Maple Sucker Bow Drill with Root Cordage: Punkwood Saves the Day

I received an Opinel as a gift and figured the best way to put it through its paces was to get out and use it for friction fire. I selected a dead big leaf maple sucker for my set. This these nascent shoots have a hollow pithy core, which can be an advantage, but it makes it hard to thin out the bearing block end.

I hollowed out pith and inserted a green vine maple tip to rotate in the bearing block. I wrapped it to avoid splitting, but at some point the wrap came off and so did the tip. A thicker wrap with willow bark did the trick.

My featherstick bundle was not up to par and I came very close to losing the poor quality loose ember in the thicker shavings.

Luckily, there was dry punkwood in the log I was using for a base and pouring it onto the dying bundle was the only thing that kept this from being a failure.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcome.