Bow Drill

[signal5delta]

Which trees would be the best to make a bow drill in the bay area. My wife and I hike the East Bay Regional Parks and i thought I would look for the material when we are hiking. Thanks.
Jim

[ratled]

I like the soft woods best. Oaks and pine are out

ratled

[Jimi Jah]

I use the wood that takes a flint spark best.

[omgwtfbbq]

There is a lot of debate on this one. Some say use a hard wood for your spindle and medium to soft wood for your baseboard. The criticism I have heard from doing this is the if the spindle is hard and the baseboard soft, you can drill right through the baseboard before you create enough friction to make an ember. It's better to have friction coming from both pieces (in theory).

What has works best for me in the few times I've attempted fire with a bowdrill is medium hardness for booth the spindle and baseboard. The theory I've heard on this one, and I tend to agree is that you will wear both the spindle and baseboard creating even more dust to collect for the ember. It's also helpful to use the same hardness wood because if you can one piece of medium wood, there is likely going to be more in the same area, rather than having to search for a specific type of tree to make the set.

I've never been great with tree identification, especially when it's just a branch laying on the ground with not context as to what tree it came from, so rather than going off of specific wood or tree type, I use a hardness test. I pressing my thumbnail into the meat of the wood (not the bark) if there is a slight indent, I would consider that medium hardness. If you can't make an indent, it's definitely too hard for a bow drill.

As ratled stated, any resin woods are out. All you will do is a polish a dimple in the baseboard.

[jben]

I like the soft woods best. Oaks and pine are out

ratled

Pine is a softwood

[wjc]

I have a bow drill made from seasoned redwood.

Works pretty well.

[dragon7]

I agree with earlier poster regarding identifying found pieces of wood. I also just use the fingernail test too find to find medium hardness wood. Stay away from hardwoods.

[sdkevin]

Pine is a softwood?

How many drill bits are you going to wear out on Pine over Teak, Oak, Cherry, Walnut, etc?

Witch one will last longer and give you more BTU's?

[jben]

How many drill bits are you going to wear out on Pine over Teak, Oak, Cherry, Walnut, etc?

Witch one will last longer and give you more BTU's?

I'm not sure what your point is. ratled's post implied that pine was equivalent to oak...ie, a hardwood. I pointed out that pine is a softwood. As someone who studied forestry for 6 years I feel qualified to make that statement