The Two Stick Hearth Board w/pics

[Blackthorn-USA]

So I had a little time after class today to play in the nice weather so I thought I’d make a fire using the two stick hearth method. Most everyone has seen the bow drill method where you cut a notch into your hearth to collect your dust for the ember. With this method no notch is needed. The dust, and ember, form in the natural groove between the two sticks. My Bow Drill thread here will give you instruction on how to use a bow drill, but this thread is to simply show another style of hearth.

Here’s the hearth. Two fairly straight sticks bound together with natural cordage from a couple local plants. I had to carve into one stick just a little to get them to lay together. I also made a small notch on the back sides of both pieces to hold the cordage. You can see in the upper left a regular hearth board.



Using an old ankle bone as a bearing block I made a few embers. In fact out of 8 (you can get two per hole), I only had two that didn’t result in embers. And that’s because I got impatient and quit bowing to soon. That awesome knife is from Helm Forge.



Here’s a closeup of an ember although it doesn’t look very red in the pic.



With that ember I lit a piece of natural cordage to use as an ember, or coal, extender. While that slowly burned down I went and grabbed some grass for tinder. Obviously this isn’t the preferred method, you should have your tinder ready before you get your ember. On this occasion, I was just screwing around and decided to go ahead and blow one to flame. So I needed tinder. With the extender burning, I had that time. In fact a 4 inch piece of cordage burned probably 10 minutes.

Here it is stuck in a notch to keep it off the ground while I was away.



Just a fun way to kill a little time.

[Trekker Outdoors]

That is really neat! I may have to try that. I finally got around to playing with that piece of yucca you gave me for a spindle with a cottonwood hearth board. I had a easy ember on my first try!

[Blackthorn-USA]

Yucca is an easy wood to get an ember with. The embers don't last as long as they do with many other woods but the ignition temp for yucca is something like 800 degrees so you can get to temp fairly quickly. We use it alot during classes to let students concentrate on their technique while still getting an ember.

[DTh2o]

Yucca!

Hey guys thats great, I would never have thought of that to use as a spindle.
Been here 10 minutes so far and already have something new for the kit!

Thanks,
DT

[Gleedaniel13]

So I had a little time after class today to play in the nice weather so I thought I’d make a fire using the two stick hearth method. Most everyone has seen the bow drill method where you cut a notch into your hearth to collect your dust for the ember. With this method no notch is needed. The dust, and ember, form in the natural groove between the two sticks. My Bow Drill thread here will give you instruction on how to use a bow drill, but this thread is to simply show another style of hearth.

Here’s the hearth. Two fairly straight sticks bound together with natural cordage from a couple local plants. I had to carve into one stick just a little to get them to lay together. I also made a small notch on the back sides of both pieces to hold the cordage. You can see in the upper left a regular hearth board.

Nice effort of informing us here. We know how to make fire but this is a good process to know.

[Blackthorn-USA]

Nice effort of informing us here. We know how to make fire but this is a good process to know.

Thanks

[Woods Walker]

Nice. Going to try this.

[Woods Walker]

Nice. Going to try this.

And I did:

Part 1.

Sycamore on Sycamore. Two stick plus regular fireboard.

I took the little guy fishing the other day and noticed all the sycamore trees near the large river. So we gathered some dead fall on the hike out. I prefer to take dead wood off trees but they were so high. Settled on wood that fell to the ground but wasn't in direct contact. That said the environment was kinda damp in that location. I was worried about the wood however it is what it is. The wood was full of knots and gnarly. Sycamore seems to like water.



The funky bark.



This looks like it will do just fine.




So here is the wood back at home ready to GO!



As usual I am starting at near dust so ended up going into dark. For the Sycamore I wanted to do a two stick then standard fire board.

Up first the two stick sycamore on sycamore coal.



The first attempt was a flop but I wasn't going to give up.



The Spindle needed smoothing for another try. Before attempting the two stick again split a section of Sycamore to make a fireboard. Wanted to do the hawk work in the light to reduce my chances of getting hurt. For a wood that's on the softer side it didn't split all that easy however the H&B mouse/lady hawk splits well.



Worked up a sycamore fireboard.



The white area was very soft so the spindle drilled through rather fast. Still it produced a coal without much fuss.







Fire!



Now it was time to get back to the two stick. Really put the hammer down and at first got nothing again. Then I noticed the faintest bit of smoke. flipped the two stick fire board over then gave it a good tap. The smallest of embers appeared. As in hand fan and hope for the best small.




Soon the coal was looking good. I didn't bother to blow the coal into flame as already got fire with this combo minutes before.



Sycamore on Sycamore is GOTO.



Thanks for looking.

[Woods Walker]

Part 2.

For this practice I tied two mullein sticks together then used a Red cedar spindle to get a coal.



There was a gap between sticks. I hoped this would allow the dust and ember to fall under the set then air would feed the coal however this didn't really workout as expected.



Actually I always seemed to have more than one coal. The first was trapped in the gap between sticks. Then it moved over to both the dust and leaf however remained in the two stick fireboard. Once the leaf went out and coal was totally removed from the fireboard a mullein top somehow caught the embers falling from the two stick board.





The dust was very flammable. The tinder bundle was jute combined with mullein pith for a coal extender. It took only 18 seconds to get a coal. That's 18 seconds total without the need for a burn in. Maybe a few minutes to cut the mullein, shaving a little of the outside with my knife. Couldn't have been more than another minute or so to tie the two sticks together. A very fast friction fire method requiring little effort. Very pleased with this combo. Will have to experiment with more two stick friction fires.



Here is a video of the Red cedar spindle two mullein stick fireboad. This was done at the tail end of dusk. It was interesting to see all the various embers floating around in the dark. This set really really really wanted to work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKfs8WJNqz8

The two stick mullein idea was given to me by "Stone" on another forum.

[Blackthorn-USA]

Nice pics! As you pointed out in part two using the two stick method does have a few advantages. Speed in preparation being the biggest I think. Getting two embers is fairly common as well. Often I personally will dump the one on the hearth onto the one that has fallen through and use them as one larger ember.

I’ve also frequently had the top ember catch the wood of the hearth and start to coal up. That can be nice if your ember goes out sometimes you can light directly from the smoldering hearth board. This seems to happen mostly with the very soft woods like yucca, mullein, sotol, etc.

Sycamore is a good wood for friction. I’ve used it on occasion but around here you generally find it by searching or chance. Many other trees are much more common to the area. You mentioned the white wood was softer and that is something people should be aware of in regard to most woods. The heart wood is usually harder and in some cases that can make the difference between success and failure.

Nice little hawk you got there too btw!