I'll try my best recount what I saw, but I wasn?t taking notes or anything. In other words, this is all coming from memory, so if I miss something, I apologize. LOL
They tested several methods of starting fires. First they covered a couple of friction methods including the use of a fire bow, hand drill and fire plow. By all appearances they weren?t too concerned if they were able to make these methods work because they knew that they would work. As I noted previously, you know when they bust out a power drill and lock a stick in the chuck that they're not really very serious about testing the bow or hand parts of the drilling exercise. At least they did mention that the primitive methods obviously would work if enough time were put into working up the skill.
I can?t exactly tell you why they couldn?t get any friction methods to work initially as I couldn?t really identify the woods used, how much actual pressure was being applied, how familiar they were with the concept involved in each particular method and so on, but I made note of a few problems I think I spotted.
Keri, using the hand drill, appeared to be in an unsuitable sitting position to apply very much downward pressure on the drill. Also, her spindle wasn?t very straight and perhaps a little thin.
Grant, using the fire bow, appeared to have chosen a spindle that was both too long and too thin for a beginner and further still the spindle was less than straight. He could get little more than a stroke before the spindle disengaged either the board or hand-hold. I can?t recall if he had the string?s high side toward his body or not, but I think I do remember noting that the spindle was at least on the ?outside? of the bow. The bow also appeared to be completely stiff. Toward the last portion of this segment he had the string so tight and no give in the bow and couldn?t even get the string to wrap around the spindle.
Kerry and Tory, using the fire plow, seemed to have insufficient tinder for the task. The tinder they used here was packing material that looked like long and thin wood shavings. While I?m sure this would be fine if enough coal was produced, it seemed to me like something ?fuzzier? might have worked better for them. Still, they did mention in a couple of instances that they weren?t producing coals at all and only managed smoke. They also may have been relying more on pressure than speed to get a coal. However, I must admit that I am least familiar with this method, so I could be completely wrong here.
Finding that balance of pressure and speed is a bugger anyway, so without anyone with experience helping them out, I could fully understand why they couldn?t get any of these methods to work. Unfortunately Jamie, who is wilderness survival expert and who has started fires with the above methods, was not helping with these experiments.
No one removed the bark from spindles or plows, and made no attempt to straighten them out either.
In any case, it seems that they truly wanted to focus on the lesser-known fire starting methods, which included, starting a fire with a gun, the chocolate bar and soda can method, by using ice as a magnifying lens, and the steel wool and battery method. In every one of these cases, they were able to start a fire after a little trial and error.
There were a few things I noted about these experiments.
I didn?t pay enough attention the fire by gun method to go into great detail. I tend to think bullets are best used as say, projectiles, and think that if I find myself in a survival situation I would try everything else and be much more capable of starting a fire in another manner before I even got as far as taking apart bullets. Maybe that is shortsighted of me. They did mention that they tried both smokeless powder and black powder, and one worked better than the other. Unfortunately I don?t remember which was which. Sorry.
If you?ve read about starting a fire with a chocolate bar and the concave bottom of a soda can, you know it?s extremely important to get the can to as high a shine as possible. After six hours of work... SIX HOURS... Only one of two aluminum cans was sufficiently polished to start tinder. I hope the potential survivor started polishing well before sun up... Anyway, some folks on the web say they can get a can to an incredibly reflective state much faster than this. It should be noted that they were using only the chocolate as an abrasive and applying it with cloth rather than the wrapper and they didn?t try different chocolate bars. Experimenters on the web have made mention of ways to better polish the can, what wrappers they found best to use to apply the chocolate, and have also tested different chocolates. In any case the Mythbuster All Stars were able to make it work, but had to rig a wire to the can to hold the tinder still. They then propped the can against some rocks to keep it still. When they were holding both by hand they felt it was too shaky to keep the pinpoint of light on one part of the tinder long enough for it to catch.
The Mythbusters also tested a method of starting fires by using ice. This portion of the show I found most interesting. In fact I dare say that though it is an easily understood concept, it still blew my mind. In essence they formed ice into magnifying lenses to intensify light. In some ways this was hilarious, because anyone who had to start a fire by this method would most likely be in a cold climate, and the Mythbuster All Stars were in sunny Caa-lee-for-ne-ah. So, the ice lenses tended to melt quickly and at times dripped on the tinder. Eventually Kari froze a lens so big it couldn?t melt fast enough and she was able to ignite tinder. Now, how plausible it is to do this in a survival situation is a completely different question. LOL
Finally they tested starting fires with batteries of different sizes by placing steel wool and tinder over the contacts. They were also able to make this work though they burned their fingers several times.
OK... That?s all I can remember. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
If I?m wrong in any of my analysis, please let me know. Though I have been abl to produce fire using a couple of these methods I am far from being an expert. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />