friction fire gear....?

[paulc]

Somewhere in here is a thread about fire drills using golden rod as the drill.  The pic is what I call golden rod-same stuff as what you all would be using?  And how big of a shaft is too big?  Or too small?

Thanks, Paul

[Outbackbob48]

Paulc, there lots of goldenrod species, I have been successful using what we call giant goldenrod, My personal experience when picking golden rod is to go big as they seem to shrink a lot while drying. As a rule of thumb you want  your spindle to be about size of your little finger or roughly 3/8 to 5/8 " dia. when dry. I like length to be finger tips to arm pit to start, Golden rod worked pretty good for handrill fire but my favorite is horseweed. Hope this helps. Bob

[paulc]

Thanks Bob...not sure we have horseweed around here so golden rod may have to do... :-)