Retrying the vines with the fire plough.

First up was Clematis Vitalbae (Travellers Joy, Old Man’s Beard) a creeping vine. It is soft wood and favoured for the hand drill hearth. The Greek botanist Theophrastus (300BC) sang it’s praises for friction fire in his work The Enquiry Into Plants over 2000yrs ago!
Anyway, Some people use it successfully for the fire plough. I can’t get on with it, I may go back and try different woods for the blade, the dust was just gritty and fine, and I prefer to save my precious stocks of Clematis for the hand drill 😀I tried Hazel and Willow blades.

Next up was Ivy, you want the real thick old vines growing up trees, it can grow very thick. Again, Ivy is soft and works well with Hand and Bow drill. Again, dust very fine. I tried Hazel no good then Willow (which is softer) and after a few tries, and experimenting with speed and pressure, I managed to tease out an ember 🙏🔥

I’m learning with the plough, it’s not just about going all mad for it, sometimes a steady rhythm with steady pressure works better, but other times you need that extra umpfff!

It’s all about experimenting.
Great fun, I’m addicted!

vines don’t have same consistency as wood- try splitting them 😀 so that may have an affect on the plough.... or not....

Anyway I’m Well chuffed with today’s experiments!

If you didn’t see the earlier post, I have also been successful with Willow on Willow 🔥

Happy Ploughing 🔥🙏

WHOOP! STOKED!! EXCITED!!!
Willow on Willow Fire Plough
I’ve been trying Fire Plough with willow for a while but my set has just seemed to be on damp side.
I had a theory this morning, to spend more time going slow to warm up and dry out the wood which I just had to try.
This clip is shortened to 60secs tho I spent about 6mins in total working with the willow on this one groove, going slow to warm up and dry out the groove, then increasing speed. It was close, but the coal went out so I then spent another minute or so ploughing, and.... it looked promising, the coal needed coaxing and with breath the ember emerged 🙏🔥

The ember wasn’t as strong as with seasoned Poplar and needed lots of TLC to get it established 🔥🙏

I’m excited in 2 ways:
1 - I’ve only had success with hazel on Poplar so it’s another wood combination and willow is pretty much widespread (in UK) and more common opening up more people to give the plough a go (Poplar can be hard to find) I recommend dry seasoned wood for learning 😀 (dry willow should be a lot easier 😀 )

2 - the theory still to be worked on and fully proved, but opens way for slightly damp wood to be used, tho needs a lot more experimentation on woods of different dampness (this wood only very slightly)

For me, this is a breakthrough 😀🔥🙏

Blessings on the ancestral fire!

I'm now regularly (for now) posting on Instagram, mostly about the fire plough (amongst other friction fire related topics!) , as I want as many people as possible to give it a go and succeed! :)

Check out my Instagram feed here: ​https://www.instagram.com/sacredhearthfrictionfire/