Posted: 9/3/2010 8:40:43 PM EDT
| Say you were to use a tapered spindled, would you be more productive?... Example, the point that is causing the friction, were to be 3/4inch diameter, and were your cord is wrapped around narrow it down to 1/2. Would it increase the friction, as 1 turn from the 1/2 would transfer 1 turn to the 3/4 witch is larger and would have more surface area to create more friction?? or should I just stock up on water proof matches as the are cheap, and forget the primatve fire makeing skills? |
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It might not matter much with a bow drill. The length of the bow already provides tremendous mechanical advantage due to the long stroke/spin it can give the drill. A little bit of a taper may be too small to matter. Also, your string would have a tendency to walk up the taper to your bearing. I have seen spindles that were tapered in the middle but this was done to help keep the string from walking too much. With a hand drill it may be different. You'll notice that many spindles for hand drills are small in diameter. This is to increase the rotations since you don't have the long stroke of a bow, just the length of your palm. I've recently found success with a hand drill spindle that had a pronounced taper. It did seem to help get an ember pretty quickly. In any case, hand drill spindles are generally held with the fatter end against the fire board, even if there isn't a huge taper.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWmFtt8pgVo By all means, learn some primitive firemaking. If anything it's a huge ego boost. More importantly you'll have to learn some finer firecraft skills to be successful with primitive fire lighting making you all the more competent with modern methods. Hope that helps a little. |
| The bow drill spindles I made in the past were about the diameter of a broom handle. It was straingt and no taper. I did not leave the outside smooth, instead I took the ege of a knife and scraped flats or facets all around the diameter....theses are shallow flats not very deep, I found this helped the rope or leather bow string from slipping on the...there was very little wasted motion in trying to get the right downward pressure that would give me a combination of friction in the fireboard vs slipping on drill |
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Quoted:
The bow drill spindles I made in the past were about the diameter of a broom handle. It was straingt and no taper. I did not leave the outside smooth, instead I took the ege of a knife and scraped flats or facets all around the diameter....theses are shallow flats not very deep, I found this helped the rope or leather bow string from slipping on the...there was very little wasted motion in trying to get the right downward pressure that would give me a combination of friction in the fireboard vs slipping on drill Yeah I learned this real quick, you need "traction" if you will otherwise the cord just spins around the spindle.. I went as far as to shape the spindle almost octagonal, so the cord would catch the corners... To much work and energy is wasted doing that and you get the same results but roughing up the edges... |