Hand Drill Firemaking Beginner’s Step by Step Guide

A step-by-step guide to making fire with the hand drill, meant for people who have never done it before. Please leave your own tips and tricks, favorite materials, etc. in the comments. For this video, I’ve used Common Mullein and Box Elder, and describe another combination — Jerusalem Artichoke and White Pine. The video goes over identifying and preparing materials, hand conditioning, floating technique, and tinder.

Remember how important dry materials are for your kit. For your first time, it’s helpful to keep your board and spindle out of humidity, in the sun, and in a dry place for a couple of weeks. If you use this same board for hand conditioning practice, it will further dry it out from the heat you generate. As you build up your skills, you can try materials that are right from nature (for this video I used materials that I gathered that day and did not pre-dry in any way).

Let me know if you try this out — I’d love to hear your stories!

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