Strange drill ending with bow&drill

[born2roam]

List,

I will be the first to admit I am far from the expert on the firebow but I have managed to make fire a few times with it.

The other day I practiced with an all willow set and hee presto. I surprised myself with the ease of that occasion. So did it again, again quite quickly.

Now yesterday and today I went back to experimenting, practising and all my drills end up with a "secondary" tip. After some drilling, the end gets a flat round but these times all 4 drills ended up with a secondary "hard nipple" (excuse my graphic language here mates)

Drills: Hazel, Alder, Willow and Sycamore
Hearths Alder, Willow and sycamore.

All gave dust, dark but no coals at those occasions....

They worked before so what am I doing wrong here? Too much pressure, too much wobbling (one of my main reasons to practice!) too...?

Well... I will continue the exercise tomorrow hopefully after some of your input.

Tia!

Grtz Mini mors

[Boomer]

The shape of the tip will change as the bearing block is worn away. Have you tried the woods in different combinations, or tried more speed/less pressure and vice versa. Experiment with the diameters of the drill as well, smaller diameter drill = more rotations but less surface area. You could apply some Vaseline to your tip also. 

[born2roam]

It's the end of the drill that is in the hearth that misshapes

Afaict I tried different combinations of speed/pressure on the mixes of wood. Will check spindle diameters later to see if that makes a difference

The vaseline is on my tip indeed, I remember it well from Sweden 

Grtz Mini mors

[steve]

Your notch in the hearth board has grown or widened, the working tip is wearing down as usual but because there is no friction on the centre of the tip because you are drilling into an open space, a nipple forms. You should still be able to form an ember though. Try cutting the notch just short of centre.

[penvisser]

He minimors, you can always come and try with my set......

See you soon,

Jan

[born2roam]

List

after about a week of trying and examining the nipple forming was only with the smaller diameter spindles.
After progress with the thicker ones (more training) the thinner ones seem to hold better (in new holes / notches)

So Steve: thanks, it was as you described!
Jan: your set... mmm show it to me saturday mate ;-) then leave it to my collection ;-)

Grtz Mini mors

[penvisser]

List

after about a week of trying and examining the nipple forming was only with the smaller diameter spindles.
After progress with the thicker ones (more training) the thinner ones seem to hold better (in new holes / notches)

So Steve: thanks, it was as you described!
Jan: your set... mmm show it to me saturday mate ;-) then leave it to my collection ;-)

Grtz Mini mors

It was the set we used on the sleddog event, remember?
I will put it in our stock for our new business, ok?

See you friday.
Jan