Do you ever make your own survival tools?

S

stitchawl

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Jul 26, 2008
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This fellow, a Lahu hill tribe villager in northern Thailand made this crossbow as I watched... It took him about an hour, and when finished he was able to hit a fox-sized target at about 15 yards, using cane arrow with a point just carved into the end. It penetrated a palm log stump about one inch!

Lahu1.jpg



Stitchawl
 
maaaaan, i want to live in a hut.

great pic


i have made my own rabbit sticks, using a split willow limb, a flat stone of about 1LB and wet leather shoelace or hemp cord to bind it tight. They work, VERY well.
 
was the crossbow made on the pricible of the elastic energy of the bow part or the string? either way, that guy knows what he is dooing.

i have made various such tools. bow drill components, crude but usable bows, rabbit sticks, sligshots, various trap components, a buck saw, a wooden mallet, a scoop- and that is just anaming a few. the more things you know how to make, the less things you have to carry. that is the main philosophy behind bushcraft.
 
BarberFobic1992 said:
was the crossbow made on the pricible of the elastic energy of the bow part or the string? either way, that guy knows what he is dooing.
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I'd guess the bow. The string was just twisted plant fiber from the mid-rib of large leaf plants growing behind some of the huts.

No question about his knowing. This guy worked fast and sure. When he slotted the stock for the bow, the fit was tight and straight!

Stitchawl
 
Great picture, stitchawl. I saved it to my hard drive.

I make a variety of survival tools, some good, others not so. It's an ongoing, learning process.

Doc
 
I regularily make utensils for the camp kitchen as needed such as egg scrappers/flippers, combined chopping boards/dishes when bush camping. Digging sticks are also relatively easy to make with the right wood and a fire.

I have also crafted functional woomeras (a spear thrower) and spears (again a fire is useful to straighten out the wood and harden the tip).


BarberFobic1992 said:
http://www.bushcraft.ridgeonnet.com/ , this guy has alot of step by step insructions for some really cool projects.
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Yes the open weave of the dilly bags shown are indeed necessary to allow a good water flow past the contents to leach out toxins.

In my part of Australia, the leaves of Lomandra longifolia are used. They are an especially useful plant as the leaves are flexible, strong and you can eat the tender growing ends. As this is where the plant also stores its' water, it's an emergency source of water in otherwise dry areas.

BTW, good topic :thumbup:



Kind regards
Mick
 
Sharp Phil said:
The trigger appears to be bright blue...?
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We were sitting there talking about gathering food one day, and he asked if I'd ever made a bow. I said not since I was a kid and made toys, but I often saw locals in my area (south of where his village was) using home-made crossbows for hunting rodents and fish. He said he'd show me how, and proceeded to scrounge around under some huts and came up with parts and pieces. It think (and I'm just guessing here,) that the stick for the trigger was once part of a child's toy. The stock was a flat slab of wood and the bow was a stave of bamboo that he split off from a very thick (in diameter) length with the resultant wall thickness appropriate for the short bow. The only tools he used were a machete and a flat rock as a hammer. Twisting up the bow string probably took longer to do than making the machine!

Stitchawl
 
tabeeb762 said:
Ron Hood makes a similar weapon in one of his videos. He calls it a VietCong crossbow
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You can see the locals in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar using these for gathering food in the empty lots, fields, and creeks. For fishing they tie a tin can under the stock to hold the fishing line. All the tourist souvenir shops sell them for just a couple of US dollars.

Stitchawl
 
Sharp Phil said:
The trigger appears to be bright blue...?
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Old toothbrush handle?... :)

The trigger is probably the one part that really needs some modern materials...even plastic. They usually have a small hook that engages the bowstring, and when the string is released the stresses on the trigger hook are really great. A trigger made from an old plastic toothbrush handle would probably last a lot longer than a wooden one. ...just my guess...

Edit: OOPS! After looking closer at the pic, I see that the trigger is a 'dumper', not a hook. The string is engaged by a split step in the crossbow frame, and the trigger just pushes the string up to 'dump' it off the step. In which case...I don't know why the trigger appears to be a modern material. ?? :(


BTW, Just before returning from Vietnam, I bought an almost identical model from a montagnard....no arrows, though.
 
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flashlife said:
Old toothbrush handle?... :)

The trigger is probably the one part that really needs some modern materials...even plastic. They usually have a small hook that engages the bowstring, and when the string is released the stresses on the trigger hook are really great. A trigger made from an old plastic toothbrush handle would probably last a lot longer than a wooden one. ...just my guess...
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These days a lot of locals are using regular rifle stocks without the hardware, mounting a bow at the end of the forearm. If you live in rural areas you can see folks out 'harvesting' just about every evening. It seems to be a 'father and son' thing, while the women gather large crickets and beetles with long poles covered with sticky sap.

BTW, Just before returning from Vietnam, I bought an almost identical model from a montagnard....no arrows, though.
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The montagnards that were US-friendly during the war tended (most often) to be of the Hmong hill tribes. These days they have migrated (as have most of the Lisu, Lahu, Akha, Karen, Palong, Paduang, etc.,) all over SE Asia. Large Hmong communities in the US these days too! Here is a Hmong man forging out a knife blade for me in Laos.

Knife1.jpg


Stitchawl
 
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