Had to put this off for a few weeks. I now know why they don’t show you how to do this on you-tube with stitches in your shoulder and doped up to the eye balls on pain killers but I got it done.
Category: Cutting Tools (Page 1 of 2)
Does anyone else have the problem of which knife to take on bushcraft courses or is it just me. I still own too many. Im not sure if were doing any axe work but I think its unlikely. When I go out myself I like carrying a small knife and a large knife and dont bother with a belt mounted saw. On courses its different. An ESSE RB-3 is my go to in a cross draw along with one of several larger 6 inch blades. I keep going back to my Spyderco Bushraft for this course only because were doing firebows and Ill need a Scandi grind for processing wood. Otherwise I prefer other blade grinds. I like 6 inch blades and feel naked without taking one. I have an LT Wright Sospes on order which would solve my current problem.
Knife Only Survival Skills by Tony Nester
About 130 pages long, I read it in half a day. The first half of the book details the big 5 survival priorities and PMA positive mental attitude and for the first time someone has actually said from interviews that no one remembers the acronyms that are drilled over into us in courses.
Survival Psychology actually makes sense the way tony explains it. The first half of the book concentrating on basic fire making, water, shelters and signalling for someone stuck for three days.
The second half focuses on longer term skills such as hand drill, dead falls, procuring fish and wild game. Survival wild game meaning rodents.
Wasn’t really much on knife skills that I assumed the book was about but what I liked is he went through scenarios and explained how his courses worked and predicaments that people found themselves in.
Would I buy it again . No. Would I read it again. No. Would I recommend it. Yes to the right person. Would I buy other books by the same author Yes definitely. Did I enjoy reading it. Yes. Did I learn anything. Quite a lot, filled in some holes. Hard to say that from books coming out on the market at the moment. How would I describe it. A survival book not a bushcraft book, but a survival book that gets you interested in reading more on the subjects that were brought up. I cant say that about many books either.
Having said I wouldn’t read it again. After finishing this review I’m going to read it again. Just to pick out the little bits and pieces that I want to look into in more detail.
I brought the Puukko of eprey to see what it was like. Id been watching Joshua Enyart from Youtube The Grey Bearded Green Beret and he seemed to favour the Puukko design. I ended up having a mate replace the screws with copper rivets and sandblast the grip to give it better handling. I also wanted the edge taken back from a modified scandi grind to a full Scandi however he thought that the grind had been taken too high and taking it any further would make the edge too week. Time to test it out. Thx for the work Pete.
Before I started writing I read many articles from an author known only as Schwert on the outdoors-magazine.com website which has now come to pass. It was because of the influence of this author that I started to write. Below is the only article I can now find from him and I wanted to share it.
Nessmuk and his Tools
https://blackbooksdotpub.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/nessmuk-and-his-tools.pdf
The Tops Hog 4.5 one of my all time favorite knives this stays in my GHB. Im never far from it. Just fits the hand and so user friendly. Ill try and do a review in the next few weeks.
Have been trying to make up my mind as to which blades to take with me in a months time on level 2 bushcraft. I do have a LT Wright Sospes on order but I don’t think that will arrive in time.L-R Quickhatch Bushman, ESSE RB3, Spyderco Bushcraft, LT Wright Shemanese, ESSE CR2.5. I’m leaning towards the Spydie and the neck knife.
My new sheath just turned up from JRE industries for a Spyderco Bushcraft. Fits really well. I never liked the old sheath that came with the blade.
Ive been getting more and more into traditional knife designs lately and have been looking for a Leuku style blades that have an upgraded to a handle that wont slip and better steels than spring type steels and a full tang to suit Australian timbers. I tend to like 8 inch blades for having more control for limbing and making timber projects than using axes. Leuku is a Finnish word meaning big knife used by the Sammi People. Ill be looking into the below two companies in the new year. Utility tools also makes a really nice Kephart blade that interests me too.
http://utilitytoolknives.com/what-makes-a-knife-a-utility-tool-knife/utk0200-8-inch-field-knife/
I have always had a fascination with early American history, mainly the early west and the mountain man era. Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Liver Eating Johnson, John Coulter, Jedidiah Smith, etc. This interest has evolved into black powder shooting and interests in Historical Trekking. Most of the time, I walk around in moccasins. I tend to think I’ve been born in the wrong century.
What interests me about Nessmuk is the era. It was the time of Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, when intellectuals were rediscovering the woods and sharing what they found through their writing.
George Washington Sears writing under the name Nessmuk, wrote several letters to Field and Stream in the mid 1800s on the Adirondack lakes area. He also wrote one of the first bushcraft books in America. His philosophy was on the simplicity of wilderness travel and going as lightweight as possible.
I found three articles through the web on Nessmuks tools and became interested enough to purchase his woodcraft book and collected writings, from Amazon books.
What I found gave me a pleasant surprise. Not so much in terms of bush craft skills but in the way people lived, their expectations of life and the way they perceived the woods around them. Seeing a time in history, through someone else’s eyes due to their writing.I became a Nessmuk fan, and ordered my own versions of the Nessmuk trio of tools.
Nessmuk Articles
http://www.zianet.com/jgray/nessmuk/woodcraft/title_page.html
http://robroy.dyndns.info/books/gws/N.HTM
http://www.oldjimbo.com/Outdoors-Magazine/Nessmuk-and-his-Tools.pdf
