One Stick Fires

As part of the advanced training we were required to do several one-stick fires….something I still use to this day…

#1- Poplar

Working with a couple of coaches proved to be valuable. xxxx and yyyy showed me where I had been making my mistake on my tinder bundle. Much of it was using the wrong wood—I had been using some pines that would not take a propper spark. I also needed a bit of help with making a proper tinder bundle and not the stuff that got me by in Intermediate… 

I used Poplar for this one. xxxx had given me a few sticks to work with. I used a Gerber LMF II and a ferro rod. Another important point is that with the LMF, xxxx had me change the angle my serrated edge made contact with the grain of the wood. This made a huge difference in the shavings and tinder greated when processing the wood.

I created a good size bundle, made sure I had organized my shavings, pencil lead, pencil and thumd size pieces….and the fire worked wonderfully!

 

#2 – Basswood

Had thisBasswood from carving stock and wanted to experiment. The one-stick only allows you to use one tool, one stick, and no accelerants. Used my Trail Hawk as the tool.

 

#3 Maple

Have spent most of my time working with a few others, getting them enrolled in BCUSA and Bushclass, working with Melissa and Abeni on their projects, and of course my highly stressful day job. So I took an evening to play with my new Tom Brown Tracker and making another One-Stick Fire out under the T-10.

For this one I used Maple, a wood I was not familiar with in the application of fire. It was definitely harder than the Basswood I had been playing with. This was another carving chunk I decided to sacrifice (yep–a $12 fire here) , but I didn’t have time to look far anything else, and with my schedule, locating fire wood is going to be a challenge anyway.

As a side note—all Tom Brown Trackers should come complete with a box of Band-Aids…. just say’n

#4 Mountain Cedar (25 January 2015)

I decided on doing an overnighter since my house was invaded by a band of warrior princesses for a birthday party…

So other than getting some dirt time with my pup, I decided to work on a few projects—one of them being my One-Sticks…. it also created the opportunity to play with my new BushCraft knife–the BOB from TOPS knives. 

For this one I used moutain cedar. It was pulled out a few years ago when the house next door burned down. So its been sesoning for a few years.

Dirt Time also included a few visits from the wife to hang out when the teen-age environment proved to be too much. She decided to pull out her camera and take pics of the fire—so I asked her to take pics of the one-stick attempt. Blowing these into a video was fun and a different media than I am used to–its actually much easier and my move to photo essays for everything else from this point on…

#5 Willow