow drill friction fire all right y'all appreciate you joining me on this one we will catch you on the next one let's put some leaves on that for our parking shot that's what we say to the south by our parking shot turn it towards that wind catch you on the next one you

Channel: David West

Views: 54,529

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Id: rQhHrQHkiz8

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 11 2021