How do you fire harden sticks?

[Crayola]

Hello! I was wondering how you fire harden sticks. Also, would this work for fire harneding a stick to be used as, say, an impact weapon as well? Or is it strictly for making pointy tips hard? Thanks! I always wondered how people fire harden sticks, but never thought of asking here. Silly me...

 

[Melvin-Purvis]

and then slowly turn them until they glow, er, steam...but not burn. (a little scorching is ok too....)

take them out of the fire, let them cool, repeat until you reach the desired hardness. Starting out with hard wood seemed to work best...

Ya wanna really 'hot' tip? Do the shaping before you do the heat treatment...

My brother and I used to make spears this way....but we were just like, maybe 12?

Pretty darn scientific eh? The truth is, some of those spears lasted for years!

 

[wayfinder15]

What you do to fire harden the wood is rake out some coals from your fire(i have a separate little trench dug that i put my coals in for hardening) after you have your coals what you want to do is roast the wood over the hot coals like you would a marshmallow. Be very certain that you do not burn or scorch the wood.You deff dont want to char it. You just want to heat it up enough to get all the moisture out and kind of draw the fibers closer together to make it stronger.

It is a good idea to fire harden impact weapons(ie rabbit sticks, clubs,and the like). You can also fire harden any tools that you make out of wood. This will help prolong their life.

 

[Crayola]

Thanks! That easy huh...

 

[numberthree]

A lot of 'fire-hardening' as seen in primitive cultures is actually using fire to char the tip of the wood in order to sharpen it on a rock or other abrasive material. They are not doing it to harden the tip, rather they are doing it to shape the tip without the use of tools. Wayfinder15 is correct that one can toughen the wooden tool with judicious heating...