Hike and yucca use

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Mar 18, 1999
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Yucca grows like wildfire in just about every where I've been in Southern California. It is a really useful plant from food source, super strong cordage, soap, and here as a quick needle and thread.

Scraping the waxy outer coating off the leaves makes the fibers easier to pull apart. This coating also has a lot of saponin in it and makes a lot of soapy lather.
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A little more scraping and pounding with the back of my knife. This is the main reason I like a square spine on a blade. It gets a little firesteel use to, but scraping wood and plants is a lot more common for me.
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Then it can be easily peeled down. I just kept peeling until I had a relatively thin strand still attached to the point. These suckers are crazy needle sharp too!
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I whittled down a little bit to thin out the "needle" portion. If your careful, you could easily use this to sew a button back on and this stuff holds like iron.
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I tested it out on heavier material and it worked no problem
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And it's not a hike for me without doing a little rock scrambling :D
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great stuff T..:thumbup: Yucca is an amazing plant.. i have a back quiver from a thick Yucca stock...:)
 
great stuff T..:thumbup: Yucca is an amazing plant.. i have a back quiver from a thick Yucca stock...:)

I have seen some really amazing quivers that were made by native tribes over a hundred years ago and they are still in good shape. The stalks can also be used as water carriers too. it's really a tough plant with tons of uses! :thumbup:
 
Yucca seems to be very useful material.I wish I had some around these parts to play with.What knife you got there?
 
Good pics & info, thanks. Have a bunch of it in my yard that I'm always chopping back...guess I'll have to reconsider the value.
 
really neat plant, I wish it grew here in the Wet Coast of BC.

great pics. Like the scramble.
 
Some of those yucca plants have incredibly sharp needles, definitely sharper than the sewing needles you can buy. A very useful plant.
 
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