One of my friends agreed to go to the local shooting range today, and afterward we planned to try making some bow drill fires. He had told me in the past that another of his friends made a bow drill fire with sagebrush for the spindle and fire board.
But here's the kicker. He made it with green wood! I was skeptical, to say the least.
Well after shooting a bit we walked a few hundred yards to a big sagebrush and he harvested some wood to make his set. I had brought a bow along and a fidget spinner to try as a bearing block. The fidget spinner worked very well, which I expected. He had a smooth stone with a perfect, obviously man-made, deep divot in it that his mom had found in a creek bed years ago. I couldn't help but think it might be an actual, purpose made bearing block.
In any case, I made a spindle and fire board out of dry, dead sagebrush because I figured that while it was possible his green wood set would work, I probably wouldn't have to work as hard to get an ember using my dry set. Well, it didn't really work out well for me. The spindle was rough and the string kept riding up on it, and all sorts of problems. My friend's green set worked! He burned in a nice divot in his fire board and made tons of smoke. so I figured I'd go back and cut a green piece to make a better spindle. The green wood is a lot easier to carve and work with so I was able to make a much nicer spindle and this time I had success. When I say it was green wood, I mean it literally was cool and moist and very slightly sticky to the touch with light green streaks under the bark.
I got a great ember going with surprisingly minimal effort. I'd even go so far as to say that with the fidget spinner (this is the first time I ever "cheated" and used a ball bearing) this might have been the easiest bow drill ember I've ever made. I am still at a loss to explain why the green wood didn't doom the effort to failure but it absolutely worked, to my shock and surprise. The conditions outside were in the low 40's with a very slight breeze and low humidity.
I managed to make 3 different embers with this set today and failed every time I tried to blow a tinder bundle into flame, but my friend got one to work that I handed over to him before it went out so we got fire with a team effort. In my defense, it has been a while since I've done it and I did not take a lot of time to make a really great tinder bundle. Nevertheless, I am so impressed with the green sagebrush that I had to share.
