Modified Swedish Torch

I have been fascinated by the idea of the Swedish torch for some time, but the found it unpractical since the cuts in the logs were often done with a chainsaw.  I should have prefaced that comment by saying when I first came across information on the Swedish torch the ones I saw were made with a single block of wood using a chainsaw to make the air channels.  Then I saw a blog post (which of course I cannot find now) that showed making a Swedish torch out of small diameter limbs lashed together.  Brilliant I thought!

That was about 2 years ago...

I have been meaning to experiment with the idea, but I just did not make the time.  That happens to me.  A lot.  That is something I need to work on, but I will blog about that elsewhere.  I find the best way to force myself to learn a new skill, or hone an existing one is to teach a class on it.  Then I have others depending on me, and here are the results.

Batoning the cedar log.
Photo by R.T.

Lashing split-wood together with jute twine.
Photo by R.T.

Inserting River birch (Betula nigra) bark as tinder.
Photo by R.T.

Lighting with my ferro rod
Photo by R.T.

Fire started.
Photo by R.T.

Billy pot on the torch.
Photo by R.T.

The advantage of the Swedish torch in wet, or snowy conditions is that it gets your fire up out of the moisture and it creates a ready made pot stand so long as the wood you are using is roughly the same length.

The only thing I will change the next time is I will use a light gauge wire, like florists wire, to wrap the bundle in.  The jute burned through (which did not surprise me) but how rapidly the fire spread into the interior of the torch did surprise me.  I can definitely see some huge advantages to the Swedish torch in non-wet conditions to, such as greatly limiting fire scars.

Have you ever made one of these?  What are your thoughts?

Bushcraft Manifesto: Bindcraft

This i think has to be the hardest section the my mini-manual to write. Trying to describe in words the process of making cordage is frustratingly difficult. I had a friend that I recently taught how make cordage proof read it and he said it seemed fairly clear. I hope to get some good photos of the process and add them soon. Any advice or clarification that you think might help would be greatly appreciated.

The Knowledge: Bindcraft

Arguably the most important skill to have in the wild is the ability to improvise cordage or rope.

Cordage can be used to:

1. Make fire with a bow drill.
2. Lash a more sturdy shelter together.
3. Weave a mat, or thatching to make a better insulated shelter or sleeping pad.
4. Make a fishing line or snare to procure food (a.k.a. protein & fat).
5. Improvising equipment (i.e.; pack frames, bucksaws, baskets)

As a rule of thumb the easier a material is to collect for cordage the weaker, or more brittle it is.

The skills required to make strong, serviceable in and of them selves are simple until you try to convey them to someone else. All the people I have taught to make cordage seem to have what I call an "ah-ha!" moment after struggling to understand the hand movements. The technique I prefer to use reqires the use of both hands and generates strong cordage relatively quickly.

You start by taking the cordage material and folding it into a "J" shape and holding the curve (bottom) of the "J" in your weak hand. You should have two (2) tag ends, one (1) long and one (1) short. I like to start with the short tag end away from me, and the long tag end close to me. Take the the tag end that is away from you and take it between the index finger and thumb of your strong hand. Your palm should be facing the ground. Take your thumb and roll the cordage material up your index finger then rotate your strong hand so that your palm is now facing upwards. As you rotate your palm upward use the middle finger and index finger of your strong hand to grab the tag end that is closest to you. Now rotate your strong hand back to it's original position (palm down). This action crosses the two (2) tag ends. Now while holding the cordage in your strong hand slide your weak hand down the cordage just far enough to grip the place where the two (2) tag ends cross. Now repeat the whole process.

The reason that you have one tag end shorter than the other is splicing. When collecting cordage materials you usually end up with short sections that need to be spliced together in order to end up with usable lengths of cordage. Splicing as very simple; when you get about 1.5"-2" from the end of a tag is lay a new piece of material along side of it and continue twisting. It is important to have some distance between your splices away from each other because they are weak spots. Holding the cordage in the "J" shape automatically leaves on tag shorter than the other eliminating weak splices being too close together.

Cordage Materials List:

• Basswood (Tilia americana)-The inner bark Collection/Processing: moderate Strength: moderate
• Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana)- The inner bark and rootlets. Collection/Processing: moderate Strenght: moderate
• Ironwood/Eastern hop hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana)- The inner bark Collection/Processing: difficult Strength: strong
• Wild grape (Vitis riparia)- Pencil sized vines with shaggy bark Collection/Processing: easy Strength: weak
• Stinging nettles (Urtica dioica)- The thin skin on the outside of the stalk Collection/Processing: moderate Strength: very strong
• Willow (Salix spp.)- Sapplings and thin branches can be used as wythes. The inner bark. Collection/Processing: easy Strength: relatively strong

This is by no means an exhaustive list of plant for cordage materials. I chose these 5 plants because of their abundance and resilience to harvesting. Basswood trees are very popular among whitetail bucks for rubing there antlers on during the fall rut. This action strips of the bark and exposes the inner barks, and usually shreds it into manageable pieces for you. Eastern red cedar is considered an invasive by land managers that are trying to restore prairies and are often looking for people to help clear them out. Ironwoods are often looked upon as less desirable in mature timber stands of oak and managers again are usually open to the idea of someone helping them to thin them. Wild grape grow abundantly in fence rows, along forest edges, in uplands, on floodplains, just about everywhere. It is pretty easy to find a downed tree top with grapevine growing in it that you can collect with out worrying about destroying the plant. Besides make decent cordage grapevine can be woven into serviceable baskets without a lot of trouble. Finally willows are extremly useful for cordage due to the suppleness of their small limbs which allows you to use them for tying an lashing. Also the inner bark make good cordage either prepared as described above, or simply by stripping the bark and using it as is.

For more information on cordage materials as well as different styles of making cordage visit these sites:

http://www.nativetech.org/cordage/

http://www.primitiveways.com/cordage.html

http://www.wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/cordage/index.html

http://www.rewild.info/fieldguide/index.php?title=Cordage_Materials

For a good source on knots and other related topics visit:

http://www.ropeworks.biz/

Bushcraft Manifesto-Bladecraft

This is a continuation of my mini-bushcraft manual to hand out during classes. As you can tell the information is really basic. I am not trying to reinvent the wheel. At the end of the manual I am going to include a bibliography with suggested books, websites and blogs. I would like to thank the retailers I mention in the article for there support and advice. Please take a moment to visit there sites and support their businesses.

The Knowledge: Bladecraft

The Knife

The “perfect” knife for general outdoor use is a fixed blade belt knife with a 4” blade made of high carbon steel that has a Scandinavian grind (flat bevel). Large, stainless steel, hollow ground blades should be avoided; the reasons will be discussed shortly.

When choosing a knife it is important to understand the advantages of a “small” knife and the draw backs of a “large” knife. By “small” I mean a knife with a blade that is 5” or less in length, “large” knives in my opinion have blades 8” and over. With a small knife it is possible to do fine detail carving on projects like a netting needle as well as fell a 6” diameter tree (with a little knowledge). Many people like large knives so they don’t have to carry a knife and an axe, but the relatively lightweight of a large knife makes it a poor substitute for an axe, and the large blade makes fine carving difficult.

A high carbon steel blade has a few distinct advantages over stainless steel. The pros & cons of both steels are:

1. Stainless: It is difficult to sharpen because of its hardness.

Carbon: It is easy to sharpen while holding an edge.

2. Stainless: It is brittle and prone to breaking (especially in cold temperatures).

Carbon: Is relatively soft and is more likely to bend than it is to break. (this is important when batoning).

3. Stainless: Does not work well for throwing sparks to start fires.

Carbon: Works well with ferrocerium rods as well as a traditional flint/chert stone.

The grind, or bevel, of your knives is as important as the type of steel chosen. The two most common blade grinds are the Scandinavian grind, or flat bevel and hollow grind (pictured below).

1) Hollow Grind 2) Scandinavian Grind

(Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grind)

The advantages of a Scandinavian grind over hollow are ease in sharpening, lifespan of the blades edge, and overall blade strength.

When sharpening a blade with a Scandinavian grind the entire surface of the knife’s face is kept on the stone (you can sharpen one with your eyes closed). A hollow ground blade has to be held at a specific observed angle while sharpening (it is difficult to do by feel). Also because the face of the blade runs from the cutting edge to the spine a Scandinavian ground blade can be sharpened until the blade is gone. Because of the constant gradient of the face of a Scandinavian the overall blade strength is greater when compared to the “scooped out” face of the hollow ground.

Their are a wide array of knives that meet the qualifications that I have laid out here and happily many of them are C-H-E-A-P! The quintisential bushcraft knives are Frosts Moras. Frosts Moras come in several makes and models which run from as high as $20.00 a knife, to as low as $10.00 and are available from a variety of sellers online. Four of the best in the States are:

Ben's Backwoods

Bushcraft Northwest

Northwest Woodsmen

Wilderness Outfitters Archery

The Saw

By carrying a fixed blade knife and a small folding saw, or a bow saw blade the versatility of the knife is greatly increased. With a saw you can cut larger diameter wood into desired lengths and then using your knife and a baton (stick) you can split the cut piece for firewood, kindling or carving. The type of saw you choose is based on both personal preference and the task you wish to use the saw for.

Different tooth designs on blades are made for cutting different type of wood (green wood versus dead wood). For dead wood a peg tooth design is preferred and for green weed wood it is best to have a raker tooth design.

Peg-tooth Raker-tooth

(Retrieved form http://www.appropedia.org/images/3/38/P027B.GIF)

(Retrieved from www.midwestbushcraft.blogspot.com)

A buck saw blade can safely carried by coiling it up in the bottom of a billy can. When a saw is needed it can be removed and a simple buck saw frame can be fashioned from materials found in the woods. The saw pictured above is made with a raker-tooth blade, jute twine, and a grey dogwood frame.

The options I look for in a folding saw are:

1. Teeth cut on push AND pull.
2. Easy one handed open and close.
3. Blade locks open.

The advantage of teeth that cut on the push and pull more efficiently utilize your energy. I like my folding saw to have the option of one hand opening and closing for instances where I need to steady what I'm cutting. One instance where it has come in handy for me was cutting a tree top that was across a branch of a river I was paddling. I was able to hold the branch while steadying the canoe with one hand while opening the saw and cutting the branch with the other. The final option that a saw has to have (I guess it really isn't an "option" per say then is it?) is a locking blade. For safety sake it is important that the blade can be locked in place to keep it from folding on your hands while you are using. The saw I use doesn't actually fold, rather the blade slides in and out of the handle. This is a little stronger design than a folding blade in my opinion and it is easy to open and lock using only one hand.

Bushcraft Manifesto

Hello all. Hope you are enjoying this unseasonally cool summer as much as I am. My summer was extremely busy and it just now starting to wind down. I am looking forward to fall, hunting season, and most importantly our new baby! In the meantime I have been asked to give a presentation on bushcraft to naturalists from across the state and I decided to put together a little outline.

Well the outline has turned into more of a mini-manual for beginners and I thought I'd share it on here, section-by-section, as I complete them. I am hoping for some constructive critisim from fellow practitoners so feel free to share your opinions (be gentle though, I'm sensitive...)

The Foundations

The foundations upon which bushcraft stands are knowledge and the knife. The skills that are used in bushcraft are nothing new; many predate recorded history. Of the two foundations, knowledge is the most important. With knowledge a person can fashion a cutting tool from stone (chert, flint, basalt, etc…) or a blade can be fashioned from discarded steel or iron in the woods, all it takes is a little knowledge of lithics and metallurgy. By combining together a base knowledge with the skillful use of a knife it is very possible for you to not only survive in the wilds, but to thrive. That is the major difference between survival and bushcraft for me. I think of survival as fighting nature to live and bushcraft as working cooperativley with nature for mutual benefit.

The knowledge needed to get a start in bushcraft I have broken down into 4 basic skill sets of:

• Bladecraft- the use and care of blades (knives, saws, axes, etc…).
• Bindcraft- the use and care of bindings (cordage, ropes, wythes, etc…).
• Firecraft- the use and care of fire and fire lighting techniques (fire-by-friction, flint and steel, ferrocerium rods, etc…).
• Fieldcraft- the combined use of the above skills and ecology to utilize the landscape to thrive while leaving it better than you found it (shelter building, green woodworking, observation/journaling, etc...).

Because bushcraft goes against some of the seven principles of leave-no-trace (LNT) camping it is crucial to have a strong working knowledge of ecology to ethically practice bushcraft. For example, if you want to build a shelter and need to cut down shrubs or saplings what can you ethically cut? By knowing what trees and shrubs sucker strongly (shoot up new growth from downed trees) you can harvest them while doing no long term harm. Better yet learn what trees or shrubs are non-native and invasive to the area. Removing them will help the native vegetation and help to restore ever shrinking habitats.

Also it is important to be aware of rules and regulations while using public land, and to respect private property. In most cases on public land it is against regulations to cut or remove living plants, so you have to work with dead and down materials. However, as a land manger myself I would be more than happy to let someone collect invasive plants like buckthorn for wood carving or honeysuckle for shelter building so long as they could prove to me their ability to ID the plants. Not every land manager will be so accommodating, but it wouldn't hurt to ask. More on this will be discussed in the Fieldcraft section.

I lead a class today for a local community college and I had a couple of folks request that I post the links to a few sight I recommended for picking up inexpensive quality gear.

For army surplus I go with Sportsman’s Guide.

For knives I like to go through Smokey Mountain Knife Works.

Finally for kit I don’t make myself I go through Ben’s Backwoods.

If anyone that was at the course today (or anyone else for that matter) has any questions or request for my blog PLEASE leave a comment and let me know. Also if you attended and have requests for future course topics let me know.