Skills - It's not all hearts and roses.....

[DOC-CANADA]

I know I wasn't going to post any more skills threads, but I had a really nice day and I wanted to share.

Well I finally got to play in the woods today, after being sick for a couple of months, etc. While we had no real agenda, we came up with a few things to keep us amused. I don't know how many of you have seen Mors Kochanski's flip flop winch, but we had, but had never tried it out so, today was as good as any.

We didn't have any cars to move, but there was this one annoying log...............



You can see it was a fair size and frozen to the ground, to boot. I stuck my Bravo1 in the top as a size reference. Unlike most people, I took the picture after we had moved it, rather than before.

While none of us had tried this before, it was really quite simple, once we got the hang of it.









A closeup of the wound up rope.



Now we used levers shorter and thinner than Kochanski, but we wanted to get the feel of it and did. A very useful technique to know.

-----------------------------

Along this line, I remember reading about another technique, a long time ago, used for rolling barrels up ramps, using only a rope. It was called parbuckling. My Webster's College Dictionary defines parbuckle as:

parbuckle
/pahr"buk'euhl/, n., v., parbuckled, parbuckling.
n.
1. a tackle for raising or lowering a cask or similar object along an inclined plane or vertical surface.
2. a double sling made with a rope, as around a cask to be raised or lowered.
v.t.
3. to move with a parbuckle.
[1620-30; earlier parbunkel, of uncert. orig.]

So............ since we already had the rope out.................



In this picture, the left side of the log caught on a rock and allowed the log to turn, but no matter, we saw what we needed to - also a very useful technique to know. This technique was much faster than the Kochanski flip flop winch, but would only work on something that had a roundish form, that could roll, whereas the flip flop winch could also be used in other applications.

At this point, the troops noticed that they were doing all the work, while all I was doing was taking pictures, so before any real trouble broke out, I suggested we move along.

(continued)

[DOC-CANADA]

Something else I had wanted to do for awhile was put my PSK to use. Some of you might remember it, seen here. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=480913 It consists of a crocheted pouch in which is an aluminum tin with necessary goodies, duct taped for waterproofness (also the duct tape could be used for patching holes in a tarp, quickee fletching an arrow, etc.)

Here it is closed up to prevent me from using items in the tin and failing to replenish them.



The green jute at the base of the strap was used to close the pouch.

Here, Slasher is removing the green jute in order to access the kit.



And here is one of the 'jog your memory' cards. You can see the duct taped tin on the left.





The pouch is turned inside out to expose a piece of (dyed) red jute which is cut to release the rest of the jute for unraveling.


Turned right side out, again, to facilitate unraveling.



And pull -



Further unraveled (strap undone from one side)




Here you can see the unraveled jute building up. All together we salvaged about 120 feet of jute. 120 feet affords lots of opportunity for bow drill strings, snares, tying shelters together, etc. Now this jute is finer than the jute you regularly see. I used this for the pouch to keep the bulkiness down. The problem is, in order to use this for any kind of strength requirement, it has to be corded.




Here, Phil is thigh rolling some cordage for a snare..





While thigh rolling is a pretty quick way to make a length of plied cordage, Slasher, ever mindful that today is Valentine's Day, and the quote by William Congreve, "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned " urged more speed, so we reverted to team cordage making - a much faster proposition.





A close-up of the cordage:

[DOC-CANADA]

The snare - a simple L-7.





Coincidentally, just at that moment the famous Ontario Snowshoe Glove happened along right into our snare. (Pierre was taking a break for the long weekend)




Sproing!!





Since it was a survival situation, and we didn't need the food, it was released unharmed

Moving on, we decided to use some of the jute as tinder along with the modified lantern lighter in the kit. This lighter, by the way, will light up any tinder a ferro rod will.







Since Slasher was complaining (making little girl noises ) that he was getting cold, Phil decided to make a little bigger fire than this jute inferno.





So with some unraveled jute and a fire straw, voila!





Now there were other things I wanted to try with the PSK contents, but Slasher, all the while whimpering something about 'sleeping on the couch' or some such lobbied Phil and I to call it a day, so with a final experiment with the magnet compass, we concluded the day's outdoor activities (none too soon, either - I'm getting tired of typing).

Here you can see the magnet compass is pretty well dead on with the compass.




The small discrepancy could possibly be attributed to the duct tape surface it was sitting on.

So that's it, hope you enjoyed.

Doc

[KuRUpTD]

Great post Doc I'd never seen the Flip Flop Winch before, thanks for sharing.

Glad you're feeling better

[grunt soldier]

looks like a productive and fun day sir

[TheGame]

By the way it looks, you had a great day. Thanks for sharing, Doc.

[mtnfolk mike]

awesome pics Doc.. looks like a fun/cold day... we spent ours on the beach in 70 deg. weather...

[mapper66]

Very nice, Doc. I enjoyed going back and reading the thread on your PSK. Especially like the rare earth magnet and the modified lantern lighter.

[August West]

Originally Posted by mapper66

Especially like the rare earth magnet and the modified lantern lighter.

Must of missed that thread, appreciate it of someone can point me towards it. That looks like some handy kit. Chris

[mapper66]

Doc has a link in post #2.

[myright]

Great pics and cool system for moving things! I've never seen that before, thanks for sharing.

[3_hard_boiled_eggs]

nice photo outlay.

do you have a list of the things you used? or some way to get a list of these items so i can make a kit like it?

[sicily02]

Doc, that was awesome, Great pics. Looks like you all had a great day out in the woods.

Bryan

[jds1]

What a great day! Thanks for taking the time to post all the photos.

Jeff

[DOC-CANADA]

Originally Posted by August West

Must of missed that thread, appreciate it of someone can point me towards it. That looks like some handy kit. Chris

Originally Posted by 3_hard_boiled_eggs

nice photo outlay.

do you have a list of the things you used? or some way to get a list of these items so i can make a kit like it?

Hey guys, here's the link to the PSK.

And thanks everyone, for the nice comments.

Doc

[Hawkings]

I like the flip flop winch, wanting to try it out I managed to pull my coffee table 2 feet .

One thing that springs to mind is that you can get rapidly more power by decreasing the thickness of the pole the rope rolls around.

A pole with a diameter of 10 cm would give 2 X the power of a pole with a diameter of 20 cm.

Need to get my car stuck one of these days

[Joezilla]

Thanks Doc. I can't wait to try out this winch. I had to recover 2 cars this weekend. ANY little info helps. I bookmarked the site too.

[tonym]

Excellent post as usual GP!

I love that pouch!

[pitdog]

Great stuff as usual Doc ! I remember reading about that flip flop winch a long time ago but have never got around to trying one !

[dawsonbob]

Great stuff, Doc...as usual. Your posts are always interesting, and this one is no exception.

I love the winch. I'll have to try that out when I get a chance.