“Indian Violin”
The ability to make fire is perhaps the most useful skill in survival situations. Fire is a source of heat and light; you can cook food over it, boil water to make it safe for drinking. That’s why survivalists pay so much attention to various tools for starting fires. Knowing how to light a fire without matches or a lighter can be a lifesaver in difficult moments, for example, when matches get wet or are lost.
The most important thing in starting a fire is having good tinder. Many of the techniques described below will be useless if you don’t have good tinder, as the fire must ignite from a tiny spark. Good tinder must be dry. Commonly used tinder includes dry grass, leaves, shavings, bark, and also the tinder fungus. Of course, you can prepare tinder in advance by taking, for example, a piece of burnt cotton fabric or cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly. Finally, you can buy special synthetic tinder at a camping store.
Here are some of the most popular ways to start a fire without matches or a lighter:
Friction
The ability to make fire using friction can save your life in an extreme survival situation.
This article provides a detailed description of one of the most interesting and complex methods of making fire using a bow drill (“Indian violin”).
Preparation
Find tinder. Typically, this includes dry, fibrous, easily ignitable materials (lint from clothing, bird feathers, thin wooden shavings, dry moss, crushed fibers from dry plants, the inner layer of cedar species, birch bark, pine cones, pine needles, tinder fungi, burnt cotton and linen, wax paper, insect bore dust).
Tinder and Fuel.
Gather a few handfuls of tinder. Long dry twigs about the thickness of a toothpick work best.
Gradually increase the thickness of the twigs to that of a pencil.
Use wood as fuel. Hard deciduous species burn well, provide a lot of heat, and smolder for a long time. Soft coniferous species burn quickly and produce many sparks.
Try to avoid wood lying on the ground (it is likely to be wet or damp). Instead, gather firewood and tinder from dead standing trees. Look for dead branches that are tangled in bushes or the lower tier of trees. It should be noted that a mix of dry and wet wood burns for a long time, and the smoke from wet wood will repel insects.
Make a “nest” for the coal. Wrap a bundle of tinder in a denser material like dry grass or leaves.
Make sure to leave a cavity for the coal and small openings for ventilation.
Make a bow from flexible, resilient wood (hazel, bamboo).
Beginners are advised to make a bow that is 45 to 60 cm long.
If possible, use the thinnest twigs to reduce weight. The lighter the bow, the easier it is to control, and the less effort is needed to rotate the spindle. However, ensure that the device is stiff enough and does not bend during use. Additionally, the bow should not be overly curved.
Make a string from a shoelace, cord, strip of leather, or any rope. Leave the string slightly slack to wrap it around the drill (spindle).
Wooden Board.
For making the board, softwood species that do not contain sap are best.
Choose light dry wood and shape it according to the following dimensions: thickness — 2-3 cm, width — 5-8 cm, length — at least 30 centimeters.
The spindle (drill) is recommended to be made from hard wood that does not contain resins or other saps. However, you can use the same wood as for the board. The main thing is that the wood is dry and light.
The diameter of the drill should be between 1.5-3 centimeters. When choosing a suitable stick, you can use the thickness of your thumb or index finger as a guide. The minimum length of the spindle is 20 centimeters.
If possible, use a knife to obtain a straight and round blank. The upper end of the spindle should be sharpened like a pencil, and the lower end should be rounded. Take your time to make the spindle well.
The effort will pay off!
Find or make an upper support for the spindle. The socket can be made from wood, bone, or stone.
Look for a stone with a smooth indentation. Ideally, it should be fist-sized and fit comfortably in your hand. A stone that is too small will heat up quickly.
If you can’t find a suitable stone, it’s easiest to make a support block from wood. It should fit well in your hand and be compact, but your fingers should not touch the spindle. Use hard woods or use the swirl (wavy twisted arrangement of fibers in the wood) in softwoods. Use the tip of a knife or a sharp stone to drill a hole no deeper than halfway through the blank.
You can make a support from almost anything that can keep the narrow end of the drill stable and allow the spindle to rotate freely around its axis.
To reduce friction, lubricate the support hole with resin or oil.
Prepare a coal collector. To insulate from the cold ground and move the coals to the pre-prepared nest with tinder, you can use a dry leaf, wooden splinter, bark, a piece of paper, etc.
Making Fire
Identify a spot on the board where the spindle will rotate and mark it about one and a half spindle diameters from the long side of the board. Drill a funnel here about 5 mm deep and close to the diameter of your spindle. Below the indentation, you can carve a cavity for the tinder.
Burn through the hole.
Place the board on a flat patch of ground.
Place your left foot on the board about 2-3 cm to the left of the marked funnel.
Kneel on your right knee and ensure it is far enough behind your left leg to form a right angle.
Hold the bow in your right hand and the spindle in your left.
Place the spindle on top of the bowstring so that the pencil-sharpened end points to the right. Then wrap the drill into the bow, creating a loop from the string. If this is too difficult, loosen the tension on the string a bit.
Place the rounded end of the drill in the indentation on the board. Place the support block on top of the spindle.
Grip the end of the bow and, applying slight pressure on the support, move it back and forth.
If everything is going well and the spindle starts to “drill” into the board, increase the speed of rotation and pressure on the support block. Soon, black wood powder (excellent tinder) will form around the drill, and smoke will appear.
Great! Now stop and lift the board.
Cut a chimney. Make a V-shaped cut almost to the middle of the funnel you just burned into the board.
One of the most important things is to ensure that the cut is not so wide that the spindle, when rotating, slips out. The size of a “sixth of a pie” will be just right.
Do not make the cut all the way to the middle of the funnel or beyond.
Make a wigwam or “house” from the firewood. Remember the order: tinder, kindling, fuel. Do not use all the material at once — leave small gaps between the twigs so the flame can “breathe.” At the site of the future fire, you can make a platform from dry branches that will absorb moisture and cold from the ground, which is especially relevant in winter. Don’t forget to leave a passage for the coals.
Get the glowing coals. Now is the time to make fire! Do everything the same as when burning the hole, but don’t forget to place the coal collector under the chimney cut.
With even reciprocating movements of the bow, start drilling the board, applying pressure to the spindle with the support block. Once you find the rhythm, increase the pressure on the spindle and speed of rotation.
After a while, the V-shaped groove will begin to fill with black wood powder. Continue, and soon smoke will appear.
When the tinder starts to smoke from all sides, you’ve likely succeeded and obtained coals. If you’re not sure — keep rotating the spindle as long as you have the strength. If it starts to squeak (squeal) — you’re polishing the setup, and you need to increase the pressure while maintaining speed.
If the tinder turns white (or darkens, reddens), then you can be sure — you have coals.
Carefully remove the spindle and move the board aside. If the glowing coals need additional oxygen, create a gentle airflow over them with one hand. It is not recommended to blow on the glowing mass yet, to avoid accidentally dropping it onto the cold ground. Once you feel that the coals are stable enough and won’t extinguish — move them to the nest with the tinder.
Start gently blowing on the coals and gradually surround them with tinder. Continue this process until real flames appear. Place the burning tinder in the pre-prepared wigwam of firewood and blow again, adding small twigs to the ignition spots.
Voila! Now you can warm up and relax by the long-awaited fire…
Possible Problems and Their Solutions
Make sure your body is in the correct position. For right-handed people:
The left foot is placed on the board about 2-3 cm from the spindle.
The angle at the left knee is about 90 degrees. The angle of the left leg relative to the right is 90 degrees.
For balance, rotate the right leg relative to the left. (This opens your body on the right side.)
The left hand holds the support block and should be pressed against the shin (as if you are hugging your knee). This will help you keep the upper part of the drill stationary.
This position will make you lean on the entire setup and allow you to use the weight of your upper body (rather than just the strength of your hand) to apply pressure on the spindle.
Adjusting the string: it is important to maintain tension on the string so that it doesn’t slip on the drill. But if the string is too tight, it can disrupt the stability of the spindle so that it pops out of the support block or the hole in the board. There are several ways to manage the string.
Tighten the string enough, hold the very end of the bow, and when you start “sawing” back and forth, press the string against it. Even if you optimally set the string the first time, its tension will likely loosen during the fire-making process, so it won’t hurt to master this technique in advance. If necessary, move your wrist higher on the bow to adjust the tension. This is a good reason to have a longer (about 60 centimeters) bow.
Another method is to twist another stick into a loop closer to the end of the bow and rotate it to tension the string.
Tips
Practice. Train at home in your free time to develop experience and habit.
If you get a good hot ember, the tinder in your hands will literally ignite, so always prepare the kindling and firewood for the fire in advance.
The shape of the chimney is important, but not crucial, as long as it is slightly wider at the bottom than at the top. It is recommended to use a narrow chimney with a cut angle of about 60 degrees (1/6 of a pie) and U-shaped, but V-shaped cuts work too. The chimney is where hot wood powder gathers and mixes with air, allowing it to turn into coals. A wider chimney usually means you’ll need to create more tinder (hot wood powder), but on the other hand, it will increase airflow.
Keep the position of the bow relative to the middle of the spindle. If the string moves closer to one of the ends of the drill, a moment imbalance will occur, and the drill will likely pop out of the socket (support block) or the hole in the board. To return the string to its original position, change the angle of the bow during forward-backward movements.
The string should always be parallel to the ground and perpendicular to the drill. Never point the tip of the bow at the ground or the sky. Learn to control the bow in a horizontal plane.
The hole in the board and the tip of the spindle that enters it should be rough, not shiny and smooth. Roughness increases friction. If they become smooth, sprinkle a little sand in the hole.
This is an old Indian trick that many settlers overlooked.
If you get tired, don’t hesitate to take short breaks. The process of making fire using the bow drill takes a lot of energy, unless you are one of those people for whom this activity is natural and everyday. If so, you’re lucky. For the rest of us, breaks can mean the difference between a warm, cozy night in the friendly embrace of the forest and a cold, dark night in an inhospitable wilderness.
Try to almost completely fill the chimney cut with dark wood dust, and then take a break or pass the baton to your partner while the shavings are still warm.
With two people, you can work in tandem. The first person remains the leader and sets the pace, while the second adds effort to each movement. This cooperation significantly eases the process of obtaining glowing coals, especially in the early stages.
It has been found that it works easier if your hands are slightly sticky (for example, in resin).
Place the nest with tinder under the chimney hole, and you won’t have to risk moving the coals. This technique will significantly reduce your efforts.
If you know you’ll have to make fire this way and don’t have a flashlight, make sure to allocate enough time for this procedure to finish before nightfall. Experienced campers have been doing this for years and still struggle when working in the dark. Even if you have a flashlight, do this during the day. You’ll be glad you did.
Do not allow the board to sway while drilling.
Warnings
The spindle, board, and socket get very hot.
This method of making fire does not always work and takes a lot of time and effort.
If you no longer need the fire, cover the ashes and ensure they pose no danger to the environment.
Be very careful about what wood/leaves/branches you burn. For example, rhododendron is very poisonous, so make sure not to use it as fuel. Do a little research to know in advance what can (and cannot) be burned.
Necessary Tools
Knife or sharp stone
Tinder
Board made from softwood (such as cedar or linden)
Spindle (drill) made from the same or softer wood (such as poplar root)
Bow made from resilient wood (hazel, ash, acacia (wattle), mulberry, osage orange, yew, bamboo)
Rawhide or strong paracord string
Support block (socket) made from something smooth, a piece of hard wood, or a stone with an indentation.
Several ways to make fire without matches and a lighter in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Part - 2