Traverse City Pics

Spent last weekend up in Traverse City Michigan while we attend Trish's marathon and I thought I'd post some of my favorite pictures of our stay on Long Lake.

Ride in the Mini

Here's a video my kids shot from the back seat of my 1984 Austin Mini when on a ride to and from their Grandma and Grandpa's house.

River Thames Flint

I received some flint recently from a friend in Texas and have been using it to make fire using the flint and steel method.  I've got a pretty good idea what flint looks like.  The inner core of the rock has a dark appearance and the outer layer is lighter in colour.

The rock prior to flaking off a piece.

In our front yard we have a rock garden containing rocks we've brought back from our family vacation trips.  One of them was picked up from the Thames riverbed in London England at low tide. I happened to notice that rock the other day and wondered if it could be flint.  I decided to flake off a piece and find out if it could produce a spark with my steel.

A piece flaked off.

I flaked a large piece off using one of the other rocks from the garden and then broke it down into a couple of smaller pieces.  In the process I noticed blood streaming from my thumb - I had cut it without knowing it.  Well these flakes sure are sharp which is a good sign.

Smaller pieces flaked off.  Notice the translucent piece on the left.

The moment of truth came as I took one of the smaller pieces and struck it with my steel.  Jackpot, it produced a shower of sparks.  I will be adding some of these pieces to my kit mainly for sentimental value to remember our vacation but also because they produced a nice sharp edge.  The rock seems to have a translucent property making it look like glass.

The rock returned to the garden.

I still have a large piece of rock for the garden safe and sound for when I need another piece of flint.

Just picked up this 36" length of O1 precision ground tool steel from the Metal Supermarket in London which is right next door to Lee Valley Tools. Got it for $46 plus taxes which I thought was pretty decent. Hoping to make a knife or two similar to the Pathfinder knife that Dave Canterbury uses and one similar to the Busse SAR 5 which are very similar in design.

Happy Mothers Day Mom

Taped this this past Mother's day. This is my Mom, who was a missionary for years in Southern Africa, reciting John 3:16 in the Sotho language. I'll get my Dad on Father's day doing it in Zulu but he needs a bit of practice.

Friction Fire Using the Bow-Drill and Natural Materials

After having success with the bow-drill using cedar for the hearth-board and spindle and jute twine for the tinder bundle I wanted to give it a go with some materials I could collect in the "wild".  The willow that I found seemed to be soft enough as my thumbnail could easily depress into it except for the heart wood which was more dense.  The first hearth-board I created could not produce enough dust to fill the notch and therefore could not ignite into a coal.  The same result was obtained on my second hearth-board but on my third one, the smaller diameter piece, I could tell right away that it was going to work by the amount of dust that was created.  An ember was produced on my first attempt. 

The problem then became keeping the coal long enough to ignite the tinder bundle.  The dried grasses did not seem to catch a flame as easily as the jute twine.  On two attempts the coal either disintegrated and fell through the fibres of the birds-nest or just burnt out because it was too small.  Persistence paid off though as I was successful on the third attempt as shown at the end of the video below.

There seem to be so many factors that must be just right to create a friction fire with the bow-drill.  The most important factor seems to be the correct piece of wood to make your hearth-board from.  On future attempts I'm going to try to make the primary tinder in the birds nest as fine as I can in order to catch a flame.  I'll also try to see if I can find some cedar.

Firestarting Using Horseshoe Fungus and a Magnifying Lens

Horseshoe fungus, a type of Bracket Fungus, is something I've seen in the forest and never realized it's potential as a firestarting material.  Once you remove the inside orange material, either by sawing or by scraping with your knife, you can ignite it with a ferro rod, or in the case of the video below, using a magnifying lens.  These lenses were scavenged from old projectors which were discarded as trash.