The spindle and fireboard are typically made from dry, medium-soft non-resinous wood such as spruce, cedar, balsam, yucca, aspen, basswood, buckeye, willow, tamarack, or similar.
[4] The Native American Indians along the western coast of the United-States traditionally made use of dead wood from the buckeye tree for preparing the fire-board.
[5] Whatever the method used to drive the shaft, its lower end is placed into a shallow cavity of the fireboard with a "V" notch cut into it.
The heat eventually turns the wood at the point of contact into charcoal, which is ground to a powder by the friction, that collects into the "V" notch.
Continuing operation eventually ignites the charcoal dust producing a tiny ember, which can be used to start a fire in a "tinder bundle" (a nest of stringy, fluffy, and combustible material).