Bow Drill - Sycamore

Yesterday I had a bit of spare time and so I went out and harvested some Sycamore to try bow drill.  It's another wood I haven't tried before - or at least I think I may have tried it a while ago, when I was initially learning the skill, but I'm pretty certain I never had success with it.

I carved the set, and perhaps had a couple of slight concerns: some of the bark once sliced off looked a little greenish, but there was certainly no moisture.  As far as I could tell the wood was dead (admittedly I did not look closely to see if there was any growth further down the branch when I harvested it, and now I was back in my garden).

The second concern was the central soft pith which was a millimetre or two in diameter, and which I thought may collapse either at the base or the top meaning I could not get the spindle burnt in.

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of these problems, I just thought I would forge ahead regardless.  I harvested some live ivy for the bearing block.  This is a great option - there's usually plenty of it around and no-one is going to give you grief for harvesting some live ivy.  I would typically feel a bit guilty about harvesting a live branch from a tree, especially since the width needs to be a decent size for a good bearing block.

As it happened my concerns were unfounded - the set burnt in quite nicely - I gave it more than I thought necessary to be absolutely sure.  Then I took a drink of water and went for the ember.  I got a good fat ember first time with very little difficulty - usually I would have to rest for 15 mins or more after burning in, but that was not the case this time.

I particularly focused on the spindle - creating a very straight and smooth cylindrical surface and this seemed to pay off.

For some reason I was expecting Sycamore to be harder to work with, but in truth it worked really well.