>>1530234>Anyone with experience?I highly suggest making cordage instead. However, just a hand drill will top everything in simplicity and speed of material gathering/making. The problem with using a hand drill is that they can seriously wear your hands out. You can rub your hands to bleeding blisters in a matter of minutes if your hands are not toughened up from experience with a hand drill. Even with lots of experience the materials might not be just right and the process of making fire might take a much longer time; which will start to blister your hands. Some flat types of shoe/sandal soles can work, just wear the shoes on your hands and go at it, but usually you are not wearing that type when innawoods (and don't use your shoe/boot laces a cordage for a bow drill unless you have a spare set). Leather gloves and rubber gardening gloves can work well, but their fit can cause blisters if they are loose. snow gloves don't work well at all and you'll just tear them up.
So, if you are going to be doing ANY hand drill fire starting in the future, I suggest you gather up some materials, take them home, and practice in your living room making embers with them. Go slow at first so you can learn how to correctly spin the spindle without screwing up your hands. Once you are confident, go faster. Remember, a bow drill will still be more forgiving on your hands even if you need to make 3 lengths of cordage in the end. Because, blisters on your hands is really something you do not want innawoods. So, get good at both making cordage and just hand drilling.
Now, the fire plough, egads I hate those things. They wear me out far more than a hand drill does, but they don't produce blisters. If you have lots of food to spare then a fire plough will be just fine if you want the workout and don't mind spending the extra calories. If your hands are hurting or blistered then using a fire plough may be the way to go if you can't make cordage. They are easy on the hands at least.
