Fire by hand drill

Fire by hand drill

Sunday 19 February 2012

All natural, unprepared percussion fire.

Hi Bushcrafters,

Following on from my little post yesterday.

As with any primitive fire starting method percussion fire really fascinates me. However it frustrates me too.

Why? Well it is very dependent on materials that are hard to come by.

I would love to hear from anyone who has used natural percussion materials, for example a mineral like iron pyrites and a hard stone like flint to ignite materials that can be gathered. Preperation is allowed however it must be able to be done in a short time and use material available in nature to a person with no tools etc. In other words making Amadou from a bracket fungus is out.

To put things in context. I have had success with king alfreds cakes or Daldinia concentrica and true tinder fungus. However the second fungus can only be found here is very small isolated populations so is basically unavailable to me.

I have also used charred plant material but this requires fire which kinda defeats the point of this little learning exercise.

I look forward to hearing about people personal experiences.

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