Well at-least I started. Will be spending some of the day resharpening my tools.

Tutorials

Why

How

Marking Out

Carving Tools Hill Billy Forge

https://www.facebook.com/hillbillyforge/

Cariboo Blades Crook Knife

https://www.caribooblades.com/crooked-knives

The Frost River Tool Roll arrived today. I’m going to place a couple of paracord ties in the corner eyelets so I can hang it from a branch to keep it out of the way when cooking. I tried a few other items into it while I was at it.

I may have to purchase two more rolls. One for my Auger set and another for my Flint Knapping tools. Still having a play around with it at the moment. I’m about to contact Bob Gilmour to order a Rose Alder spatula to finish off the kit but wanted to make sure I had the correct sizing for him and to give Bob a chance to catch up on Christmas orders.

Spatula

https://www.gilmourdesign.shop/bev-traditional-spatula/

Utensil Roll Frost River

https://www.survivalsuppliesaustralia.com.au/Frost-River-Utensil-Roll?b7=z1

May have to make that another three tool rolls. When I first designed my carving tool roll in oilskin I didn’t think of storing sharpening tools or pencils.

I guess there’s always a reason for something happening. I had started my tracking course and all the required reading books I was finding very difficult to locate or shops that would post to my location. Still looks like a 20 day wait on many of them to arrive. I cant go much further with the course until I can read a few chapters into several of the books. Many of the books were written by Jon Young. I ended up coming across a Australian website on Mentoring that was selling Coyotes Guide to Connecting with Nature run by Miles Holmes whom also runs Rewild Fridays in Bellingen NSW.

The four week sessions cover: Bird language, Holistic tracking, Sensory awareness, The quiet mind, Village building process, Nature games, Wandering, Simple ceremony, Cordage, Local Indigenous excursions, Silent movement and stalking, Stone tool making, Fire by friction, Weaving, Primitive pottery, Primitive footwear, Hide tanning, Primitive cooking, Shelter building, Camouflage, Trapping and snares, Wild foods, Light, torches and candles.

It looks like Ive already started making a list of courses to do when Im back on my feet and can travel again. If there’s anyone out there that can put me onto a copy of Seeing Through Native Eyes also by Jon Young that is located within Australia, it would be much appreciated.

https://sites.google.com/view/rewild-fridays-bello/home

home

http://coyotesguide.com/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54776874-seeing-through-native-eyes-understanding-the-language-of-nature

This has been a question I have been asked several times in the past six months for various reasons and has been one of the most difficult for me to answer. So I opted the other day to phone a mate for a second opinion. His reply “It was a non question, it depended on perspective”.

So this is probably going to be the longest Non Answer in history. It will come down to what your background is and what you expect to get out of bushcraft. A Fisherman will be expecting a different 5 knots to someone with a Search and Rescue background for example. Does your bushcraft involve using tarps or tents, do you go bush to abseil? Are you an instructor and want to build from basic knots that arent difficult to learn and make the experience enjoyable and not over whelming, so the student wants to come back and learn more knots?

Climbing knots (disclaimer: examples my rope work ticket expired)

Belaying,securing yourself to a carabiner, anchor or harness , joining webbing , Rappelling, handholds or foot holds, for friction or sliding

Prusic, double figure 8, water knot reinforced, triple fisherman’s, alpine butterfly, clove hitch, barrel knot.

Tarp knots; siberian hitch, truckers hitch, taut tarp hitch, prusic, sheet bend.

Fishing knots; Surgeons knot, Trilene knot, Palomar knot, Snelling

Lashings for building; Square lashing, Diagonal lashing, Shear lashing, Round lashing, Tripod Lashing.Timber hitch to start lashings, half hitch to finish them.

4WD Recovery; soft shackles, figure 8s (if all you have is an old rope in the back of a ute and not proper recovery snatch straps and braided kinetic rope).

Join two ropes together; (same diameter) fisherman’s, double fisherman’s, (uneven diameter)double sheet bend.

Teaching someone the basics; marlins spike hitch, half hitch, double overhand stop knot, reef knot, sheet bend, larks head, clove hitch.

What Id choose for basic all round knots (sorry I couldn’t do 5):

1) Bowline fudge anything with this knot

2) Canadian Jam knot for building

3) Figure 8 for hauling

4) prusik for safety

5) fisherman’s knot joining two lengths of equal size

6) Truckers hitch for tensioning

I hope this answer confuses the hell out of those people that have had my mind working over time for the past six months trying to figure this out HAHA.

I started reading Bushcraft Essentials by Dave Canterbury and it reminded me of something I have always wanted to try. Starting a fire by using the magnifying glass on a compass. I didn’t think this would work mainly due to the size of the glass being used however I tried both the Silva Expedition with a slightly larger glass and the Suunto MC2. The Silva started a little easier and faster, however I was mostly interested in the Suunto because this is the compass I now use more often. It was a little more fiddly and had a smaller area of focal concentration but they both worked admirably.

The bushcraft Essentials Field Guide by Dave Canterbury. The postman was busy today. Ill be trying to read this over the next few weeks to do a review.

https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-bushcraft-essentials-field-guide-dave-canterbury/book/9781507216163.html

Update 24th Dec

Sick in bed for two days. So today was a good opportunity to take a break and recuperate and begin reading The Essential Field Guide. Well laid out, a good explanation of how the Pathfinder School instructs using the 5C’s relating to all aspects of training and adding another 5 levels from basic to intermediate.

The only two typo’s I found were pages 169 the illustration of the bucksaw was a production boreal saw and not a handmade timber take-down and two on page 170 the picture of the A frame roycroft pack frame was in fact a ladder style frame.

Broken into 9 chapters, such as (1) survival priorities covering, 5 priorities, 5 Cs of survivability, 5cs of sustainability. (3) 5ws of campsite selection, shelter necessities, shelter configurations, 5 components of a shelter kit, eg; (quick deployment ridge-line).(7) Bind-craft 5 basic knots and hitches, 5 additional knots, 5 lashings and cordage management.

“Lays out the basic system of teaching from introductory through to intermediate (5×5 system).”

Its not going to show the finer points of how to do something but it will show the methodology program used by the pathfinder school. The book gave me ideas to build on and ways to show how to teach by building levels through different areas.Nothing I hadn’t learnt before in terms of skills but its difficult for me to find a book now that will do that. However what this book does do is organize teachings into a very managmented way of looking at learning bushcraft.

So far Ive enjoyed this book the most out of the others written by Dave.

I picked up a Tasmanian Sassafras spoon blank from the Vintage Tool Shop. It will make a good project to do over the holidays. If spoon carving is something you’ve never tried its worth looking into, almost like meditation at times.

Spoon Blanks (Tasmanian Blackheart Sassafras)

CARVING KNIFE SETS & WOOD BLANKS

This is not something I thought Id never have to look into. I either use the knot linked below for tarps with no grommets or a bowline most of the time. I’m up to something like 35 knots why learn anymore. Then I was talking to a mate about the intermediate bushcraft course and there were more tests involving survival blanket shelters and I thought I wanted my tarp to have pre-staged cordage to set up as fast as possible with as little effort. These tests were on level one and we had no head start for attaching guy-lines.

So apart from re-enforcing the edges and grommets with Gorilla Tape, I also wanted to attach premade 2 meter lengths of paracord. Its been a while since I had to set up a tarp, a sundial and a fire and boil water while being timed.Doing them in the correct order, in the most efficient way possible is the key. Its not that you do half the things on courses in real life, they are to teach you other skills and how to use your mind. (I’m not going to tell which order)

A buntline Hitch as been shown to me in the past for tarp corners but I have never been a fan. Buntlines don’t like stress and are essentially a clove hitch tied on the main line. I narrowed down the knots I liked to a Halyard Shackle, a Scaffold Knot before deciding on an Anchor Bend. The easiest one to remember under stress.

You can learn dozens of knots but under stress and being timed is another thing trying to get them right. You can fudge knot all this by using a round turn and two half hitches for everything when trying to be as fast as possible under a stressful environment..

One advantage of using the Bowline for the corner knots of tarps is that the bottom two, is that its possible to peg straight through the middle of the loops and having them on all four corners means you don’t have to look for which end is at the top or the bottom for extra speed.

I think Ive become a knot addict as I thought this would be a good way to practice my Alpine Butterfly knots. These are good for forming loops that can be pulled in any direction. I wanted to form a smaller Alpine butterfly on the bottom corners of the tarp to use for pegging by wrapping around only three fingers instead of the whole hand to form a miniature version.

Once again speed in setting up a Lean-to also depends on the order in which the knots and pegs are placed. Tying a Siberian Hitch and a Taut Tarp Hitch with practiced speed and once again there is a certain order in which to place the pegs and knots to obtain tension. (If you cant figure it out message me and Ill place the order in the response.)

Ill also quickly mention why I’m using 550 paracord ? The breaking strain isn’t so important here, if your hiking long distance and wanted to save on weight then thinner hootchie cord is generally used but it tangles constantly. In a timed curriculum the less tangles the better!

Tarp Corner with NO Grommet

Halyard Shackle

Scaffold Knot

Anchor Bend or Nilsson Knot

Alpine Butterfly First Way (Hand Wrap Method)

Alpine Butterfly Second Way

Ridgeline knots Siberian hitch and Taut Tarp Hitch