The Great Outdoors Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people who love being outdoors enjoying nature and wilderness, and learning about the required skills and equipment. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I've been working with the bow-drill, and I notice that certain types of wood may be so hard that hardly any powder forms (like african mahogany) and others may be too soft and crumbly. Pine appears to be a little too resinous. So far, I've had some success with rambutan.
Your bow can be made of any pliable wood like yew, which archers have used for centuries. Your drill shaft should be a hard wood like oak or cherry. Your kindling wood (the wood being drilled into for fire) should be a soft-fibered wood like pine. If you find pine too resinous, seek out older pines that may have stopped producing resin. You can identify harder and softer woods by peeling the bark and trying to scrape the inner wood with your fingernail or a knife. Softer woods will be marked by your fingernail alone. You can also look for tightness of grain pattern if you happen to have a cross-split piece.
