Flint Knapping on a Bushcraft Wildcamp Overnight

In this video I meet up with the staff members from the Wilderness Pionners, every couple of months the Wilderness Pioneers Instructors get together to practice bushcraft skills and learn new ones. For some this was the first time knapping and other it was a chance to practice and share techniques. 

I have not done a large amount of flint knapping, but was taken through creating a flint hand axe by Klint Janulis, host of Channel 5 10000BC program. 

We spent some time going through flint knapping 101 and the theory behind a knapping stone tools and there uses. 

After practicing some bushcraft and primitive skills we enjoyed the night around the camp fire and what turned out to to be a great bushcraft camp. The following morning was started with a bushcraft breakfast of a good old full English fry up on the camp fire. 

Kit : Winter Load out

Bimble : Woodland Bimble and Alpkit BruKit

Kit : UK EDC

My every day carry is pretty minimal compared to others I have seen, if I was to carry as much as some other do I would quickly become annoyed with the bulk.  The EDC I carry day to day has been chosen to suit my needs and has been kept as slim lined as possible so that I hardly notice I am carry it. 

My life seems to be built around lots of small routines, as such my EDC is just an extension of this as all the items I carry go in the same pockets each time and when not in use they are stored in a box in my house. 

Left Front Pocket
Wallet (containing cards and cash) - Handmade wallet by Fenner Crafts

Right Front Pocket
Sony Z1 Xperia Compact
Burt's Bees Lip Balm

Rear Left Pocket
Notepad

Rear Right Pocket
Ziploc bag containing plastic bag, plasters, a length of cord, safety pin and duct tape wrapped around a fresnel lens

On my  Belt
Leatherman Wave

Fenix LD15 Torch

Watch Pocket
Fisher Space Pen
Clipper Lighter

Keyring

Car and House Keys
Work Fobs
Short Length of Paracord
Victorinox Keyring Pen Knife

Bimble : Bushcraft Dog Bimble

Now the all the Christmas food has been eaten its time to try burn some off.  This frosty morning was perfect for a good bimble around the woods. I met up with Jamie and his puppy Marvin for a walk and a brew.

It had been a long time since Jamie and myself had been to this woods but it has always been a favourite of ours.  The woodland is so varied, going across the fields you first walk into a diciduous woodland but we walked in to one of the coniferous patches in the woods.

I had planned to have a small fire for a brew, so collected some pine resin which seemed to be abundance in this woodland. 

We collected the tinder and fuel for the fire from all the low dead branches and prepared the fire on a base to keep it off the floor.

I used my light my fire ferro rod to get the dry resin alight, I have a few ferro rods but find this one threw some good hot sparks.

Once the fire was going I placed the Nalgene stainless steel water bottle from my brew kit over it to get the water boiling. I had recently purchased the Pathfinder bottle hanger and wanted to see how good it was. First impression are good, however thought it would have a better grip on the inside of the bottle than it actually has and once it came when I first went to lift the bottle by the hanger but after replacing it and lifting more gently it held well.

 Marvin had not seen fire before and was very inquisitive but kept a safe distance away.  He loved the woods and found lots to play with and we had to stop him from running off with the pot hanger once or twice.

Jamie and Marvin

Big bubbles no troubles, even thought this was tap water its always good to see bubbles as it means the brew is not far away.

Whilst warming up with a nice coffee I put some bacon over the fire, originally I had the bacon over the pot hanger after debarking a the end section.

However the fire had died down  the bacon was not cooking very well, so I had to come up with an alternative, thankfully I had packed my Honey stove with hive extension and I used the grill to place the bacon over the coals, I had a moment of genius when I realised I could used the Pathfinder bottle hanger as a makeshift handle to move the grill.

Honey stove grill and Pathfinder bottle hanger

Bushcraft bacon and bagel

 It did not take long for Marvin to sniff out the delicious bacon and he begrudged me every mouthful.

Over the past 6 months I had spent some time thinking about my kit and what I want from it, so I decided to make my kit more modular, allowing me to take anything from just a brew kit up to all the kit needed for an overnight or two.

I have had the 5.11 Rush 12 pack as a EDC/Work bag for the past year and found it to be a very well put together pack. Since getting it I have added some addition 5.11 and Maxpedition pouches to make it a more versatile set-up.

5.11 Rush 12 pack and Maxpediton H1 Waistpack

What could be called my possible pouch is the Maxpedtion H1 Waistpack, this contain all my main use its, including Silva head torch, small cuts kit, fire kit, ferro rod, Svord Peasant Mini, Outdoor Edge Flip n' Zip Saw and much more.

The Maxpedtion 10x4 water bottle pouch contains my brew kit, which is the Nalgene stainless steel bottle and Alpkit MyTiMug.

If I have a knife on me I always carry a small cuts first aid kit (although there is a small fak in my possible pouch) this is kept on in a Maxpediton 5x3 pouch above the 10x4 pouch. The final pouch on the pack is the 5.11 H2O carrier, this allows me to carry an extra litre of water when out, this is the only pouch that stays on the pack every day as always take it a bottle of water with me to work.

Maxpediton 10x4 water bottle pouch

Every day life was calling and texting, so we all head back out of the woods after making sure the fire was out and cool too touch, the ashes were scatter in to the surrounding area.

Another great moring in the woods.

Fatwood Hunt Failure

Recently I have been on the hunt for fatwood but after several failed attempt I messaged Mike from MCQBushcraft and ask for any advice, Mike kindly went out and filmed a video for his YouTube channel MCQBushcraft.

This weekend I went with his advise in my head down to a local woods and found a down tree. I was unable to ID the tree as I had gone out without my book.

The first two branches I cut had all the signs I had been looking for, so I went ahead of split the branch into quarter and used the back of my blade to scrap the wood into fine shavings. 

When attempting to you light the shavings it would not take and after several minutes of trying I attempted to use a lighter, failing with the lighter lead me to believe I did not have the fatwood that I had thought and rather the branch was damp due to the rain in the week. 

The hunt continues. 

Night Out : Crafter Fisherman and the Hillbilly

My brother (Bevan), mate (Dave) and I made plans to get out into the woods for the night, so we planned to meet up and head into the woods for 2 pm, but due to some delays we never made it in until gone 4 pm meaning we had to set-up in the fading light. 

This is where practice makes perfect and I was able to set-up for the night with relative ease, thankfully the weather held up we all got our shelter up in the dry. 

Once settled we started gathering firewood for the night, it had been raining on and off for most of the week so pretty much everything was wet.  Once we had gathered what we required for the night and some dry tinder I started the fire using some potassium permanganate and glycerine.

The ground was soaking and Dave had soaked his boots though and we had the pleasure of him carefully  drying them over the fire.

The night was pretty warm, so the fire was kept a nice manageable size, enough to cook our dinners and keep us warm.

From about midnight it rained pretty much none stop until 6am, but we all reamained dry under the fantastic DD tarps.

Bev under DD XL tarp

Dave under DD 3x3 Tarp

My DD Superligth Tarp

We had driven into the woods in Bevan's truck, to get to our camp site, thankfully this meant we did not need to walk out in the now even more soaked ground.

We all had to leave early due to family commitments, so once packed up we cleared up the site to leave no trace.

Another good night out with family and friends and already can not wait to get out again.