Bushcraft - Making Feather Sticks for starting a camp fire

In this video we look at how to make feather sticks - sticks with curled shavings of wood attached which can be used to help start a campfire. I talk a bit about feather sticks and why they are important, and then show some examples of making one, as well as lighting it on fire using a ferro rod.Show more

My feather stick doesn't look great when compared to some, but that's really not the point - it lights from the sparks of the ferro rod and would have made a fire if I had wanted to do so, which is what we need feather sticks to do. When you are practicing making your feather sticks, bear in mind that the aim is to be able to get a fire going - if your feather stick can do that, it's a good feather stick no matter how it looks!

Remember to be safe when making a fire - this was a controlled environment and everything burning was dumped in to my fire pit when I was finished