Tim Corcoran shows how to make fire with a bow drill using western red cedar, mountain maple, and Pacific yew. He carves the socket and notch, uses sap as lubricant, and transfers the smoking ember into a tinder bundle while telling a Raven legend about fire.
Questions this video answers
Western red cedar
Mountain maple
Pacific yew (yew tree)
Tree sap (sap)
A triangular (pizza-slice) notch
Chapters
Our ancestors, way back thousands of years ago, used to make fire way before matches, way before lighters, way before.
Propane. That's right. Or any of that. And so what we have here, this is a cedar kit. This is western red cedar wood, and a western red cedar wood spindle. And we have. This is a hardwood handhold made from mountain maple. And this bow is actually made from the yew tree, the Pacific yew tree. And so the way it works is. Oh, I'm gonna need my knife.
Okay. The way it works is I'll start a fresh one here. Let's see.
We're gonna make a song socket.
Carving in a little spot here.
To hold the spindle.
Now, where should we go? Right here. Okay, now what we're going to do is we're going to load up our spindle.
And.
You want to stay away.
No, you can stay right there, bud.
It's not going to be, like, thirsty things.
And this is our setup. Our fireboard on the bottom, our spindle up right here, and our hand hold on top, and then our bow. And what we're going to do is we're going to spin the spindle back and forth. And look at this, guys. What happens each time I switch directions on my bow? What happens to the spindle? Twirls, and then it stops and changes directions. Okay, now move your arm, Taryn. Okay, so there's room. Now what I'm doing is I'm pushing down on top as I'm going back and forth with the bow. And look what's gonna happen when I go fast. Look at that. Okay, I'm gonna do. Now I'm not gonna go forever. I'm just gonna go for a little bit here.
Bring the gram.
Okay, now look what it did. Two things happened.
I burned in a socket. And that's a perfect fit of the spindle to the fireboard. And I also burned in the top.
So now we're gonna take a break. We need to do a couple of things. One is we're gonna cut a notch in here to be a spot where the ember can form. And two is we need to put a little lubricant in here. Now what. Guess what makes a really good lube in nature? Cause what we want is we don't want it to burn up top, but we do want it to burn on the bottom. So guess what makes a really good lube?
What?
I'll give you a hint. It's something. Something sticky that you found earlier. Yes. Can you guys go get a little bit of SAP and bring it back to me.
And if that. If that socket, it was like a pizza or an apple pie, guess what the shape is that I'm cutting out?
No, it's a triangle. It's like one piece of pizza. Triangle. It's like one piece of pizza or like one.
What does a slice of pizza look like?
Piece of pie.
Triangle.
And it looks like a circle.
Well, that part does. Yeah.
Why are you drawing a triangle?
Well, that's the magic shape that makes.
Fire. That makes just the right space for the hot dust to make an ember. Okay, now here's what's. Oh, perfect. Okay. Can you. I don't need that much. This is really what we're gonna. We're gonna save it for later. I need about half of that piece right there. And take that and put it in here without getting too sappy so your mom doesn't have to work too hard tonight to clean that SAP off your fingers. Okay. Now here's what we're gonna do. Guys, help me out. Grab this and push it down in there and twirl it around. Can you help? Yeah. Don't get on your fingers. Now we're mashing that SAP in there.
Well, it's gonna. It's like chapstick. Exactly. And it makes it so it won't burn up there. The whole reason we have the top is to keep this steady, but the place that makes the fire is the bottom. So we want the friction on bottom, but we don't want the friction on top. Okay, here's what's going to happen. I'm gonna need one more help from you boys, which is I need something flat and dry, like a dry leaf or a dry piece of bark, but skinny, almost like a piece of paper.
Like this?
Yeah, but you have to get something from nature for this challenge. Yeah.
Say it first, then I'm going to do it. So we're going to load up the spindle in the bow. We're going to twirl it around, and as it starts getting faster and faster, what's the first thing you're going to see? Smoke. Okay. So the reason why I put the leaf there is because it's going to catch the red hot ember. Okay. All right, let's see how we go here. Now.
The trick I always like to do, and I always tell this to kids is, you know, in the end, we're not in control over fire and nature. So I always remember to give thanks to the wood and to the trees. And there's an old Indian legend that Long, long ago.
Raven, who used to be colored like a rainbow, flew up to the sun and he stole fire from the sun. And when he went up there, he got burned. And that's what turned ravens. Beautiful rainbow feathers, all black. But he brought down the fire and he hid the fire in the cedar tree, this very one right here. And that, this old trick, spinning the wood cedar together on itself is what brings the fire out. So I always remember to give thanks before we get started.
All right, so we used to have parrots.
Parrot ravens. So we're going to start slow and everything's being held real steady. And then we're going to speed up. Should start getting smoke here.
And I'm going to really speed up.
Okay, now what about the dust? If you look close.
The dust is smoking all by itself. Can you see it?
Yeah, can hear him go.
Okay, boys, where'd those tinder bundles go?
Get that one with the white.
Okay, we've got our bird nest shaped tinder bundle with some nice.
Cedar inner bark here. We're gonna carefully transfer our burning ember.
Into our tinder bundle. Oops.
And this is why you should always put your cigarettes out.
