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Today I made fire

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nw_hunter

45 Cal.
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
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I'm 66 years old, and today for the first time in my life, I made fire without matches or other modern fire starters.

I had made some char cloth last week and found a good chunk of flint, and a broken piece of file. I used TOW for tender, and "BINGO" After about three or four strikes of the flint on steel the char caught, and the TOW ignited.

Felt like a kid hitting his first home run :)
 
ya it's a blast when you figure it out soon you'll have started so many fires it will be old hat and you wont even give it a second thought I havent used a match to start a campfire in years if I used a match to start a fire now my wife would ask what was wrong.
 
Now that you done it the easy way...build yourself a bow drill.

Talk about fun!

My first attempt was in my kitchen in '94.

Worked up a sweat, nearly went deaf, set off the smoke alarm. Yeehaaa!!!

The sweat came from inexperience... easier to do when you get it set up RIGHT.

The noise? well imagine skinning ground hogs and wild cats ....while they're still alive. SCREEEEEEEECH!

Smoked the place up good before I got that little cone of glowing cinder to drop in my birds nest. Then I took it outside to blow into big flames.

fun stuff.

Oh yea, I was a batchelor back then.

Now I can start a fire with anyone's shoe string!

sTeve
 
Way to go! It's refreshing to know that there are still folks who understand that it's never too late to try new things.

There is no longer any need to use a match once you get your first fire.

Now that you know that you can do it, practice, practice, practice in all kinds of weather.

I find that flint and steel is more reliable than matches, in any weather condition. Even a hard rain. Gotta modify the technique a bit, but it always works.

God bless
 
Yea JD! That's what my friend CW told me.....Practice, practice, in all kinds of weather.

CW lives for Rendezvous since retiring, and has been a wealth of knowledge for me.We plan on doing a primitive camp for Elk this fall, if everything works out.I had to get this fire thing down before camping with him. I know he will ask me to start a fire, and I would hate to pull out a bic in front of him. :grin:

Here's a pic of CW holding his pride and joy trade gun.

CWTradeGun001.jpg
 
The "Quest For Fire" That Char Cloth Is really the way to go, It make's It a whole lot easy'er, You got you a Good Fire Kit now, Thank's for sharing your Fire making Info.,

And Thank's for sharing the picture of CW with his Trade Gun, That's one Long Gun that Is on my Wish list Is the 69 Cal. Smothbore Flintlock Trade Gun,

Kenny
 
Every time I go to demo events, rondys open to the public, and renfaires, I make it a habit to light up my pipe( a couple times, at least) using flint, steel, and tindertube.
Freaks out the mundanes. I tell them it's a primitive Zippo lighter! :grin:
 
There is a certain aura of " Liberation" one gets from learning how to make fire with sticks, or stones, or combinations of both, that one rarely gets from other endeavors. The satisfaction of knowing you can do this is extraordinary, and many begin to ask questions of themselves about what is really important in life, what they have accomplished, and whether they need to change the ideas they used to have about what is important or not.

I went through that feeling of elation the first time I started a fire with flint and steel and charcloth. I felt it again when I made fire with a bow and drill I made. And again making fire using Compression to make the heat necessary.

But, I also had that same feeling when I first visited the Rocky Mountains in 1957, and climbed up a tall " hill" above a highway west of Denver or Bourder( I don't remember which, now) to look down a gorgeous valley with a meandering stream running through it. The Highway was on the North side of the creek, and the creek was almost invisible to people on the highway. It was like looking down from the (then) skyscraper in Chicago, the Prudential Building from its 44th floor observatory, at cars and people below. The difference was that the city noise was enough to be heard up there if a window was open. In Colorado, all you heard was the rustle of grasses, leaves, and trees as a light breeze blew up out of the valley below. You could not hear the road noise. I was only 10 YO., but I remember feeling totally insignificant at that moment, and a lot of stuff I worried about before, just didn't bother me any more after that.

I had the same feeling, BTW, when My co-author and I finished our research back in 1991, and discovered that we had established a correlation exists between how long your feet are, and how tall you are, and we established two DIFFERENT linear Equations for the two Sexes, for estimating height from footlength, and shoeprint length. It was as if God had allowed us to know a " secret" about people that no one else had learned before. I was thrilled to be done with our research, of course, but I was humbled by the fact that we achieved a success neither of us expected when we began the work, 5 years before. I had been practicing law for more than 18 years, and nothing I had done as a lawyer seemed as significant, or as important as that research.

Oh, many years ago, when I first began practicing law, I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper about some people protesting outside a movie theatre, and how they were really angering the crowds of people leaving the theater and waiting in line to go in. I got my first UNSIGNED HATE LETTER in response to that letter. It was one of life's milestones, which I did not give its proper consideration at the time, to my regret. I threw away the letter. I should have had it framed, instead!

Consider your learning to start fire one of Life's Milestones. Its almost( but not quite) as important as your wedding anniversary, or the birth dates of your children. You are allowed to walk around with a huge grin on your face all day, and you are not expected to stop smiling for at least a month. ENJOY! :grin: :thumbsup: :hatsoff:
 
I'm still trying to learn the bow drill. Flint and steel came easy to me with char cloth, and on a sunny day I can make fire with my burning lens. I tried a bow drill but couldn't do it. I exhausted my supply of profanity learned in 20 years of naval service. I'll get it though.
 
Modern man has been around right at 200,000 years. Early man started making fire on demand about 2.2 million years ago. That would have been little Homo Erectus. He gave rise to Homo Heidelbergensis (also known as Home Rhodesious) who gave rise to both us and our cousins, the Neanderthals. We all made fire. It might have been interesting around the campfire with the Neanderthals who also had a voice box, FoxP2 gene for talking, and the hyoid bone so they could communicate with us. Don't know about lil Homo Erectus, but he was still around about 30,000 years ago as were the Neanderthals 300,000 to 28,000 years ago. I guess making fire either isn't that hard to do or those boys were smarter than we thought. I guess you couldn't be too dumb if you were around for over 2 million years.
 
next you will think....what if i didn't have any 100% cotton cloth to make char cloth....what from nature can i use??....
 
woods loper said:
I'm still trying to learn the bow drill. Flint and steel came easy to me with char cloth, and on a sunny day I can make fire with my burning lens. I tried a bow drill but couldn't do it. I exhausted my supply of profanity learned in 20 years of naval service. I'll get it though.

An old friend does demos with fire bows at Bent's Old Fort (very hot and dry area in Colorado). He had just finished a demo which can be very exhausting in that heat. He sat down to talk to some visitors, we very quckly found more for another demo, Bill started his little talk before making another fire. In the mean time we found three more small groups for back up, unknown to him. We darn near gave him heart failure in that heat before he caugh on to what we were doing. :wink:

The hardest problem I have using a bow is keeping the base block from moving. Like flint and steel once learned its much easier than one would think.
 
hdgarfield said:
next you will think....what if i didn't have any 100% cotton cloth to make char cloth....what from nature can i use??....

Here's some unusal ones we have tried:

Piptoporus betulinus, known as birch bracket or razor strop, its a good one when you can find it. We break it down into a fine material to catch the sparks easier, like char cloth.

A friend likes polypore mushrooms broken down into a fine bird nest looking affair. It can be prepared from a velvet-like trama layer. The thickness of this layer varies greatly from fungus to fungus.

Fomes fomentarius (Polyporus fomentarius) is a bracket fungus often named horse's hoof fungus or tinder fungus, it can smoulder for several hours.

I have several friends that like the unusal as shown, using what they find in the Rockies. I tend to use whatever is the easiest for a fast fire and little hassel. The biggest thing as you have found is whatever you use, be sure its dry making starting a fire much easier.
 
nw_hunter said:
Here's a pic of CW holding his pride and joy trade gun.

CWTradeGun001.jpg

This is a great picture, thanks for sharing it. The look in CW eyes says it all, he loves that gun. :thumbsup: :hatsoff:
 
Buck: "The hardest problem I have using a bow is keeping the base block from moving. Like flint and steel once learned its much easier than one would think."

You put your forward foot on the fireboard, which is purposely cut long so that this can be done. In fact, you want your foot to be fairly close to the hole you make in the fireboard for the spindle, so that you have better control of the spindle when it spins. I place my foot to the outside of the spindle hole, on the fireboard, so that the spindle is on the Inside of my forward leg, and my forward arm and hand are braced against the front of my knee to help control the vertical position of the spindle, while I push and pull the bow back and forth to spin it.

By placing the ball of my forward foot on the fireboard, and then shifting my weight onto that forward leg(ie., Lean forward), I can keep the fireboard still. :hmm:
 
paulvallandigham said:
You put your forward foot on the fireboard, ............ By placing the ball of my forward foot on the fireboard, and then shifting my weight onto that forward leg(ie., Lean forward), I can keep the fireboard still. :hmm:


I do that too Paul but with wet mocs from crossing a creek or stream, and being timed it sometimes becomes an issue. Many of the "skills events" are timed having you run a 100 or more yards taking a shot then moving into the fire building mode with either flint & steel or the bow. I usually get the bad luck of the draw and get the bow !@#$%^ :cursing:

With dry feet as you says its not a real hard process to do. I think having wet feet is my holding problem with the fireboard, being out of breathe and wearing brain tanned mocs really suck up the moisture. Brain tanned when wet is very soft and slids easy with any pressure.
 
HD: You are correct. There is no documented proof that the frontiersmen or Western fur trappers used charcloth. Nor is there documented proof that they used tin boxes for burning charcloth. It is simply not documented. So the question is what did they use to start fires?
 
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.)
 
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