Tool : Crook Knife

Whilst attending the CLA Game Fair at Blenheim Palace I purchased a Lauri Hook Blade from English Handmade Knives stall, I had wanted to try my hand at handling a stick tang blade for a while.

The gentleman at the stall gave me some tips on how best to go about handling the blade as well as a helpful fact-sheet.

The Lauri Hook Blade dimensions are 60x18 mm

The first job was to cut down the stick tang to the required length and then file down the brass bolster to fit the blade.

For the handle I used a piece of Sycamore, after squaring the end off I marked out where the stick tang would go.

Using the drill press I removed most of the required material, after that it was a simple matter of filling out the fit the profile of the blade.

Once the blade was fitting nicely I marked out the handle shape.

Clamping the handle into a vice I cut the handle to shape, from here I sanded the handle to the shape I wanted.

At this point I used some epoxy resin to set the blade in the handle, once set I did a final sanded down until smooth and fitted nicely in my hand.

Night Out : First Night Out At The New Permission

After several years of trying to get a local permission for overnighters and general bushcraft activities it has finally happened.

Recently my brothers friend Dave has started joining us out camping, over a camp fire chat he mentioned he does some work for a guy who has some woodland. After a few phone calls we  got permission to use the woodland for what ever we wanted to do.

Turns out the guy owns 5 acres, but he wanted to confirm with another guy who owns the rest of the woods that it would be OK for use to be in the woods.

This week we got the green light.

Originally I was on a ban from nights out as my daughter was born only a few weeks ago, but with a bit of smooth talking SWMBO gave me the second green light of the week.

So 30 minutes later my brother Bev, Dave and myself were heading out to the woods.

Soon the tarps started to going up

Mine

Dave

As it was a late start to the day it soon became dark and dinner was cooked and eaten.

Firewood was plentiful, bearly having to move to get some.

For the rest of the night was camp fire TV and campfire discussion

The guys started some late night carving, I warned them to keep they eyes on their fingers as I left them too it, being a second time dad I was already tired.

6am I was up

And found my brother just about in his hammock (after feeling a bit restricted he made a late night adjustment)

I thought I better get back to my baby girl and mommy so packed up early and headed home, with strict instructions on how to deal with the remains of the fire.

Back to the cars (on a short walk due to getting to the woods late it didn't give much time to explore)

And I headed out

Stopping at Costa to get some croissant for SWMBO as a breakfast her letting me out on early parole for good behaviour.

Night Out : Eats Shoots and Leaves

This was my final night pass from SWMBO as we have a baby due in 5 weeks.  So I headed off to the woods for the night with my brother Bevan, fellow bushcrafter Jamie (BusbcraftBob) and my brother friends Barry and Dave who I have been out camping with before.

Jamie and myself turned up aroud 3.30 and setup and  the other guys turned up about 6pm.

My Setup

Jamies setup

That was all the setup as Bevan, Barry and Dave slept around the fire with just a foam roll mat and sleeping bag.

Around Camp

Dave has recently started to learn how to carve woodspirits, this was his first spirit and he was working on the second in the woods

Bevan Zeroed in his rifle

Jamie and I did some bow drill practice

Jamie burning the first hole in

Jamie had gathered some damp grass and dried it by the fire.

Jamie and myself then took the guys though the bow drill letting them have a go themselves.

Bevan was a natural and with his first attempt got an ember.

Barry struggled with technique but after a few adjustments got a smooth action going.

Dave when 1000mph using about 3 inches of the bow, but it worked

with a bit of help stabilising the hearth.

Thankfully the guys said you two make it look easy, but still always learning.

As we had permission to shoot Bevan and Dave went out with the air rifle and came back with a rabbit.

Jamie is an old hand and preparing the rabbit so took Dave though step by step.  Dave did a great job and soon the rabbit was cooking.

The rest of the night was spent around the campfire enjoying each other company and stories.
Night time marshmallow and choc hobnobs.  Yummy!!

After seeing a thread a while ago I tested a 35mm film canister on the Hugsby torch to turn it into a lantern. It worked really well and dispersed the light well.

Next day Bevan, Barry and Dave headed off around 10am, leaving Jamie and myself to sort out the place and having a brew before heading off around 12pm

Great time for my last night out in a few months and hope you enjoyed this report.

Tool : Bushcraft Self Made Bucksaw

When having a camping over night I feel you can get away with out the need of a saw, most of time you can simple collect dead standing or hanging wood from around your camp site and snap these in to usable lengths.

The buck saw is a extremely useful tool when camping in winter, when its cold an you need more firewood for the long night or its wet and you need to process larger logs to get to the dry wood inside. The bucksaw allows you to process a large amount of  wood with ease and relatively quickly.

As buck saws are very simple to make I carry just the blade with two bolts with wing nuts and make the saw when in camp.

Mors Kochanski  Bush Craft book has a great diagram and instruction on how to make a buck saw.

First job was cutting the hazel to length, using the saw blade with out an tension on the blade was a bit tricky.

Cutting a grove in the end of the upright for the blade to sit in.

Finally the grove was deep enough for the blade to sit in.

Cutting the notches for the horizontal bar.

and a notch for the bolt to sit in to hold the blade in place

The horizontal bar took a bit of adjustment to sit correctly in the notches.

After that it was the simple part of putting it together