Using Feather Sticks
Feather sticks are made from dead "standing" wood, such as a branch that has broken from a tree and died, but has not yet fallen to the ground. The bark and the outer layer of wood are removed to reveal the drier heartwood. This is then shaved, with axe or knife, to produce as many curls as possible.
While the flakes can be fairly coarse, the finer they are shaved the more easily they ignite.
When used in conjunction with charcloth, a small piece of charcloth is wound around the curls and a spark is struck on to it, using either the traditional flint and steel or a modern ferrocerium striker. This is then blown onto until the curls catch fire: the whole feather stick is then placed into the waiting kindling to start the campfire.
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Famous quotes containing the words feather and/or sticks:
“This whole day have I followed in the rocks,
And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape,
First as a raven on whose ancient wings
Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed
A weasel moving on from stone to stone....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New Englander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill; in most parts of the world, the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require still a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food. Neither could I do without them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)