This time of year, the featherstick really comes into its own as a terrific source of tinder. The problem lies in the fact that feathersticks are not easy to do correctly. In fact, after MUCH practice, I still get routinely frustrated in carving FS. It is an excellent example of how to truly master a skill in the outdoors, you have to spend a lot of time and energy observing what materials, tricks and form is required to be successful. With FS, that means paying attention to both the type of wood used and correctly using the grain of the wood to your advantage.
The link below offers one of the best descriptions of FS that I have found...I highly recommend it. But a few other tips that I suggest are:
- Find dead standing timber that is about as thick as your arm - the wood can be sopping wet on the outside so long as it is not punky and totally rotten. the beauty of FS is that you will make dry tinder when none is to be found...the middle of logs will almost always be dry enough to use to get even a spark to take flame
- Cut the timber into about 6 inch knot free cylinders
- baton the 6 inch chunks down into small kindling sticks with your knife
- take 4 or 5 of these kindling sticks and use them to make your feathers. use the rest to add once the FS have caught flame
- always make more FS than you think are necessary. This is crucial. no matter how many times i try to take shortcuts here, i always end up frustrated with NO FIRE! Just take the time to do it right the first time
- If you cannot make a good FS, dont worry, you can still make this work. Simply lay your hat or bandana down on the ground and carve "shavings" into the hat...for people who dont yet have the control to leave the feathers attached to the stick, shavings will work just fine when bundled together in a bird's nest. However, if you are only using a ferro rod to get the fire going, it will be much more difficult with shavings than with a true FS...
- Regarding sparks - if you are using this technique, then you probably have mastered fire making pretty well. But remember that in cold, wet and windy weather when you dont have great tinder like birch bark, sparks can be tricky. What i do is carve the FS for the tinder and set up my fire as I would normally. Then i carve a separate FS with VERY fine feathers that will be used to turn the sparks into a flame...but I do this off to the side of the fire so that I dont mess up the organized nest of tinder. If it is really windy out this is VERY hard to do correctly...for times where you have a bad wind...bring a lighter! :)
http://bensbackwoods.blogspot.com/2009/01/carving-classic-feather-stick-by-jim.html
