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| Creating an Ember |
| 1) once you start to develope smoke, gradually increase both your stroke speed as well as your down pressure. Don't overdo it |
| 2) when you think you have gone long enough, give it 5-6 more full length strokes. Smoke should be billowing out |
| 3) carefully lift the drill out of the notch. Try not to disturb the ember. Treat it as if it were new life coming into the world. It is! |
| 4) with a sliver of wood, place it over the top of the ember and carefully lift the board away. Do not push the sliver of wood down on the coal |
| 5) gently remove the bark holding the ember and transfer it to your prepaired "birdsnest" tender bundle |
| 6) many of my students have destoyed the ember transfering it to the birdsnest. Again, treat it as if it were a newborn |
| Next: the bird's nest |
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| Avoid the temptation of applying too much muscle at this point. Concentrate, instead, on applying strokes that utilize the entire length of the bow. The reason I had you make a 3' bow is so that the bow would spin the drill several rotations per stroke. Short, choppy strokes will wear you out rapidly and fail to achieve success. Also, before you remove the fireboard from the ember, wait for 5-10 seconds to insure that the ember has, in fact, been developed. Just because you have a lot of smoke doesn't mean you have a burning ember inside of all that black dust. |