The bow-and-drill method is the most popular among girls and boys alike, and for this, as for all other ways of lighting a fire, you must have the proper appliances and will probably have to make them yourself.
Unlike the bow used for archery, the fire-bow is not to be bent by the bow-string but must have a permanent curve. Choose a piece of sapling about eighteen or twenty inches long which curves evenly; cut a notch around it at each end and at the notched places attach a string of rawhide of the kind used as shoe-strings in hunting-shoes. Tie the bow-string to the bow in the manner shown in [Fig. 75], and allow it to hang loosely. It must not be taut as for archery.
To the bow must be added the twirling-stick and fireboard ([Fig. 76]). Make these of spruce. The twirling-stick, spindle, or fire-drill should be a little over half an inch in diameter and sixteen inches long. Its sides may be rounded or bevelled in six or seven flat spaces like a lead-pencil, as shown in [Fig. 76]. Cut the top end to a blunt point and sharpen the bottom end as you would a lead-pencil, leaving the lead blunt. To hold the spindle you must have something to protect your hand. A piece of soapstone or a piece of very hard wood will answer. This is called the socket-block. In the wood or stone make a hole for a socket that will hold the top end of the spindle ([Fig. 76]).
The flat piece of spruce for your fireboard should be about two feet long and a little less than one inch thick. Cut a number of triangular notches in one edge of the board as in [Fig. 76]. Make the outer end of each notch about half an inch wide, and at the inner end make a small, cup-like hole large enough to hold the lower end of the twirling-stick. This is called the fire pit. The reason you are to have so many notches is because when one hole becomes too much enlarged by the drilling of the twirling-stick, or is bored all the way through, it is discarded and there must be others ready and prepared for immediate use.
Tinder
All is now ready for creating a spark, but that spark cannot live alone, it must have something it can ignite before there will be a flame. What is wanted is tinder, and tinder can be made of various materials, all of which must be absolutely dry. Here is one receipt for making tinder given by Daniel C. Beard: "The tinder is composed of baked and blackened cotton and linen rags. The best way to prepare these rags is to bake them until they are dry as dust, then place them on the hearth and touch a match to them. As soon as they burst into flame, smother the flame with a folded newspaper, then carefully put your punk (baked and charred rags) into a tin tobacco box or some other receptacle where it will keep dry and be ready for use."
This can be prepared at home. In the woods gather some of the dry inner bark of the cedar, the fine, stringy edges of white or yellow birch, and dry grasses, and dry them thoroughly at the camp-fire.
Mr. Beard also says: "You can prepare tinder from dry, inflammable woods or barks by grinding or pounding them between two flat stones. If you grind up some charcoal (taken from your camp-fire) very fine to mix with it, this will make it all the more inflammable. A good, safe method to get a flame from your fine tinder is to wrap up a small amount of it in the shredded bark of birch or cedar, so that you may hold it in your hand until it ignites from the embers produced by the saw."
With all your material at hand for starting a fire, make one turn around the spindle, with the bow-string, as in [Fig. 76]. Place the point of the lower end of the spindle in the small hole or "fire pit" at the inside end of a notch in the fireboard, fit the socket-block on the top end of the spindle ([Fig. 76]), and hold it in place with one hand, as shown in [Fig. 77]. Grasp one end of the bow with the other hand and saw it back and forth. This will whirl the spindle rapidly and cause the friction which makes the heat that produces the spark. When it begins to smoke, fan it with your hand and light your tinder from the sparks.