Primitive Technology

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Primitive Technology Page 6

by David Wescott


  Select tool model from celt artifacts

  Select appropriate lithic material (greenstone)

  Biface to gross scale

  Shape to scale by pecking with hammerstone

  Grind to final shape and sharpen

  Polish final edge

  Manufacture celt handles

  Determine handle scale to fit celt replica

  Select appropriate hardwood

  (Quercus alba, Q. Stellata)

  Shape to approximate scale

  Burn and scrape to finish

  Cut hole to fit celt

  Install celt

  Manufacture digging sticks

  Select appropriate hardwood (Diospyrus texana)

  Cut to select length

  Burn and scrape to shape ends for digging job

  (wedge and point)

  Manufacture Gahagan-style biface and handle

  (similar to celt and handle preparation)

  Manufacture hafted sickles (deer mandible, flint flakes)

  Select appropriate hardwood, flakes, blades, and other necessary resources (Diospyrus texana, Quercus fusiformis)

  Cut hardwood to shape

  Groove slot for flint sickle or cut out mandible

  for deer jaw sickle

  Secure cutting blade to haft

  Manufacture mallet

  Select appropriate hardwood (Quercus fusiformis)

  Cut to selected length and preliminary shape

  Burn and scrape to final shape

  Manufacture bone awls

  Select deer metatarsals or ulna

  Groove bone with flint flake or burin

  Break bone along groove

  Grind bone on sandstone to final shape

  PHASE Il - Materials

  Harvest cane thatch (Phragmites australis)

  Bundle cane

  Trim and load bundles (two dump truck loads)

  Transport cane bundles

  Unload can bundles

  Stack cane in crisscross pattern to season

  Harvest structural members

  Select pine (Pinus echinata) 35’ tall 4”

  diameter at the base

  Oak (Quercus alba, Q. stellata)

  Hickory (Carya tomentosa)

  Cut timber

  Load timber

  Unload timber

  Sort pine into long, medium,short catagories

  Debark pine

  Prepare lashing- animal

  Manufacture deer rawhide from deerskin

  Cut deer rawhide for lashing

  Cut cow leather (Mexican source) for lashing

  Treat leather lashing with oil

  Prepare lashing- plant (Pinus, Vitis)

  Dig roots, transport roots, boil, pound and twist roots

  PHASE III - Construction

  Lay out house

  Spread 6" thick dirt layer on former site excavation

  Lay out house plan using radius from center

  Line up main door SSE to Mound A

  Measure hole spacing

  Dig holes for structure foundation

  By stake and mallet -10 holes

  By tractor auger - 38 holes

  Install primary 16 poles

  Determine location of main struts

  Pair poles for lashing

  Attach separate rope to top of each pole

  Raise pole and put base in pre-dug holes

  Tamp holes

  Bend poles together with ropes

  Lash tops together when desired bends are made

  Install secondary 16 poles

  (similar to installation of primary

  poles except are

  attached below main crotch)

  Install tertiary 16 poles

  Poles simply tamped but not bent

  Install 4 internal verticals

  Plumb to locate bottom and

  top position of vertical

  Position vertical in ground dent

  Attach top

  Re-plumb verticals and complete

  external framework

  *Tools added: plumb bob

  Install major horizontal members

  Install 13 horizontal members

  Bandsequence:

  3,1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13

  *Tools added: levers, rope, tamper

  Install decks A, B, C

  Position beam, level, notch to fit, then lash in place

  Install Quercus bands, inside structure to support

  portion of decks against wall

  Select pine for deck A, and Oak for decks B and rack C

  Split, trim, and notch wood flooring material

  Position flooring and lashing in place

  Install thatch

  Manufacture wood needles (Diospyrus virginiana)

  Manufacture chingaleras (4)

  Hang thatch bundles

  Clamp thatch bundles

  Hang next row of bundles to cover clamp, then

  clamp above, etc. to top

  Paddle thatch to straighten rows

  *Tools added: needles, wooden awls, paddle

  Finish house details and clean up site

  Manufacture door

  Install door

  Dig run-off trench outer circumference

  Clean up site

  The primary construction crew on the finished frame.

  * * *

  Section 2

  Fire Where We Begin

  * * *

  The Miracle of Fire by Friction

  By Dick Baugh

  * * *

  Introduction

  Starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Why do I always get a thrill out of doing it? Is it because there are probably less than 500 people in the United States who can consistently start a fire with a hand drill? Is it the entertainer in me? I don't know. I assure you that the thrill is not diminished by knowing more about the scientific events that go on during the process.

  The objective of this article is to provide some scientific insight into the events which happen when two sticks are rubbed together to start a fire. In particular, why is it that some woods don't work at all, some work with great effort and others with relative ease. The principals discussed apply equally well to the fire saw, fire plow, hand spun drill or bow drill. Will it help you start a friction fire more easily or quickly? Probably not. Will it give you a deeper appreciation of the process? I hope so.

  Basic Principles

  You have to get the char, powder that is rubbed off the wood, heated up to about 800 degrees Fahrenheit before it will start glowing (ignite). I measured this by sprinkling char generated with a bow drill on a soldering iron heated up to a known temperature. Below 800 degrees the wood dust would give off a little smoke but that's all. Above 800 it would smoke and then start to glow. Anything that prevents the char from reaching 800 degrees will interfere with fire making.

  Composition and Structure

  By this I mean what kind of molecules is the material composed of and how are the molecules arranged? If there is any volatile resin or tarry substance in the wood then as the friction heats the wood the tarry stuff will take heat away from the char (heat of evaporation) or will condense on the char and form it into a coarse gritty substance, preventing ignition. If the correct molecules are present and all the wrong molecules are absent there is still a problem if the molecules are not arranged properly. Imagine your best hearth board and hand spun spindle which will twirl up an ember with very little effort. The wood will be very light, a very poor thermal conductor (a good insulator). Now put your hearth board and spindle in a vice and compress the wood to 1/2 its original thickness. It will be twice as dense and its thermal conductivity will be doubled. You can still twirl up an ember but you will have to work twice as hard because you have altered the structure of the wood. You have made it a poorer insulator and you have doubled the amount of muscle power needed to reach ignition. For a person with limited muscle power attempting to start a fire by friction the use of low density w
ood is critical.

  The bow-drill fire set in action.

  Things that can cause problems:

  a. If you don't have enough muscle power then you won't be able to raise the temperature high enough. Remedy: teamwork. Have someone else help you. Even if the helper can only get the wood temperature elevated to 300 degrees then it will make the job easier. Remember that a bow drill is the easiest in that it uses your muscle power most effectively.

  b. If the structure of the wood is such that it disintegrates before it reaches 800 degrees then it is a wood that should not be used. I strongly believe that some softwoods such as willow and aspen don't work because they fall apart before they reach the critical temperature.

  c. Volatile substances such as water or resin in the wood. Evaporative cooling will prevent the char from reaching the critical temperature.

  The simplest test for whether a particular piece of wood will twirl up an ember is the most obvious: try it and see if it works. A quicker test is to examine the char that is ground off as you twirl the spindle on the hearth board. The rule of thumb, literally, is to rub the char between thumb and forefinger. If it is coarse and gritty then reject that particular piece of wood. If it is very fine, like face powder, then you have a good chance of twirling up a fire. Both Kochansky and Graves mention this. What is the difference between these two classes of wood? Those that work and those that don't. We know that in the category of “good” woods there are soft woods, such as yucca, which can be easily dented with the thumbnail and hard woods such as sage brush which are much more resistant to the thumbnail test. Could it be that the “good” woods ignite at a lower temperature than the "bad" woods? That should be easy to measure. The straight-forward way would be to measure the temperature of each tiny little particle of char as it is ground off the spindle or hearth board. Trouble is that it is very hard to measure the temperature of something that tiny without disturbing what is going on. The next best way is to measure the ignition temperature indirectly. Sprinkle some char on a piece of metal which has been heated to a known temperature. See what temperature the metal has to be heated to in order to ignite the char. As a practical manner I used a thermostatically controlled soldering iron as a source of known temperature. Tips with two different temperatures, 700 degrees F and 800 degrees F were available. I had observed previously that the char ground into the notch in a “good” hearth board would start glowing (ignite) if a pinch of it was placed on the 800 degree soldering iron tip but would not ignite if placed on the 700 degree tip. The conclusion from this was that if friction heats the char above 800 degrees it will ignite.

  What about “bad” woods?

  I used a piece of local willow sapwood, a material on which I have wasted countless hours in the past trying to light a friction fire. Never any luck. Always produces a coarse gritty char. This time I did a different experiment. I charred some of the willow with a match and then ground it off with a file. It was now very fine, much finer than the result of a bow drill. This very fine willow char would ignite almost instantaneously at 700 degrees. Conclusion: the more finely the char is divided the lower the ignition temperature. This hypothesis was tested further by grinding off some un-charred mule fat wood with a fairly fine file. This material was sightly gritty feeling compared with the char that falls into the notch of a mule fat hearth board. The coarser mule fat char failed to ignite at 800 degrees. I did the same thing with char cloth, the favored tinder for flint and steel. Char cloth failed to ignite, even at 800 degrees.

  Conclusions

  The miracle of fire by friction is that you don't have to heat the char up to the temperature of a glowing ember to make it ignite. You only have to raise its temperature up to the point where it takes off of its own accord. When powdered charred wood is heated up to some critical temperature it begins to spontaneously oxidize. When it starts oxidizing its temperature rises, causing it to oxidize even faster. Eventually it reaches an equilibrium temperature limited by how much air is available and starts to glow, ignition. The critical temperature where this process begins depends on how finely the char is pulverized.

  Fire by friction works only because these two events, pulverizing and heating, happen simultaneously. Woods that don't work disintegrate before they reach this critical condition.

  Fire by Friction - The Spiritual Aspects

  What is a cynical, agnostic engineer doing talking about the “spiritual” nature of something which can be fully explained by the laws of physics and chemistry? All I know is that there are some things that make me feel good and starting a fire the way my ancestors did 10,000 years ago is one of them. What makes me feel even better is getting a group of people to contribute towards the starting of a fire. I can think of no better way to bond a group of people. We all take turns at twirling the spindle, each according to his or her own ability, we all gently blow on the ember to bring out the flame and the smoke carries our thoughts and our hopes skyward. On the evaluation of a weekend course I gave a couple of years ago one of the “students said Starting a fire is a sacrament.” I guess it is.

  FIRE BY FRICTION MATERIALS of the San Francisco Bay Region

  By Dick Baugh

  * * *

  The objective of this report is to list and describe the fire by friction materials that are found near San Francisco Bay. This is to fill a gap which is found in almost all the outdoor survival and primitive living skills books which I have read. They mention their favorite fire by friction material or materials, none of which are native to the area where I live. My hope is that other “primitives” in different parts of the world would also write similar articles describing the fire by friction materials of their home territory. This article is not intended to be a reference for plant identification, although several reference books have relied on my own experiences with using these materials. The opinions are obviously subjective and reflect my own prejudices and skill.

  Materials that work

  Selection of suitable materials is a matter of observing nuances. First, the wood must be dry. Second, just because one piece of wood from a particular species worked once is no indication that it will always work. Another parameter to consider is the degree to which the wood is decayed. Sometimes a small amount of fungal attack makes subtle changes in the ability to twirl up an ember. Heart-wood very often works better than sapwood. Selection of woods is very critical. The material must be capable of being ground into a very fine powder. Any tendency for the powder being ground off to feel coarse of gritty is a signal that you are wasting your time and should reject that wood and find something else. Equally important is the ability of the wood to maintain its structural integrity at high temperature (up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit) before the char is ground off. This is discussed in great detail in Bulletin #4.

  Materials

  California incense cedar

  Calocedrus decurrens makes the best hearth boards. A very soft, light wood which takes very little effort to twirl up an ember. Use a board or split piece with the annual rings perpendicular to the surface (quarter sawn). It also smells good. Incense cedar is native to the Sierra Nevada Mountains and is only seen in the San Francisco Bay region as a horticultural plant. It is, however, such a superior wood for hearth boards that it should be mentioned. The oldest, least dense heartwood is easiest to ignite with a hand drill.

  I have never been successful in creating an ember with an incense cedar spindle twirled on an incense cedar hearth board. The char ground off is always coarse and gritty. My only explanation, albeit not very scientific, is that the wood is so soft that cedar on cedar wears away so quickly that the ignition temperature is never reached. I would appreciate comments form anyone who has had experience with this material.

  Elderberry

  The common elderberry of the San Francisco Bay region is Sambucus mexicana. It is seen along roadsides in the hills especially for a hand spun fire drill. Select shoots that are about 1/2 inch in diameter and fairly straight. Second or third ye
ar growth is best because the wood will be the correct thickness. Elderberry spindles work so well because they have a soft pith core of from 3/16 to 3/8 inch diameter. As a consequence when twirling the drill your muscle power is a rapid rise in temperature. Avoid first year stems which have too much pith and only a thin wood section. Cut elderberry shoots while they are green, heat them in an oven (250 degrees) and straighten them while still damp. Then leave them in the oven a few hours until they are perfectly dry. These “non-primitive” techniques can only be justified in that I need to prepare a large number of spindles at a time for the classes that I help teach. The slower alternative in preparing spindles is to straighten them with heat while they are green, tie them in bundles of 2,3 or 7 and leave them in a warm dry place. Elderberry wood which is larger in diameter is also good for hearth boards although fairly dense. As a consequence of its greater density it requires more “horsepower” form a hand-spun drill to reach ignition temperature. That is a non-problem for a bow drill.

  California buckeye

  California buckeye (Aeschulus californica) works well for hearth boards and bow drill spindles. I have seldom seen shoots which were long enough for hand drill spindles. There is a great variation in its hardness, depending on whether or not it was cut green or allowed to decay slightly. The less dense wood ignites more easily.

  Mule fat

  Mule fat (Baccharus viminea) forms long straight stems in stream beds in California through to Arizona. The soft woody stems are excellent for spindles and hearth boards. There seems to be a large variation in the density of the wood, meaning that some samples require more work than others to twirl up an ember with a hand drill. The only two times I have ever started a hand drill fire starting from essentially nothing have been with mule fat spindles and hearth boards.

 

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