Making Fire...Rubbing sticks

[NOCK NOCK]

Anyone ever been successful at this?   

Camping last weekend our group tried for a couple hours to no avail.
Hand drill=too much work, hard on the hands.
Rubbing a stick into a groove in baseboard= some smoke but no embers.

One guy tried something called the "Thong method"  Partially split wood wedged open, then using a string like a wire saw, pull back and forth= first and quickest method to produce smoke, but string(various styles/thicknesses) broke before starting an ember.

I went for the Bow drill. Produced a lot of smoke and black dust in hole, and even appeared to be burning the wood on the bottom of the groove, but never got an ember to fall out into the tinder. Used a piece of split Fir for the base wood, not sure what type of wood the drill piece was, but both were dry. Used a chunk of green sapling as the bearing/top pivot.  Made my arm sore after several hours of trying.   

If you've been successful at this, what's the trick?  Guessing one needs to use a particular variety of wood, especially for the baseboard.

[jrebel]

Base wood soaked in gas??   
 

[NOCK NOCK]

I did get one going with a flint.....no gas. 

[Nice Racks]

The drill and hand plate should be of a hard wood type such as oak, while the base plate should be of a softer wood such as fir.  As you start working the bow (very fast), the friction and heat builds up on the soft base plate , and the softer wood becomes hot ambers. Then it's dinner time.

[NOCK NOCK]

Well that's how its SUPPOSED to work anyways 

[Magnum_Willys]

Had same results. Sapling for bow, dry wood for baseplat, havalon case for top plate.  Got lots of smoke. Kept wearing out before embers. If i could of done it furiously for 5 mins Im sure it woulda gone but whew!   I got warm tho!

I have been successful with cedar baseplate and shaft in controlled conditions but not in field.

[RadSav]

With my grandpa when I was 4 or 5.  Had cedar chips and fir sap on the base plate plus one person blowing on the embers and one running the bow.

It was a genius plan by grandpa!  Get that one fire going with one grandkid.  For the next few days us three boys didn't fight, scream, torment chickens or shoot holes in the metal barn.  We were too busy trying to duplicate what grandpa did.  I'm sure he was laughing at us from the nice quiet living room window with a cold Olympia in one hand and a cigar in the other. 

[Old Dog]

I used to help out a a cub scout camp, and I would start several fires a day using a bow and drill.  By the time you had fire you didn't need it to be warm.     It's work!!!  

[j_h_nimrod]

My outdoor survival instructor claimed sage was the best, not sure if it was for the drill or base though. Hard to find straight sage for a drill so would assume the base.

[Alpine Mojo]

I did it once in Boy Scouts.  Never again.  Now I carry a Bic lighter.  Summertime and the living is easy.

[Alchase]

I did it once in Boy Scouts.  Never again.  Now I carry a Bic lighter.  Summertime and the living is easy.

I carry a bic lighter in each pocket of my pack, each in a ziplock baggy.
LOL

[JDHasty]

Hardwood base and shavings around the point where the stick is boring down.  Real fine dry shavings, not dust.  Chainsaw with the grain to get shavings that look like excelsior.  You can get a gallon in no time that way.  It is a chore still.  And when it smokes and glows GENTLY blow on it and as soon as you get a little flame drop it into a pile of dry shavings and gently blow and add kindling wood. 

It's been decades, but I remember that much. 

[Alchase]

Bic lighter and a couple Fritos, burns like Sterno, LOL

[Dbow]

Yes I have done it successfully. I have taught young people how to do it as well.

Yucca stalk, the straighter the better. The base of the stalk take and flatten two sides, just enough to get it to sit flat. Cut tapers on the big end of the upper half of the stalk. Cutout a circular hole in the middle of the flat end of the stalk about an inch from the end. Spit on your hands and begin drilling in the small hole just enough to get a hole that will stabilize the drill. Now chat a notch from one side to almost the center of the drill hole. Place a leaf or something to catch the duff and the ember. Spit on hands and rub back and forth pushing down and then raising your hands to the top again and again. If you do it right it will take less than five minutes and a ten year old can do it.  You are welcome.

[Okanagan]

My nephew routinely starts fires by friction and I was astounded at how quickly he does it. 

One summer in Sequim some of us at a family do got to talking about starting fires that way.  The nephew did a quiet demo.  He walked out by the garden, picked up some scraps and had smoke within seconds of starting the friction, an ember seconds later and a flame in less than a minute.  It was a dry August day.

That time he used the center stalk of dead cattail from the nearby creek as his hand rotated drill/spindle, a chunk of cedar for the base and he shaped both with the sharp edge of a broken rock.  I have tried since with several materials and found that it is easy to get smoke but much harder to progress from there to flame.  Before he started friction he used the sharp edge of stone to scrape a bundle of fuzz from the inside of cedar bark, to cradle the ember and coax it into flame.