Natural Bow Drill Cordage Failure & A Difficult Ember

The thick trailing blackberry vines that make such good cordage are getting brittle with the changing seasons so I tried using some of the thinner ones that were more flexible.

Unfortunately, the fir that I chose to make the set out of was not as dry as I was hoping and required more speed and pressure than this thinner cordage could handle. I broke it several times before finally switching over to my shoelace to get an ember.

The set was made from some species of fir (Douglas or grand), the bundle was western red cedar bark with some cedar punk and grand fir shavings.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcome.