Primitive Technology demonstrates how to make a blower and some charcoal from clay and poor quality wood. He built the blower, which features an impeller made from palm leaves, to help create higher temperatures and advance his material technology.
I took Fan palm leaves and fashioned them into an impellor (about 25 cm in diameter) held in a split stick as a rotor. I then built a housing from clay (slightly more than 25 cm diameter with inlet and outlet openings about 8cm in diameter) and assembled the blower. I opted not to make a bow or cord mechanism as I’ve done before due to the complexity and lower portability of such a device. The lighter impellor material (leaf instead of the previous bark) made it easier to spin by hand anyway as it has a lower momentum. (read more)