Knife and Tool Selection

yeah so knife and tool selection for the great outdoors via camping via bushcraft be a survival whatever is taking you out there are a number of tools that you can and should take with you that will make that experience a lot better and granite you know we're talking about camping and bushcraft as far as having a good experience because I don't think anybody you know would would argue that you know survival situation is a good experience but it can definitely be worse and it can definitely be better based on your preparedness and what you have available to you when you get out there it's important when you're deciding what tools you need to understand what it is that you need those tools for and I'm talking realistically need those tools for so one of the things I like to break that down kind of by the survival priorities you know I need it for certain things for fire I need it for shelter I need it for food certain parts of it I need for water etc etc so I kind of try to frame it within the survival priorities so as far as fire goes what do I need tools for or what would I like to have tools for I think we can all agree that you know you do reach a certain level where primitive skills kick in you don't need tools like steel tools per se you know our ancestors for for several generations did without so I'm not saying that or taking anything away from that this is for the beginner that's going out there that is trying to learn these skills how can you learn skills and be safe at the same time so thinking about what you need to do you still have to have fire so what do I need tools for for fire I needed to process wood for sustaining fuel I needed to process kindling and I needed to process tinder that's what I need it for for fire in addition to that as a personal preference I like to have a tool that I can use to help me affect ignition so it using has a very very very redundant last-ditch ignition source so I like to have you know certain characteristics to my tools that allow me to do that so that's for fire as far as for shelter what I need is to be able to process would change the size shape it carve it whatever notch it etc to make my shelter I also needed to cut cordage so those are some of the things that I need those tools to do as far as food procurement like getting food I need it to carve trap triggers you know sometimes those are pretty intricate so I need to be able to carve trap triggers I need to be able to carve trap components not strap components those are things that I needed to do if I do catch something I needed to process that fish and game that's another thing I need tools to do and then making other tools is another thing that I need tools to do I can't carry every single tool that I want out in the wilderness because it's going to be too heavy yeah and most people don't do that so there's certain tools that allow you to make other tools you know that's kind of the bushcraft side of things you making other tools from the land with the tools that you take with you one of the things that are kind of different from the things that I've already covered as far as things we need to be able to do is carve concavities make concave shapes playing around with one today and you're making a concavity and this is by no means finished look at that that's great in it yeah but carving calm cavities you know for making utensils for making a container that I could put water in etc etc making concavities this is very difficult to do with the traditional knife so you do kind of need a little bit of specialized tools to be able to do that so carving concavities and making other tools and utensils so knowing what we need these tools for should help us tailor the tool selection to meet our needs and that's kind of the key thing for today so for me what I like to have is you guys have probably heard of the the five tool rule knowing what I needed to do and knowing that I'm selecting those tools that allow me to do that how do I narrow it down there's so many different knife choices there's so many different backup life choices choppers saws or there's a ton looking behind me I've got a ton of them behind me to go over with you guys as quickly as possible but how do i narrow that down backing up what do I not need tools to do I don't need tools to open a 55-gallon steel drum out in the middle of the wilderness I don't need that I've spent a lot of time in the woods and years and have never came across the 55-gallon drum steel in the wilderness and if I did I don't think I would want to open it because it got dumped out there for a reason so I don't need it to open steel drums I don't need tools to hold my body weight you know I don't need to be able to stand on that to like gain access to to higher fruit in a tree or something I just that I don't and I'm not necessarily looking for a one tool option either I personally don't think that that there is a really good one tool option out there maybe some other people disagree but when you think about the things I need to do and what most people need to do I can't think of one tool that would be able to do all of that at least not well enough to justify purposely carry in one tool now having said that there's a lot of things that I could do with one tool specifically in my mind the most important is the belt knife there's a lot of things that I can do with that it can take the place of other tools adequately yeah sort of adequately but definitely not as good as the proper tool for the job and I think we can all agree on that but I'm not gonna purposely go out with just one tool and plan on improvising when I'm planning when I'm preparing the last thing I'm gonna do is plan or prepare to improvise I'm gonna take adequate out with me and that's another thing that brings me to another point the same better than nothing is is nails on a chalkboard to me since when did we set the bar nothing that we're trying to be better than why can't we just agree that it's either adequate or it's not adequate there are some things that are almost adequate I can give you that but but being better than nothing is not necessarily anything at all it doesn't mean anything it's kind of a I don't really have a good reason so I'm just gonna throw this out there it's better than nothing just my opinion on that but anyway knife selection let me get some knives here because I know this is why people want to know so let's go let's start here and we'll talk about yeah we'll talk about these all right so knife selection survival knife bushcraft knife camping knife none of that really matters that matters the user what you're able to do with it what skills you have with it is it capable of doing what you need it to do when you're out in the wilderness that's the key thing what am I looking for in a knife first off I want high carbon steel and let me clarify that by heart cut by high carbon steel I mean not stainless but there are a lot of stainless steels that also have a high carbon content so I think that high carbon is is kind of a misnomer what I want is high carbon naked uncoated steel I don't want any stainless that's just my personal preference and I even live here on the coast but we'll get into that a little bit later I like to hark on the high carbon steel mainly because it gives me that emergency emergency emergency emergency ignition source that I can use with natural stone you know that I find on the ground I can't do that reliably with a stainless because this the spark if you do get one is so weak that that it it's it's a challenge so to me it's not worth carrying that stainless steel now about the difference between you know the high carbon and the high carbon stainless or the stainless or the coated whatever it doesn't matter what it is if we're talking about using it for a Ferro rod as long as the steel or the glass or the ceramic or the Flint or the church whatever you have is is actually harder than the surface of that Ferro rod it's gonna take off pyrophoric material and create a spark so if you're out there and you hear about you know you have to have a high carbon steel for a Ferro rod that's incorrect it can be stainless it can be high carb it doesn't matter and by high carbon remember I mean like a naked carbon that's not stainless so anyway that's what I'm looking for and I want a knife if I can get I want a night that's a full tank having said that there are a lot of partial tank knives out there that will perform the you want them to perform and take care of every task you need to take care of however for me personally I feel that I want the strongest knife possible when I go out there within reason I don't want that sharpened crowbar kind of thing I don't need it to be that I still need to be very usable for a variety of different tasks but I've used more classics I've used more companions I've used a ton of different knives that weren't full tang with success never broken one and they've always known exactly what I needed it to do so having said that though I do know that a partial tang knife is not going to be as strong as a full tang knife it's just not going to be so when it's available I'm gonna take a full tang knife because I know that that is stronger that doesn't mean that a partial tagging knife isn't strong enough necessarily it just means that I already know that the full tang knife is stronger so I'm just gonna go with that for that added security I hope that makes sense and that's that's kind of my position on on full tank versus partial Tang I also want a sharp 90 degree spine I'm gonna use that for the ferrule rod I'm gonna use that for for a scraping bark scraping tender a lot of different tasks I can kind of shave and shape wood with it if I have to but the reason I like to use the spine is I don't want to use the edge I want to save that resource especially when I'm out in the field I want to save that resource I don't want to spend a whole lot of time resharpening things and there's no reason to use the edge of your knife for those tasks if you don't have to you should always use your your actual spine if you have that available if you don't have that available look for a knife that does or create that 90 degree spine on your own knife one other point I want to make about that because I've had this discussion with folks a lot of folks say that you know using your ferrule right on the edge doesn't do any damage at all doesn't doesn't dull it at all and you know I have to wonder you know we can all agree that using something as soft as a piece of leather will remove material that's why we use it when we're strapping you know to remove small bits of material to kind of refine our edge so if something as soft as a leather strop can remove material it's crazy to me and it doesn't stand to reason to think that something as hard as a Ferro rod scraping across the edge is not also going to remove material and dull that blade eventually so why do it but anyway going back to what I was talking about I also want something that's easy to maintain in the field so there's a couple things that go into that and I'm going to oversimplify it a bit because it does have a lot to do with the process and the composition of the steel etc etc but generally speaking edge retention and corrosion resistance you know the the stainless knives do tend to have better edge retention generally speaking generally speaking they do tend to have better corrosion resistance now there are some that would be considered high carbon steels you know that don't quite have the chromium content needed to push them over the standard for stainless that are also very very good at retaining edge and very corrosion resistance that's why I say generally but I want something that's easy to maintain in the field so edge retention and corrosion resistance come at a price and that price is generally you know if I'm going the stainless route then that means that I've lost one method of starting a fire that could have saved my life one day and to me it's just not worth that fire and the ability to get a fire under any circumstances in all conditions is what saves people's lives nobody's life was ever saved by not having to carry a small bottle of oil and a leather strop or a whetstone to the field like that's not a thing so to me the trade-off is as simple I go with the naked eye carbon steels they're plenty sharp enough to do what I needed to do and when they do get dull very easy to sharpen in the field so that's my other characteristics is easy to maintain in the field on grinds let's talk about that I've used every grind I can think of from everywhere you know flat grind Scandi grind scan d-bags convex savor you name it I've used it and I always come back to the Scandi grind to me the Scandi grind is very easy to use very user-friendly very easy to sharpen in the field this is this is my field sharpening kit nowadays this is a Viking whetstone pendant from wazoo so just a little guy just a nice little Arkansas whetstone Riverstone I think it is but anyway that little guy is all I need for a simple Scandi grind you know to go ahead and do my sharpening so that's what I need to touch up the blade and then I can strop it on a leather belt you can't do convex on leather belts I don't like to do saber grinds etc on those type of stones because they have you know more than one separate angle coming together so I still prefer the scanning grind just because it's that easy to sharpen in the field and works really well so basically all of my knives that I end up with end up with the Scandi grind then I've got a you know a box full of other knives with other grinds so that's my thoughts on that primary knife backup knife if it's truly a backup knife I'm not talking about an extra knife I'm talking about a backup knife if it's truly a backup knife that means that if I lose my primary knife my backup knife can do every single thing that that primary knife could do because I still need a knife to be able to do all those things so when I'm talking about a backup knife I'm not talking about you know a primary knife and you know maybe a small folder or something like that like this is a backup blade but not necessarily capable of everything that this you know fixed blade full-tang knife can do but it is you know definitely a sort of a it's kind of a supplementary knife because I don't really I wouldn't really go out with just this on purpose so a true backup knife will do exactly what your primary knife will do and that's what it's for so I lost my primary knife somehow which not you know doesn't happen really all that often I guess but it needs to take its place so combination for me if I had to choose you know the good common eight or good good choices I should say for a primary knife you know meeting all those requirements high carbon steel full tang sharp 90-degree spine easy to maintain in the field good Scandi grind I'll show you three choices that I have here all right this of course is the you know the official flint and steel knife from LT Wright's a GN s and a Scandi grind oh one tool steel red and black handles pretty nice nice sheath removable dangler Farrell rod roof fair alot Ferro rod loop yeah that's this is a good choice for a primary full-tang higher high carbon sharp nine degree spine they actually LT right one thing that a lot of people don't know is LT right actually undercuts their spine just a little bit so it's even sharper than a ninety degree so I mean these things throw sparks like crazy but anyway LT right jns great choice LT right Genesis which is basically their model of a kept part design this is I believe a two tool steel Scandi grind full tang high carbon again really easy to maintain in the field this is a great backup knife or primary knife both of these are great examples of that then I got this little treat to show you you guys have probably heard the B's the morgue our Burke look at that guy huh the high carbon more gotta burger I had a guard burg probably a year ago and was using it but it was the stainless gar burg and as you know I'm not a big dude on on stainless so when I found out these were coming out you know I was really happy to get my hands on one of these and looking forward to testing this but yeah this is another great choice arc high carbon steel full tang sharp and spine easy to maintain the field with that Scandi grind those are great examples of your primaries and your backup knives so now let's move on to chopper because this is where it gets a little different so here I'm gonna quit the whistle a little all right so for choppers really choppers depend on what my environment is and what I expect to be doing if and also you know the season so summertime in the southeast I don't really need a big chopper wintertime in the Northeast I mean a bigger shop right I'm going to expect to process more firewood so I'm gonna scale that you know if I go down to the the coastal swamps in Florida I'm gonna not take an axe and I'm gonna take a machete you know so that's those are all versions of choppers it's just a heavier knife or an ax hatchet tomahawk etc and even this this cold steel shovel is an example of a chopper that you can also dig with and those are actually really good too well so I probably won't get into those but if you haven't checked them out you should so let's talk about you know smallest to largest this is a Larry Roberts model this is the I believe this is the June 6 that Larry Roberts designed a little bit bigger than you know a standard belt knife if you're looking at you know probably a six and a half inch blade I'd have to look at the specs but it's basically the Kephart version just elongated so it makes has a little more weight a little longer blade so it's a little better for a chopper but this is kind of like a minimal chopper actually Kirsten recommence is using this one and you know because she's you know a little smaller in stature you know admittedly so she likes a lighter chopper and this is a great solution for that so real lightweight chopper there that's the larry roberts model this is one of my choppers here which is the gen 3 which is a very nice thick heavy chopper so down here in the southeast i can get away with something like this because i don't need a whole lot to chop with i'm not doing a lot of processing so i can get away with something like this really really adequately is it it's it's big and it's it's got some weight to it so makes for a great chopper so again scaling it to your environment now if i go down into the swamps in Southeast come on now if I go down into the coastal swamps you know I'm gonna want a machete so this one's actually I got to show you this one this thing's hot look at this yeah so that's that's my machete right there Justin Cooke actually has one of these too but it's not a huge machete but it's a solid machete you know so it sells also a you know a nice full tang machete with a really good comfortable grip you know so if I'm down in the jungle and need to get through cleared and hacking down a path or you know cutting bamboo for shelter etc I'm gonna go with this for my chopper so something to think about get that end the sheath nice big leather sheath - man that's like half a cow right there just for the sheet that's small cow okay so where are we at on choppers if I need to go above that and take something like an axe or tomahawk or a hatchet you know depending on where I'm at then I'll go things this is that is that grande spores grande spores little hatchet you know so down here in the southeast this is what I would normally carry most of the time up into Northeast I'll carry a larger one a little bit larger but it's still good for the pack but I expect to have to put up a lot of firewood for the night in the Northeast so this is what I would choose so to take this I'm scaling my chopper up and then sometimes down here in the southeast I'll carry a tomahawk tomahawks are very useful because you could pop the head off and you can use that as a tool you can use that as a wedge even though this one has a spike you can't really use it as a wedge as well but a lot of comma hawks you could do very useful tool but they're not as easier to process wood with as you know a dedicated like axe but you know sometimes I'll carry this as an option just because I like it and it's it's versatile and useful so something to think about all right I think we've got all the choppers oh I didn't talk about this I'm Michael take it down just because cold steel shovel this thing is a great chopper throw like a tomahawk and it digs so I wouldn't really call it a one tool option I can't see me process in fishing game with this but it is a really good tool if you want to go that route if you're expecting to do some digging and also have to do some chopping that would be a great choice for sure so all right I think we covered all the choppers I wanted to get into now there's another little guy check this one out this is a little muck it's more of a skinner you know but it's a great little neck knife little model of the nest muck from Hilty right what else can I show you real quick what are we on I believe we're on saws okay so on the subject of saws again it's back to what is it that I expect to be doing while I'm out you know do I expect to be you know processing a lot of firewood in my end area that doesn't have it laying all over the place because obviously I'm gonna scavenge and pick up things that are already broken or already down if it's not wet you know so but up in the Northeast you know I got a you got it you got to put some lumber away for the night so down here not so much I can get away with a smaller saw like what's on a multi-tool like a Swiss Army knife or a Leatherman or a Gerber but anyway saws scaling them up check this out so one of the smallest possible saws that I see people using other than what's on their multi tools are these little wire saws and you know I gotta say that you know if I'm honest I think these are crap alright but you can make them a more efficient piece of crap so these things will bind the pinch they'll break but if you turn them into a bow saw you can take care of that so if for some reason you don't have the room to carry another small saw and this is what you go with in your kit then I recommend that you've learned this technique that I'm about to show you right now to make it actually a useful piece of crap if that makes sense but anyway so all I did was took a small tree and I actually took out a little bit duction right here so that it would Bend easily without breaking and carved a couple of pot hanger notches in there and then you just string it like a bow I'll put that on there and let's see if I can get her strung I'm going to do an alternate method of stringing this like a bow because I'm not standing up if I can ever got another pot hanger notch on the other side I'll string that dude up and just like that I've got a bow saw using it this way allows me to use the entire length of the wire saw without actually putting any kinks in it so it's gonna last the heck of a lot longer it's gonna cut a lot more efficiently so if you're gonna use one of those use it like this alright so yeah improvise bow saw then we've got kind of a commercial boat saw which are pretty cool I've carried this a lot in upstate New York cuts pretty well you know I don't like that it's you know doesn't collapse and it's kind of bulky for a pack but I mean you could probably take it apart but it's just kind of a pain and I left the label on it so I'd know what brand it was this is a fist scars 21 inch but ya put away a lot of lumber with this buy lumber I mean firewood but you know put a lot away with that but that's kind of a northeast thing I think then why let's talk about these so folding saws you know if I don't need something as big as a bow saw or a buck saw I'll go with a folding saw there's a lot of different size of these and I have several different size of these so yeah the Baco versus the silkies I've got several sizes of silky I find that the silky actually cuts faster then the BOC oohs the macho is definitely a lot more tactful I like that I like the locking mechanism on the silkies it feels a lot more sturdy than that little plastic tab right there but if I'm honest I've had all of these for years and have used all of these for years and none of them break so it doesn't really matter to me which one you go with what I will say is this cuts on the forward and rear stroke these only cuts so he's only cut on the rear stroke so something to keep in mind these things cut really fast though these things cut perfectly adequately so your choice take whatever one you want I normally take a lot of silkies which is apparent by how many different sides they have this is this one's pocket boy 170 this is a pocket boy I think 130 you know which is just a little guy this one gets a lot of work a lot of work on it and you know if I was up in the Northeast I would take something bigger like this big boy this thing can put away some this can put away some fire but it can take down some rather large trees really efficiently but again it's just the pull strokes off so if you push on that you take a chance of breaking it so yeah anyway I just got my hands on this dude right here this is a collapsible buck saw all right so this thing has a backhoe blade on it and it all comes apart basically if you've never seen one of these work but anyway it it all comes apart and collapses down on itself covers them so it this basically the blades pulled back up into here and that protects it while you're traveling and it's no bigger than this center section when it's all folded up and tying together you can stuff that in your pack put it together in on site so this is a much better option to me than that that bow saw so happy to get my hands on this I got it from actually got this from self-reliance Outfitters I'll put links after I'm done we'll go back and I'll put links to all the stuff that I'm talking about so if anybody wants to check it out you can if not that's okay too but you know a lot of people always asked for links I will give those to you but this is actually a fantastic so I actually did a race with it versus my my big boy which I used to think cut extremely fast this one won hands down and you know it's a little bit longer but it's not all that much bulkier when you break it down so this will be my my Northeast soft and probably you know Eastern woodlands mountains type thing like in the winter I'm going to be carrying this and this is going to replace my selfies for sure it's just that much more efficient so I'll link those and all right we're getting a little long here guys at but anyway that's all the sauce now what do I need in all four well I need an all for gear repair I need an all for crafts making other tools making other implements for example there's a lot of different things you can use like a multi-tool I don't have one on me because I don't use them multi-tool Swiss Army knives they all have awls in them and it's very important if you don't know how to use that learn how to use it because it's an extremely useful tool I put it in the top five category for sure but the all's that I'll carry there's a couple of the crooked halls which are kind of the more traditional you know so you can punch and allows you to push you know thread or or cordage or whatever through something to bind or repair so crooked all's I carry two of them because you can tie those together put them inside of a piece of wood I'm gonna make a meat fort out of that which is why I carry two so what I normally carry though for doing projects like sewing leather which I've sewed this leather with us all working on sewing some birch bark containers but this is the one don't mind this birch bark you know this is what I normally carry because this is this is my all and my repair kit and what I like about this is it's so sharp that you know I'm able to sew leather or repair leather that I've taken out with me I can repair canvas I can repair whatever but I can also make projects out of natural materials like this is some birch bark you know that I've got kind of kind of been sewing but yeah I'm just sewing a lock stitch in it but it punches right through the bark if I wanted to join these punch right through run it through and I've just made another stitch you know so the speedy stitcher sewing awl is what this is called but I could do projects with that I can repair gear with that whatever I need it for so I tend to carry this one a lot and it's got a curved needle actually underneath sorry it's got a curved needle actually underneath is this college ring here so really versatile tool really useful so those are those are the Owls now as far as hook knives or something to create a concavity like I'm working on this spoon here something to create a concavity or you know a bowl or a cup whatever you're making a lot of different choices out there and you know it could be something and let it you know as a simple I think this is a Maura it might be a 163 I don't know it's one of the more wood carving series ones but just a simple curved knife curved blade so I can get in there and actually create those concavities I can go from that to this is actually an extremely nice one that was forged by Canterbury as well and this is the one that I think I like the best I mean when you're comparing it to you've got you know the adequacy of a mora wood carving knife versus this one I mean this is a substantial you know it's a substantial difference in in size and granted they're a different blade but just the sharpen of the sharpness of this is incredible really gets in there you can get some leverage on your carving so if you're a big spoon carver you know this is a really good hook knife like I said that's Forge and another option is a a carving gouge you know that you can get in and create larger things like your your cusco's your bowls whatever if you got the room that's a great tool to have to create kind of cavity so nice to haves that are not really necessary but are really awesome to have and a lot of times these are in my kit depending on what I have to do chisel knife I know you guys have probably seen these this is Tabaco chisel knife wrecking knife you know if I expect to do a lot of processing larger larger fuel into smaller kid link and I'm going to be doing a lot of building billet with a baton or truncating I'm probably going to use this if I have it if not no big deal you know all my knives are capable of it but you know this is specifically designed for wrecking is the recognize from Baca but these things are cool if I'm prying a lot of pine sap off of a tree that's hardened depending on the season this is a great tool to use as well and I mean this thing has seen some that's seen some use and somewhere but it's still going strong I can make you know some pretty detailed woodworking joinery in the field probably Adam Frye probably carries one of these I bet or something similar that have to be a backhoe I've got Morris I've got Holt of forests got a lot of different ones but I tend to go with this one because it's larger I like it a couple other things having a draw knife you know this is a packable draw knife you probably saw it on Instagram but having a draw knife is great if you're out in the woods and you want to create things like bows this could be used basically like a draw knife and a spokeshave and it's really compact and packable fits right in your tool roll you just cut a couple of handles when you get out in the field a couple of sticks and then use those and this thing is I mean it's razor sharp really high-quality this was also forged out at Pathfinder but I'll show you this dude this thing can make some shavings quick but yeah it's really really nice really small so I like this and then this was actually made for me by Dave as well which is a packable throw that works with my tomahawk handle so if you don't know what a fro is you know it works with my tomahawk handle but this is a kind of a larger version of what I would be doing with a chisel you know when I'm doing a lot of splitting or if I'm you know you can make shingles with this you can do a lot of things with this but you know put my tomahawk handle through that it's designed to not only you know be able to baton bill it you know that down into the woods and you can also use that lever to kind of give it a pride and not worry about breaking it you it's gonna actually be able to use it to snap that wood off you know if it's a nice green wood so I like to carry a fro if I can if you have one so that's another thing that's a nice to have now last thing I promised then I'm out of here let's talk about primitive tools real quick primitive building primitive tools is an art and it's an art that I work on pretty constantly there's always a mess in my garage of a flint knapping attempts at flint knapping I'll say but you know there are people that are really good at it for example like these are a couple of blades that were made to for me by Justin Cooke this one is especially awesome I got to put a little leather wrap on that but that's a great great implement took you minutes to do that it's incredible you know there's kind of a smaller one really nice then I got actually these two oats these one's more of a field use one and once Obsidian it's a little more nice decoration so a couple of Otzi blades that I got from Phil out in Texas so yeah the point I'm trying to make is use the tools that you have at your disposal to make your trips safe make your bushcrafting more effective but also don't forget to learn you know kind of where those tools came from what we use before we had that because if you're ever without those modern tools you'll be down to you know what we used to have what we used to have will become what you need and what you have the the the ability to make while you're out in the field so yeah that's all I wanted to talk about

Channel: The Gray Bearded Green Beret

Views: 79,111

Rating: 4.9519806 out of 5

Keywords: Ranger, Green Beret, Survival, Bushcraft, Preparedness, Fire, Shelter, Camping, Hunting, Trapping, Knives, Axes, the pathfinder school llc

Id: IU2iMC67a_E

Length: 37min 41sec (2261 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 30 2018