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Primitive Guide to Survival: Creating Fire
#1 Gathering Materials
The first thing I am gathering is a fast growing pioneer tree that will be used as a hearth board. Many fast growing, green trees will work for creating friction fires.
After you get the tree, we will need to strip it all of branches and leaves, as they can get in the way when we use it as a baseboard.
Also be sure to strip bark off the tree, as it is usually the wettest party of the tree and will stop it from being able to dry easily.
Here I am splitting the top part of the tree. By doing this, a crack will start to form in the middle, making it easier to split the tree in half.
With the crack runing down the middle of the branch, I hammared a small rock into the crack, forcing the tree to split into two flat halves.
Now that we got the wood for the baseboard, we need to get a spindle. Here I am using a fast growing weed called mullein, native to the mid-west. However, most straight, thin hardwood sticks will work as a spindle.
Since mullein stalks are covered with fuzz, I scratched it off, and removed the seed head of the stalk. Removing the fuzz will help allow the stalk to rotate better when using it as a spindle, and will help make it have more friction.
Once you got the baseboard and spindle, the only other thing you need to gather is tinder. Here I am gathering small, dry leaves.
When you have your tinder collected, be sure to make it more fine and fibrous by turning and rubbing it into more fine, smaller pieces; as these are easier to ignite.
#2 Using the hand drill
Here I am carving a small indent in the baseboard with a flake. This indent will allow the spindle to not move around, and drill in one place.
Now comes the actual hand drill. First, place your spindle into the indent you made. Then start drilling! Rotate the spindle between both of your hands, while also trying to make it rotate from the bottom of your hand to your fingers. You must also apply downwards pressure, forcing the spindle into the indent. Don't spend too much time drilling at the moment however. Right now you are drilling to make the indent a little bit deeper.
Once you got the indent deeper, carve out a small notch in the baseboard, attaching the small indent/hole to the outer edge. This notch will allow all the dust made from the hand drill to fall into one concentrated area, instead of piling up on the sides of the hole.
With the indent done, now you can start making the fire. Begin doing the hand drill again, but make sure to be concentrated and relaxed. You will not be able to make fire if you are trying to do it as quickly as possible, or spending to much time or speed or on applying pressure.
If you start to see smoke, don't stop. Even though smoke means you are creating a lot of heat, it does not mean you have gotten an ember though, which is what you want. Keep doing the dust is smoking by itself, and not just because of spindle drilling into the baseboard.
Once you got your ember, place it into the tinder bundle you made. To make the rest of the tinder start igniting, apply a steady force of oxygen onto the ember and tinder by blowing onto it. You should start to see the rest of the tinder smoking, and eventually fire.