You can take wet mocs OFF in those competitions. These are skills that have to be practiced correctly long before you enter a competition. I "volunteered" to demonstrate Flint and Steel fire starting for my gun club at a public demonstration one year, JUST SO THAT I would be forced to make dozen if not hundreds of fired with my flint and steel. In two days, I ran through all the charcloth I had, and all I borrowed doing this demonstration. I ended up making more charcloth- which the audience enjoyed seeing done, too!
I have practiced making fire with my bow and drill, to the point I have developed some "improved " techniques in how I made the spindle nose, and the hole in the fireboard, to make fire faster, and easier. I have lost count on the number of fires I have made with my bow and drill. Its in the hundreds. Part of the learning curve is the same as when using charcloth.
I don't know if charcloth was used back in the day or not. I have my own doubts, since cloth was very expensive, and not easily available to the poor. But, in a WOOD CULTURE, people grew up knowing how to find, and where to find both tinder, and dark surfaces that would take sparks or embers better to start fires. Mankind survived for thousands of years in a Wood Culture, long before man became proficient with stones, or metal. Fire was so important for survival that it was one of the first skills one mastered as a child. Both boys and girls learned these skills. They would laugh at our fumblings in trying to make a fire, today. Just as we would laugh at their fear of the Electric light.
I refused to do the Seneca runs when I first was involved in shooting. I have a bad back, and a left knee that decides to become a casaba mellow if I look at it crosswise. I don't run over rough terrain, or through creeks. I have shot woods walks, and actually won a team event survival course. I have won fire starting contests at the club. When I made my buckskins, I decided I put too much work into them to be getting them dirty wearing them for a Seneca Run. Winning such an event Is just not that important in the grand scheme of things, IMHO! Can anyone remember the winners of the past Seneca runs at their own clubs? Not unless you were a participant, you can't.
My fireboard is a split from a wood stick, about 1.25 inches across, and 16 inches long. I can put holes on both sides of the fireboard, if I want to, in parallel lines. I could cut the stick longer, making it long enough to hold down with my knee, rather than my other foot.
Make your fire starting equipment FIT YOU, not the other way around.
My palm board is made to fit my hand, NOT YOURS. If it does, fine. IF NOT, make your own!
MY spindle is based on the length of my leg, so that I can brace my wrist on my knee while pressing the palm board down on the top of the spindle to add pressure to the nose in the hole in the fireboard. Your leg may be longer or shorter. Make the spindle the right length for YOUR LEG LENGTH.
The Bow should be about the same length as the distance from your armpit to your wrist. This length gives you efficient use of your arm muscles when you stroke the bow back and forth. Shorter, and you are not making efficient use of your energy. Longer, and you waste energy holding up all that bow you can't use. It should have a natural arc, and should be at least 1.5 inches in diameter for strength. The last thing you want in a bow for this purpose is something that flexes!( BTDT! NOT!)
One of my " tricks" is I use a 3/8" wide STRAP of leather for my bow "string" rather than a smaller string. I want to transfer energy from a back and forth motion to a spinning motion of the spindle rotating in the hole in the fireboard.
I don't want a small diameter round string slipping around my spindle when I put more pressure on it. ( like a spinning tire in the mud.)
I don't want a ROUND spindle. I want my spindle to have lots of flats, and edges on it, so that the surface acts more like a gear tooth to my strap of leather. Wet leather will give you more " Grab" to transfer powder than dry leather, or any string.
My spindles will be larger in diameter than what most people use. I want the added leverage of a wider spindle to rotate the nose in the fireboard. Oh, I will taper both ends of the spindle so they fit into the palm board, and into the hole I carve into the fire board. But the shaft will be between 1.5 and 2" wide.
I usually start a spindle at about 16-18" long, based on the length( height?) of my leg. I don't want it so long that it stands above my knee cap, however.
I cut deep grooves in the nose of the spindle, and grooves in the hole in the fire board, too, to increase the amount of wood available to break off under the pressure I put on the spindle. That combination of spinning, and pressure produces the heat needed to create embers in the saw dust that collects in the notch from the center of my hole, to the edge of the fire board. When My spindle is "spinning" it sounds more like a noisy coffee grinder, but I get embers fast!
Correct practice, repeated often, is how to master the muscle memory skills needed to do this fire starting without really having to think about it.
Learn what plants or trees produce bark, or fibers that have their own oils that aid combustion. Learn how to dry fibers in the sun, and where to find them under overhangs, both stone, and trees. Learn to use wood that is OFF the ground for your fires, and not wood that is laying on the ground absorbing water like a sponge. No matter how old that wood appears, it won't pass the " snap " test. ( ie., If you take a piece of wood, and bend it quickly in your hands, does it "snap " in two?? If so its dry enough to burn well. If not, you don't want it, unless you are sending up smoke signals to alert rescuers. The such wood is thrown on the fire After you get the fire going, to produce smoke.)
