A Little Bush & A Little Craft

Mistwalker

Mistwalker

Gold Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2007
Messages
19,035
The photos I needed today took me back to the woods...I always love that. I was out at a place near Goat Point on Walden's Ridge, I got there just at sunrise and took a walk to look for what I needed.

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It's hard to walk through these woods without finding fatwood so I harvested some really rich stuff for a friend.

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I almost stepped on this little guy, he was really well camouflaged and I barely noticed him.

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Lots of spiders in this area.

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This is some weird looking stuff on these leaves...seen it before but have no idea what it is.

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Having found what I was looking for I headed back to "base camp" and the truck. Near by I found a fairly freshly fallen log that was still good and solid. I decided to try my hand at making a spoon since Spark has started a contest on it. I had a prototype hawk I've been messing around with so I decided to have a little fun with the tools I had on me. I chopped off a limb and roughed out the shape with the hawk and then started dressing it up with the Bushfinger. I'm not sure what kind of wood this is...but it sure is hard.

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It was good to just sit and whittle and think, and the Bushfinger was really a pleasure to work with. About an hour and a half of just sitting and whittling in peace and no hot spots at all.

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It started taking shape pretty quick.

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This is what it looks like now as I haven't sanded on it any and I'm still trying to decide if I want to burn it out, gouge it out, or buy a curved spoon knife and scoop it out.

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I was having so much fun using the Bushfinger I decided to try a few things with it. I started making a notched adjustable pot hanger out of a recently dead Dogwood limb.

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But on the trip to the truck to get the canteen after already nearly finishing off the guyot in the 106F heat index I realized I didn't have to 2qt canteen in the truck so my lunch of Lipton instant chicken noodle soup was not going to happen. So...I through the pot hanger in the back of the truck to finish later and just played around with the Bushfinger a little more before heading home to eat. I decided to try the tip for boring in a piece of the same hard wood that was split to make the spoon. The tip held up great and did a great job of boring a good sized hole through about 3/4 of an inch of some really hard wood.

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And after all the whittling, the bit of batoning, and the boring I tested the edge again and it would still whittle fuzz sticks good enough to use for tinder.

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In the end I was sort of glad I was out of water and had an excuse to leave...after hours in the 105F heat this was about as much fire as I wanted :)

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Thanks Andy, this knife and the energy it brings are fantastic. Today was just what the doctor ordered and i enjoyed it very much. I'm really looking forward to Autumn when I can really enjoy it.


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G'day Brian


mistwalker said:
...This is some weird looking stuff on these leaves...seen it before but have no idea what it is.

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Click to expand...
Tough to tell from a single pic, but based on the evidence of insect grazing on the leaves, my guess would be egg sacks (although they are more common on the underside of the leaves over here :confused: )

BTW, that looks like it would make a very handy bushcraft knife :thumbup:




Kind regards
Mick
 
Thanks Mick, I'm really enjoying it. I thought the same thing...usually egg sacks go under to protect from rain and birds and such. Maybe whatever that is it's mean enough nothing eats it :)
 
That's really a beautiful knife. Who made it? I'm not really up to speed on the Bushcraft craze. That just looks really appealing and looks like it is sharp enough to cut air molecules and everything else it encounters. I had an Al Mar Tanto almost identical in silhouette to that knife.

That thing from the Stephen King novel you could have ended. :D
 
Uh, yeah, don't do a search for "bushfinger." I should have known better, it's just slightly less disturbing than searching for "fat wood." The most comical thing I viewed was the former Presidente, "W," throwing someone the bird. :D
 
Don Rearic said:
That's really a beautiful knife. Who made it? I'm not really up to speed on the Bushcraft craze. That just looks really appealing and looks like it is sharp enough to cut air molecules and everything else it encounters. I had an Al Mar Tanto almost identical in silhouette to that knife.

That thing from the Stephen King novel you could have ended. :D
Click to expand...

Hey Don, I think the Bushfinger is made by Andy Roy, Fiddleback knives. All I can say is that he makes some outstanding blades and is a great guy!


Great review Mistwalker! I'm hoping to get out a few hours today after all my "chores":grumpy:

ROCK6
 
Don Rearic said:
That's really a beautiful knife. Who made it? I'm not really up to speed on the Bushcraft craze. That just looks really appealing and looks like it is sharp enough to cut air molecules and everything else it encounters. I had an Al Mar Tanto almost identical in silhouette to that knife.

That thing from the Stephen King novel you could have ended. :D
Click to expand...

It is one I just got from Andy Roy, I told him I was over dosing on tactical at the moment and needed something to hit the woods with in a different frame of mind and this is what came from the conversation, beautiful isn't it :D Man I tell ya, it handles like a dream.

I did on thread on it in Andy's forum when i first got it.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=762723

I am saving up pics of working with it for an actual review in the general knife reviews section.

Don Rearic said:
Uh, yeah, don't do a search for "bushfinger." I should have known better, it's just slightly less disturbing than searching for "fat wood." The most comical thing I viewed was the former Presidente, "W," throwing someone the bird. :D
Click to expand...


LMAO!! That's hilarious


ROCK6 said:
Hey Don, I think the Bushfinger is made by Andy Roy, Fiddleback knives. All I can say is that he makes some outstanding blades and is a great guy!


Great review Mistwalker! I'm hoping to get out a few hours today after all my "chores":grumpy:

ROCK6
Click to expand...

Yep, that's where it came from!

Thanks bro, glad you enjoyed the photos :thumbup:
 
I love seeing a new knife get a nice patina. Especially this quickly. Use it!! Neato.

Dogwood is hard stuff. My wood guy says he thinks its harder (more brittle) than Persimmon. Loggers used to use Persimmon wedges to split wood.
 
Fiddleback said:
I love seeing a new knife get a nice patina. Especially this quickly. Use it!! Neato.

Dogwood is hard stuff. My wood guy says he thinks its harder (more brittle) than Persimmon. Loggers used to use Persimmon wedges to split wood.
Click to expand...

Yeah, not sure if it's the shallots or garlic giving it the purple tint but I like it.

Dogwood is really hard, I have a walking stick made out of it, really hard, really strong, kinda heavy.
 
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