I will give a shot at the bowdrill.
The board on the ground needs to be a soft wood with a depression just smaller than the end of your drill. There needs to be a notch from the depression out to the edge. The drill needs to be a hardwood. The handle also needs to be a hardwood.
You will need some tinder under the board at the notch. As you spin the drill, it will create friction in the depression. Small fragments of the softwood will heat, smolder and fall out the notch onto the tinder. With gently blowing, it should light the tinder. Last time I tried this was in 1973 at Boy Scout camp. It took some time to get a fire started.
I have been practicing with the magneisun rod and steel. The Boy Scout "Hot Spark" specifically. $2.85 and it fits on your keyring.
www.scoutstuff.org Throws great sparks in a small size. My son and I find tinder everywhere we go and give it a try. Last week at my other son's soccer game, we found a river birch. We were able to lite the paper bark peelings in one strike. Burned very fast and hot with the oils in the bark. We found a dried cattail head at the end of the pond in the neighborhood. Knocked off some cattail head into a pile, threw one spark and poof lots of flame.
We found a Fatwood, Lighter wood, or Pine Resin soaked tree stump in the backyard. Dug it up, split into pencil sized bits. Then I split those into pieces 1/2" wide and double business card paper thick. I split the ends several times so it looks like a pitch fork. I weave a cotton ball between the tines. One spark lites the cotton ball which lights the fatwood. The fatwood burns like a candle for at least 15 minutes. I even soaked the fatwood and vaseline soaked cotton ball in a cup of water for 3 hrs. Pulled them out of the water, shook the water off the fatwood and squeezed the water out of the cotton ball. 2 strikes to get it lit. I have had such success with the Hot Spark it has become my primary fire starter.
I have been able to get 0000 steel wool to light easily with two FRESH D cell batteries. I have used a 9 volt as well. 0000 Steel wool will also catch sparks from the Hot Spark and burn slow enough to allow you to light more difficult tinder.
I will second the opinion made that getting it lit is only half the battle. Proper laying of tinder, small, medium, and large sized kindling, and a good stack of firewood before you ever strike anything is more important. Most people start with too little wood and don't lay the fire before trying to get it lit. Lay your fire and leave a small opening for your firestarter to enter.
Get good at building a fire with matches or lighters. At the same time try to get tinder going with alternate methods. Then marry the two processes together. Once you can get a fire going without matches, try it will wet fuel.