A few different ways to use feather sticks as your tinder bundle. Lighting them with a lighter or ferro rod is pretty straightforward, but using them to turn an ember into flames can take just a bit more finesse.

Obviously the finer you can make them, the easier this will be for you, but they don’t need to be perfect. The biggest problem that people run into is having the ember fall through the curls. The solution to this is prepping them so that you create a platform of curls that the ember can rest on.

Regardless of the bundle material, the more of it you can get in contact with the smoldering ember, the better your chances of success.

Using two feather sticks side by side allows you to make a platform with one, and hold the ember in place with the other. The sticks act as a handle that both keeps your fingers away from the flames, and makes it easy to swing the bundle in long arcs to bring it to flames. This is a great method for kids who might be intimidated by the thought of burned hands.

If you aren’t able to keep your curls on a stick, or need to dry them in your clothing, balling them up into a conventional tinder bundle and making a divot for the ember can work extremely well. I generally prefer waving my bundles instead of blowing on them, but you can use either approach with any of these strategies.

However you choose to set up the bundle the addition of some punk wood can make things even easier. I set up one feather stick as the platform, and put down a base of powdered punk, followed by the ember, more punk and another feather stick. The extra heat and burn time provided by the punk is a great way to improve your chances of ignition. With the right materials and a light breeze, you might not have to do anything else.

There are other ways that I didn’t show here, but this is a good start. The curls in the demonstrations by the river were western red cedar, which is a material especially well suited to this role, but you can do these same things with any species that will produce fine curls for you.

The weather was nice and I was intentionally working with ideal materials for the purposes of demonstration, so I included examples from more realistic situations.

Your curls don't have to all be fine, but the better you get at making them, the easier the better this works. None of this is necessary when other dry materials are available, but being able to create your own dry tinder bundle material in any weather conditions is a skill worth practicing.

Music

Chael- Dawning [ Ссылка ]
Luca Stricagnoli - Last of the Mohicans [ Ссылка ]

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