Mistwalker
Gold Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2007
- Messages
- 19,034
A recent thread on fire steels and fire kits made me think of a few things. First it reminded me of a gravel bar I like to go to on the side of the river here that has a large dead tree on one end. The tree is a very hard seasoned hardwood...red oak I think..., and it hasn't rained in a few days, so there the similarities in the gravel bars end. Second it reminded me that I had yet to test the tinder quick, that I had put in a backup fire kit back in the summer, under any adverse conditions. Third it made me think of a good opportunity to put a knew knife, chosen with just such types of thoughts in mind, through some paces.
The gravel bar.
Fire kit and the knife. The fire kit is just an ESEE advanced fire kit with some tinder quick, four life boat matches, and a red phos striker strip. The knife is a Yuma model by T.M. Hunt with specific features of the design that really appeal to me in my styles of knife use.
So, to put the knife through some paces I decided to get all of my tinder and initial fire wood only from the large dead tree. The first go at it was in truncating the shorter limb. Even with a very sharp edge the hard wood was not easily cut, it took a couple of minutes just to get into it good. I knew the ten minute time frame mentioned in the earlier thread would be at best difficult to achieve, but this was definitely not going to be the best approach for speed. The intent was to chisel in so far and break the limb, I couldn't break it with all of my weight at this point, and I'm not exactly small.
So I opted instead to attack sections of the tree already weakened by the fall and over time. I batonned the knife along the grain of an existing split in the wood, and then drove the knife through another section of the split in the tree and levered pieces off of it.
Then I broke off branches I could split or burn in-two.
To make the situation more adverse for the tests I through the wood in a shallow pool of water for a while and just enjoyed the view and the quiet autumn evening for a while.
.
The gravel bar.
Fire kit and the knife. The fire kit is just an ESEE advanced fire kit with some tinder quick, four life boat matches, and a red phos striker strip. The knife is a Yuma model by T.M. Hunt with specific features of the design that really appeal to me in my styles of knife use.
So, to put the knife through some paces I decided to get all of my tinder and initial fire wood only from the large dead tree. The first go at it was in truncating the shorter limb. Even with a very sharp edge the hard wood was not easily cut, it took a couple of minutes just to get into it good. I knew the ten minute time frame mentioned in the earlier thread would be at best difficult to achieve, but this was definitely not going to be the best approach for speed. The intent was to chisel in so far and break the limb, I couldn't break it with all of my weight at this point, and I'm not exactly small.
So I opted instead to attack sections of the tree already weakened by the fall and over time. I batonned the knife along the grain of an existing split in the wood, and then drove the knife through another section of the split in the tree and levered pieces off of it.
Then I broke off branches I could split or burn in-two.
To make the situation more adverse for the tests I through the wood in a shallow pool of water for a while and just enjoyed the view and the quiet autumn evening for a while.
.
