Just been collecting friction fire wood as preparation for some fire by friction we’ll be doing on a course next week. We’ve got a lot of treee species in the woodland, but many of the good friction fire woods are missing: lime, horse chestnut, spruce, western red cedar, alder and limited willow, so realistically we’re left with sycamore, birch, elder, ash and hazel.
A lot of the elder is really well seasoned and when I’ve tried using it before for bow drilling, the drill and the hearth tend to polish without creating any powder; and I’d rather not start people on ash or hazel as I find them a little more difficult than some of the others, something to aspire to as opposed to starting with.
Not sure if it’s because of the wet weather we had earlier this year, but I took down 4 standing dead sycamore that were all punky and 3 birch that were in the same state before I found a birch that is looking good to go. I gave it a bit of a go and got an ember.
Dust forming nicely in the notch!
