My daily bushcraft

My mom dropped by with my grandmas old sowing machine. It's an old Husquarna and it has to be made in the 70'ies.!

Anyway, my mother tells me it's one of the best there was ever made, and still works as new. It just needs some love in the form of oil now and then.
So now I have something to make my hammock chair with, and a bunch of other things.

It's quite a beast and weighs a ton. So we'll see , if the wetaher is still nasty tomorrow I'll stay in and make that chair. If it's nice I'll be out.
We've had two days of freezing rain.

This morning when I made the car ready to cart the wife off to work, I had forgotten to connect the coupe heater, so the windows where all frozen up. So I had to scrape off the ice from the car windows.
But when I got inside and started the car, the windows had allreaady frozen up again from super cooled rain. It frezzes the instant it hits the ground, or anything else...luckilly it's not constant, we've just had a few short showers of it, the last couple of days.

(for those from warmer lands. A coupe heater is a 1500 W, heater fan designed for car use. It works on the regular 220 V mains, via an extension, and when you park your car you hook it up and set the timer to start heating your cars interieor and on many cars the engine, so it gets easier to start in the morning. It also melts any ice formed on the cars windows

Got something in the mail yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxa06...l6HAug&index=1

And here is when it was found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz8YxGqYm5w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz8YxGqYm5w

Well, the chaga I got from Odd is dry, and I just tested it. Got an ember on the 3rd strike of my fire steel against the flint I got from Tony.
So that has earned it's place in my "traditional" flint and steel fire kit. And thats good, because It seems like I can never remeber to make more char cloth when i got a fire going. And Odd sent plenty of Chaga.
And now that I have a feel for it, and the light is back, maybe i'll spot some before spring.

Okay, going to practice some with my bow drill set and see if I can create flame :-)

Rune

Not much luck with the bow drill. I get lots of smoke. But 5 seconds after I lift the spindle off the board, the ember is out...I must be doing something wrong as in all the YT vids I've seen they stress that this is when you have plenty of time, so just proceed in a calm and orderly fashion....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FishyFolk

Not much luck with the bow drill. I get lots of smoke. But 5 seconds after I lift the spindle off the board, the ember is out...I must be doing something wrong as in all the YT vids I've seen they stress that this is when you have plenty of time, so just proceed in a calm and orderly fashion....

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Yeah that's strange Rune! Especially as you're getting plumes of smoke. What wood are you using mate?
Paul Kirtley has a good blog on it: Bow-Drill – The Keys to Success. He details the best types of wood to use as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by f0rm4t

Yeah that's strange Rune! Especially as you're getting plumes of smoke. What wood are you using mate?
Paul Kirtley has a good blog on it: Bow-Drill – The Keys to Success. He details the best types of wood to use as well.

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I sent the question to Odd. And he gave me some answers. It could be that I am overdoing it and the dust that will be the fuel for the ember is burned out,
or that the dudt is not coaly enough. I can test this by touching a match to it. If it won't take an ember, it's burned out, and if it starts to burn with a yellow flame, it's not hot enough.
The look of the dust should be darkish brown, not black, and not to light in color. I am using pine wood.

Nice to know while practicing :-)

I'll shake the hand of a man overdoing it on a bow & drill!
You must have a Popeye arms Rune ;)

I'm ruined after a I get an ember!

You know the few minutes you have after you get an ember ...Well I take them like I take a 100m race. (panting and sweating!) Ha!

i've tried a few times with pine but never had much luck, i had the same problems as you are by the sound of it.

the only two woods i get a good result with are sycamore and my favorite is horse chestnut

still..trying keeps you fit lol

It really takes no effort to make the pine smoke...so maybe I am not trying hard enough, lol

personally i gave up using pine after some research. the general consensus seems to be that pine is too resinous although some have said it make a half decent hearth board but they use other wood for the spindle.