Day out with an old friend

RescueRiley

RescueRiley

Joined
Mar 22, 2006
Messages
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As part of my goals for the year I wanted to get used to the idea of only using one knife for everything when out in the woods... I've been paying allot of attention to my becker lately but I opened up the dresser drawer and saw an old friend there my trusty carbon mora clipper so I decided to grab that as my only blade for the day and head out.
On my way up I harvested a few dry dead hanging pieces of Hemlock to attempt a bowdrill from found wood
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than I found a piece of white pine which I thought would make a decent bearing block.. I sectioned off a a usable hunk by whittling it down to a breaking point

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amazing what you can do witha few passes of a sharp knife
thicness of the pine bow
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Now I needed to split down some henlock for a hearth
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more to follow
 
Than I used the point of the knife to drill a hole for the string to fit through the bow
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Here's the complete set all notched and burnt in
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The bow proved to be too springy.. which led to allot of string slippage.. had I found another bow it would've worked as indicated by the dust I was getting with this one.. but I got frustrated and constructed a quicky fire lay
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I smeared some resin on a stick impregnated it with fine shavings sparked that with a ferro to make a candle of sorts which lit up the fire lay like nothing.. (no pics)

having a super flexible bow I harvested a long hard Phramities stalk inserted a wooden nock, and a carved wood barb and made a frog hunting bow.. It shot pretty well up to about 15 feet.. I took it out had some narrow misses ..but it will definitely warrant a future try...

all in all it was a good day some successes some failures.. and allot accomplished with a simple small sharp blade.

I have no pics of the resin match or frog hunting rig but I have video of them on my YT channel if anyone is interested.. sorry the sound sucks... http://www.youtube.com/user/BushCraftBums

Thanks
 
Good stuff John, I'm gonna give one of those resin matches a go today !
 
Nice job bro ! you got a Les Stroud kind of feel going on in this :D

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LOL I had a grea day over all.. But through the many mistakes I made have come up with new ideas to ensure success in the future...
 
The only way to properly learn something is to try and fail at it the first time. Or that is what my dad said to me when he was teaching me to make traps all those years ago.

:thumbup:
 
Great stuff John! When you said
"old friend" I thought you meant me, but then I remembered we haven't hung out lately.. :(
 
LOL Miss you bro.. I look forward to getting together and having you show me a thing or 2.....I'll give you a call this week..
 
It never ceases to amaze me what someone can do with a $10 knife. I have a few expensive knives that are great, but when I teach a survival class I normally do it with a Mora. Many people tend to fixate on the gear I use and seem to think that's the secret to surviving, so they tend to want the same things I carry. Same thing used to happen all the time when I was a professional mountain guide, which is why many companies would give me gear at pro deal prices, which is often well below wholesale and occasionally free...for them it was free advertising and for me it was a $400 jacket for $80 dollars. I spend quite a bit of time in my classes going over knives, blade geometry, uses, etc. and their advantages in the woods and I tend to emphasize the fact that I'm using a $10 Mora 510 or a $30 M2K. That tends to dispel the illusion pretty quick. It's the person using the knife and their knowledge, not the knife itself.

Great work RescueRiley! I love seeing these hands on posts and people getting out and using those skills and you obviously have mad skills.
 
Hey RR, good to see you still out there. You already know this, but for those that don't, if all have for a bow is thin spindly shoots, you can bundle together 2 or more to give you the rigidity you need for the bow.

Another thing is, if you use 2 or more, try to get at least 2 with forks. These can be bundled head to toe, and the forks make for fast string adjustment and saves having to drill a hole through the bow.

This is not a 'bundled' bow but shown here to help explain the fork adjustment.

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Actually, the fork ends do not even have to be different sized, although it helps. Just by changing the wraps around the bow and the fork ends will give you the adjustment you need.

Doc
 
Kage, Couldn't agree more about the person being infinitely more important than the blade.. Thanks for the compliments as well..They mean allot coming from someone of your experience.

Doc, THanks so much for chiming in.... That is Awesome.. I've never tried that.. looks like another thing to try.. Thanks so much!
 
RescueRiley said:
LOL Miss you bro.. I look forward to getting together and having you show me a thing or 2.....I'll give you a call this week..
Click to expand...

Man, I think you have far surpassed me in the skills dept... :thumbup:

We do need to get together soon though:thumbup:
 
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