Friction fire - first fire for year 2012 - hand drill - cattail fluff bursting into flame

[AllergicHobbit]

Another brilliant video! I have favorited three of your videos that will be the basis for all my future fire making attempts!

[freejutube]

@AllergicHobbit

Thank you !

waiting to see the videos of those experiments !

(meanwhile, I'll go on viewing your videos about flint knapping and primitive longbows)

[wanderinggibbon]

Yes; I like the look of that a lot. There are a few advantages, and probably the best one, is keeping the ember off the ground.

[ROBwithaB]

And I hate to inform you that some crazy South African celebrated the New Year by making a hand drill fire at exactly one minute past midnight !

And then set off a small firework. Just to be "normal".

[freejutube]

@ROBwithaB

In that case, their / his friction fire is best qualified to be the first on this planet for year 2012 :-) [As we are on the same "clock" more or less, and my fire was lit ~12 hours after midnight].

Congratulation to them or to him !!

Is it a group or an individual, or yourself ?

[ROBwithaB]

@freejutube

I am the guilty party.

[freejutube]

@ROBwithaB

:-)

Lighting an annual new fire is an essential primitive activity !

I just found interesting passages about annual sacred fires in "Fire making apparatus in U.S national museum", Hough Walter, [ wwww archive org / details / firemakingappara00houguoft]. The way the Zuñi did it seems demanding : wet the drill first. (not sure I'll try that).

If you know other electronic ressources on this subject, please let me know.

[ROBwithaB]

@freejutube

Excellent resource.

Thank you very much for the referral.

There seems to be very little ethnographic material on primitive fire-making that is easily accessible on the internet. Certainly nothing I can find for African tribes, despite the fact that many people here still know the skills.

It is a sad irony that, despite the wealth of information on the internet, something so fundamental to the survival of our species seems to have been forgotten or ignored.

[freejutube]

@ROBwithaB

yes, I didn't find much... there is something, though, about "Damaras or Herero of Damaraland [now in Namibia, apparently], in south-western Africa", 1911, in the chapter Fire-Drill (wich give also interesting info about Greeks and Romans and others) of "The Magic Art and Evolution of Kings" [!? strange title] - wwww archive org / details / goldenboughstudy02frazuoft

[ROBwithaB]

Cont...

5. More efficient use of the "waste" heat produced in the process. (The heat that's conducted away by the base-board itself.)

Probably some more advantages, if I over-analysed it....

The disadvantages are that it becomes very critical to align the hole correctly.

A very useful technique, and well demonstrated.

Best wishes for 2012.

[ROBwithaB]

I like this notchless method myself.

It has quite a few advantages.

1. Don't have to worry about cutting a notch, obvisouly.

2. Don't have to worry about keeping your pile of char off damp ground.

3. Better use of baseboard if you have limited material, because you can get more holes, closer together.

4. Works especially well if you're using a branch, rather than a "plank" for the baseboard. Normally the rounded cross section means you need to produce a bigger pile of char before it starts.

[wanderinggibbon]

I've never seen a notch like that, where it's on the inseide of the board; is the first one on the side, then the rest in the middle? And I really have to practice hand-drills ...

[freejutube]

@wanderinggibbon

Well... it's easier when you don't even have to cut a notch :-)

Your fist coal may need a notch. But after that, a subsequent coal may be produced from a hole that will be carved next to an existing hole (that may have been used days or months before for another friction fire) in which the dust will gather. This "lazy" method may even give better results : better heat conservation and quicker ember ?

[MiWilderness]

Nice way to start the new year.

[94mejones]

hey was wondering didi u also use the cat tail for the hand drill

[freejutube]

@94mejones

yes, the hand drill is Cattail. May be I could have also used cattail fluff as coal extender (instead of Clematis fluff).

[steintanz]

Nice "fireworks" for 2012 opening season ;o)