>Part of the lead up to the event has been primitive fire->starting with hand- and bow-drill. I struggle with both so we >will see. I do have time to work on my technique.

Can anyone here actually do this? I notice Ray Mears had to show another survival expert how to do this in one show as the other chap had never managed it.
I get the feeling it's a lot tougher than people think.
And Ray is VERY good with his hands; half the shows end up more 'woodworking with Ray' than survival.
The Sock

I can usually get a fire started with a bow drill in about 5 minutes if I have all the supplies together and the bow, spindle, board and handhold are ready to go. The problem is gathering supplies, making the kit, getting the tinder bundle, kindling and wood.

The bow drill took me about a half a day to learn initially, which included splitting a piece of wood (that was provided) to make the kit, finding a suitable piece for the bow (cordage was provided), carving a spindle and handhold and gathering tinder and wood. I probably could have shaved a bit of time of of this if I'd left the spindle and handhold in a rougher form. After the first few attempts I was worn out and sweating badly, which would be a problem in the cold. It's tough to figure out the correct position, pressure and signs when a good coal has started initially. I now, through practice, have a couple of kits that I've built over the last few years that will allow me to start a fire quickly.

The hand drill took me weeks before I got a coal good enough to start a fire and though I can do it, I'm not very consistent in the results.

Nicodemus; Could you do all that with just a knife and what you found?
The Sock

Yes I could build a bow drill kit with just a knife and what I could gather if I had to, the knife and a considerable amount of time, time and a boot string. If I had to make cordage, I'd add quite a bit more time to it. I learned all of the skills necessary in years of taking various primitive and survival skills courses.

The kit is what takes all of the time. A hand drill kit would be far easier to put together, but as I mentioned I'm not consistently able to make a fire that way. If I were going this route, I'd try a fireplow first. I have been successful with a fireplow, but it has drawbacks as well, the main one being the work you have to do to get a coal. Turning a spindle into a piece of wood is less tiresome than pushing one piece of wood back and forth into another. I can work up a big sweat on a fire plow as well.

Building a bow drill fire kit from scratch is time consuming.

First you have to find the right kind of wood for the spindle and hearth (board), and that wood should preferably be at least dry. This takes a little bit of knowledge of trees and wood. It's not like you can pick up any piece of wood to make a successful kit out of it. There are some sites on the web that show people getting coals out of all types of wood that I've never been able to use successfully.

There are a couple of things you could do here that might speed everything up if you're lucky. If you can find wood of the correct thickness, straightness and length so that you only have to strip bark for a decent spindle it will save time. If you can't find another larger piece to split for a hearth, but you have a second boot string, you can tie two pieces of the spindle branch together to make a hearth. Then if you're lucky enough to find a rock with a nice divot, a bottlecap or another piece of wood that fits well in your hand you don't have to cut a piece to make a handhold. If you use a wood handhold you might have to find something suitable to grease the piece with so it won't "burn" instead of the hearth.

Sorry about droning on there. I got a little bit off track.

The simple answer is that I could build a bow drill fire kit with just a knife. I could build one if I found a good rock to flint knap and one to use as a percussion tool to make a cutting tool. The problem is the time it would take to get everything ready. I'd prefer taking along matches or a fire steel.

Sounds like a good experience, I would prefer to have a source of fire on me but that is just a preference.

As for which bottle, I prefer the Klean Kanteen Wide mouth 40oz for hitting the woods. Before they came out with the widemouth version I was using the original size mouth but the wide is much more convenient. Check out this blog entry on them: http://austereprovisions.blogspot.com/2010/01/aqua-est-vita.html

As for the knife, I carry my sebenza everywhere but if I had the option for a survival knife I would go fixed blade and I really like the Chris Reeve one piece series of knives but they have been discontinued. For the money I have loved my Cold Steel SRK, I would have no problem digging in the dirt with any of those.

Great knives.

Have fun,

Rat-7 and some type of SS or gerber LMF II (I think thats it).

Just to throw another opinion out there, this thread got me thinking (which is dangerous), and since I had some spare time (all day) yesterday, I went ahead and tried my hand at a bow-drill. All told, it probably took about 4 hours after I spent a little time reading up on it. The hardest thing for me was the spindle: started off too crooked, then too thin, then too long, and finally got one that worked. I scavenged all of the wood (oak for everything but the hearth which was pine), used a piece of paracord, and a pile of red cedar bark for tinder. Nothing really hard about it, just can't use any old piece of wood. You have to be choosy. And don't cut towards yourself (split my finger open, I seem to do it every few years after the memory of the last time fades).

Looked at the wide-mouth 40 ounce stainless steel Kleen Kanteen; it's a candidate. Also taking a second look at my 9 cup REI stainless campfire percolator [if acceptable the glass percolator cap is a great low friction bow drill spindle "handhold"].

Going off what Nicodemus and Speedmon have written, it looks like you better get practicing dweste.
The Sock