Dust to Coal to Fire

Assume proper form and place tinder under your baseboard as shown previously. Begin bowing and continue a dozen strokes beyond the point of getting a lot of smoke. The notch should be full of dust.

Carfully hold top of coal with knife or stick and roll the baseboard away. The coal or dust will be sitting on the tinder-unmoved. That is the key, the coal should not have moved--if it broke at this point, you may have just halfed your chance of getting a fire. Now let the dust just smolder for a second or two. You may not have to do anything for a while as the coals grows on its own. You may have to gently blow on the dust to get the coal to grow.

As the coal grows, gently lift the tinder and cradle the coal into the centre of the tinder bundle. Gently blow the coal into the tinder.

Your tinder bundle will let you know what needs to happen next. If it flames up-good job on the tinder bundle. If it does not, you did not put appropriate fibrous materials into it. No big deal, just put the bundle back onto the bark on the ground and place small sticks on top. Hold down these sticks and blow onto coals like you would with any stubborn fire. Note: a good tinder bundle with not go out. Hence, you have some time to work with it-relax, take your time.

Now lets look at the dust we created. The residue left on the baseboard contains dark somewhat fluffy dust--perfect! This dust demonstrates that the right proportions of pressure and speed were used--not to mention the right wood. F.Y.I., this fire took 38 seconds from when I began to move the bow to seeing the flame.