Step 3 Putting The Spindle And Fireboard To Work Together

For these two important parts to work in tandem, you need to prepare the point where they will meet. Try to get the dimension of the spindle by positioning it vertically to the fireboard as you carve a shallow niche on the fireboard with a knife to mark the diameter of the spindle. This shallow niche is where you’ll need to put the spindle.

Step 4 Spin The Spindle (The Hand Drill Form)

You spin the spindle with the hand drill form, the proper form of spinning it. You do this by placing one end of the spindle on the shallow niche that you carved on the fireboard in a vertical position. Hold the spindle between your two palms and rub your hands together with the spindle between your palms. Exert even pressure inwards and downward into the spindle. As pressure is applied, your hand will move up and down the length of the stick or spindle. Pressure must be applied evenly as you spin the spindle so that it stays in a vertical position. You continue spinning and rotating until smoke emanates from the niche and you see the side of the niche burning.

Step 5 Carving The Notch

Carving the notch is an important step in this operation. The notch should be in the right location and the right size so that you can create an ember successfully. A notch is a carved out ⅛ of a pipe section from a thin piece of wood. Position the notch beside the fireboard in such a way that its pointed or narrowest part is pointing towards and reaching across the middle of the niche that was just burned. This is an important part of the success of the hand drill, so go ahead, linger on it so that you can make a good notch.

Step 6 Creating The Ember

A handful of tinder should be placed under the notch so that after you have made an ember, the tinder will catch it. Prepare also a large fluffy tinder to catch the smoking and hopefully smoldering small tinder. Once these are ready, you can now put your mind to creating that member by spinning the spindle using the right speed and downward pressure. If you spin too fast but do not apply enough downward pressure a glaze will be created on the niche. This will cause a reduction of the friction and lessen the dust that you create. On the other hand, if you put too much downward pressure you could create a hole on the fireboard, then you will need to start again on a new location on the fire board.

Go with pressure and speed that will produce plenty of dust inside the notch and lookout for smoke. As long as the notch fills with dust, spin the spindle faster and apply more downward pressure for that final thrust to create an ember. For the dust to ignite into an ember, a temperature of between 80 and 816 degrees is needed.

Step 7 Build The Fire

Once the handful of tinder underneath the notch catches the ember, blow at it until it ignites into flame, then transfer the small tinder into the larger tinder and wait for it to smolder before putting it in the rock-ringed area and piling first small kindling over it and then the larger kindling. Once the fire is steadily burning position the fuelwood over it to keep the flame going.

Conclusion

That is how to make a fire without matches or lighters using the hand drill method. A bit complicated, time-consuming and, yes, would entail some pain, especially if your palms develop blisters. But with practice, and as we mentioned earlier, a lot of grit and determination you can learn and even be an expert. That is a big achievement and a skill I’m sure a lot of your manly friends don’t have.

If you are looking to create good-quality fires then you will need good quality logs, and a great way to prepare wood for burning is to have a high-quality log splitter which can do the hard work for you and save you time. If you haven’t already got one, take a look at our reviews of some of the top log splitters on the market and see which would suit your needs best.