- Joined
- Jul 23, 2010
- Messages
- 21
Today I woke up to my areas first accumulating snowfall of the year: about a half an inch of powder. Sure, it only stuck to the grass and not the pavement, but snow is snow, right? Most normal people probably saw today's weather as pretty to look at, slightly inconvenient, and essentially inconsequential. I saw it as an excuse to head into the woods and put my fire-craft skills to the test in adverse conditions, as well as to put my new Ka-Bar Becker BK-11 neck knife through its paces in a woods-craft role.
So I grabbed my hatchet, my Becker Necker, some work gloves, and the 550 cord lanyard that holds my ferro rod, striker, and a fatwood pendant, and I headed across the street to an undeveloped patch of forest where I go when I need some woods time. Since the ground was so miserably wet, I decided to save myself the trouble of splitting wood for a fire base, and instead use a chunk of asphalt pavement as my fire platform. I grabbed an inch-thick stick to use as a baton, and went looking for some wood. I ended up using a small dead sapling that was maybe four feet long and which seemed mostly dry, and found that I could just break the tree down with my hands instead of batoning. I ended up not doing any batoning at all, except for a few hits on the sapling before I realized how weak it was. I carried the sapling back to my block of asphalt, broke it over my knee into roughly six-inch-long pieces, and started working the pieces into tinder and kindling with my Becker.
I stripped all the bark off because it was soaked, but when I split the sticks, the wood underneath seemed mostly dry. Since usable natural tinder simply wasn't going to be found in these conditions, I decided to try peeling off little tiny wood fibers from the insides of the split sticks. I just pulled the fibers off with my fingers, and started a little tinder pile on the asphalt block. I tried to keep the fibers thin; most of them were between a sixteenth and a thirty-second of an inch in width (say, 1 2 mm), and two or three inches long. I also tried to make some fuzz sticks, but I didn't have much luck with the wood I was using, and I wasn't planning to make the fire very big, so I gave up on the fizz sticks after a few tries.
The Becker Necker performed pretty well, and I was impressed with it. I must say, however, that the edge that came on the Becker from the factory was absolutely dreadful. It was dull enough that I could run my thumb along the blade it without it biting into the skin, and it wasn't even sharpened evenly on both sides of the blade. I'd expected much better from Ka-Bar, considering they have a reputation for quality knives. It took maybe fifteen minutes of work with my crappy three inch long whetstone, followed by my (also tiny) finer-grit diamond stone, to bring out a usable edge on it. After that was done, though, I'm happy with the knife. However, I've gotten fed up with having to use sub-standard sharpening tools, and last night I ordered myself a six inch long Arkansas tri-hone sharpener, as well as a nice leather strop and some stropping compound. From now on, I'm determined that all my knives will be shaving sharp, especially if theyre going into the woods with me.
But this isnt a knife review, so Ill get back on track. I worked up a pile of little wood fibers about an inch tall and maybe two inches across. Figuring that I had enough tinder to try and ignite it, I got out the ferro rod and started scraping sparks into the little tinder mound. After about ten good blasts of sparks, I realized that even though the wood strands were mostly dry, it was going to take more than wood fibers and sparks to get a flame in such wet conditions. So I got the Becker back out and shaved off some curly slivers of fatwood from the chunk of the stuff that I keep on the same lanyard as my ferro rod. Then I tried sparking the tinder again, and this time it started burning after a few showers of sparks. After a couple of seconds, I put a couple of my sub-standard fuzz sticks on the tinder, hoping they would catch, but by the time they were just starting to burn, the tinder had mostly burned away, and I was left with a few smoking fuzz-sticks and a dead fire.
Disappointed, I stood up and stretched my legs, which were aching from crouching down for a good twenty minutes since I didnt want to get my jeans wet. Thinking it over, I realized that if this were a real survival situation instead of me just messing around in the woods, I might be in real trouble if I couldnt get this stuff lit. I started pulling off more wood fibers and piling them up, and I also peeled off the shavings from the fuzz sticks, which were a bit wider than the fibers I was getting from the split sticks. This time, I built up a pile that was a bit over two inches high and around 3 inches across at the base. I again spiked the tinder with fatwood shavings. For some kindling, I cut and split about a dozen small pieces of wood down to around half the thickness of a pencil.
After only a couple showers of sparks, the fatwood lit, and I used my hands to turn the tinder bundle on its side a bit because the tinder started burning from the top, and I wanted to let the flames start burning up through the bundle. After it was starting to blaze well, I started adding my kindling sticks to the top of the tinder pile. I over-did it a bit, and the flames started to smother a couple times. But it stayed lit, and after a couple of minutes I found that there was even a little tiny bed of coals forming under the pile, which I blew on a few times to get the flames started again after I over-did the kindling.
All in all, I had a merry little miniature fire going for several minutes, and Im confident that if Id really been in a survival situation, I could have built it up into a nice blaze without too much trouble. Once the flames started to burn down, I stomped it out and spread snow over where the fire had been, just to make sure that everything was extinguished. Then, after collecting the stuff I had brought with me, I started walking back home with a renewed sense of confidence in my ability to get a fire started in a pinch, despite the cold and the snow.
Thanks for reading, and please feel free to leave comments or suggestions!
I didn't get any pictures of the actual fire-making, but here's two pictures that I took this morning of the snow, to give you an idea of the conditions.
Snow on the grass and some bushes
Snow-covered infestation of kudzu by my parking lot
So I grabbed my hatchet, my Becker Necker, some work gloves, and the 550 cord lanyard that holds my ferro rod, striker, and a fatwood pendant, and I headed across the street to an undeveloped patch of forest where I go when I need some woods time. Since the ground was so miserably wet, I decided to save myself the trouble of splitting wood for a fire base, and instead use a chunk of asphalt pavement as my fire platform. I grabbed an inch-thick stick to use as a baton, and went looking for some wood. I ended up using a small dead sapling that was maybe four feet long and which seemed mostly dry, and found that I could just break the tree down with my hands instead of batoning. I ended up not doing any batoning at all, except for a few hits on the sapling before I realized how weak it was. I carried the sapling back to my block of asphalt, broke it over my knee into roughly six-inch-long pieces, and started working the pieces into tinder and kindling with my Becker.
I stripped all the bark off because it was soaked, but when I split the sticks, the wood underneath seemed mostly dry. Since usable natural tinder simply wasn't going to be found in these conditions, I decided to try peeling off little tiny wood fibers from the insides of the split sticks. I just pulled the fibers off with my fingers, and started a little tinder pile on the asphalt block. I tried to keep the fibers thin; most of them were between a sixteenth and a thirty-second of an inch in width (say, 1 2 mm), and two or three inches long. I also tried to make some fuzz sticks, but I didn't have much luck with the wood I was using, and I wasn't planning to make the fire very big, so I gave up on the fizz sticks after a few tries.
The Becker Necker performed pretty well, and I was impressed with it. I must say, however, that the edge that came on the Becker from the factory was absolutely dreadful. It was dull enough that I could run my thumb along the blade it without it biting into the skin, and it wasn't even sharpened evenly on both sides of the blade. I'd expected much better from Ka-Bar, considering they have a reputation for quality knives. It took maybe fifteen minutes of work with my crappy three inch long whetstone, followed by my (also tiny) finer-grit diamond stone, to bring out a usable edge on it. After that was done, though, I'm happy with the knife. However, I've gotten fed up with having to use sub-standard sharpening tools, and last night I ordered myself a six inch long Arkansas tri-hone sharpener, as well as a nice leather strop and some stropping compound. From now on, I'm determined that all my knives will be shaving sharp, especially if theyre going into the woods with me.
But this isnt a knife review, so Ill get back on track. I worked up a pile of little wood fibers about an inch tall and maybe two inches across. Figuring that I had enough tinder to try and ignite it, I got out the ferro rod and started scraping sparks into the little tinder mound. After about ten good blasts of sparks, I realized that even though the wood strands were mostly dry, it was going to take more than wood fibers and sparks to get a flame in such wet conditions. So I got the Becker back out and shaved off some curly slivers of fatwood from the chunk of the stuff that I keep on the same lanyard as my ferro rod. Then I tried sparking the tinder again, and this time it started burning after a few showers of sparks. After a couple of seconds, I put a couple of my sub-standard fuzz sticks on the tinder, hoping they would catch, but by the time they were just starting to burn, the tinder had mostly burned away, and I was left with a few smoking fuzz-sticks and a dead fire.
Disappointed, I stood up and stretched my legs, which were aching from crouching down for a good twenty minutes since I didnt want to get my jeans wet. Thinking it over, I realized that if this were a real survival situation instead of me just messing around in the woods, I might be in real trouble if I couldnt get this stuff lit. I started pulling off more wood fibers and piling them up, and I also peeled off the shavings from the fuzz sticks, which were a bit wider than the fibers I was getting from the split sticks. This time, I built up a pile that was a bit over two inches high and around 3 inches across at the base. I again spiked the tinder with fatwood shavings. For some kindling, I cut and split about a dozen small pieces of wood down to around half the thickness of a pencil.
After only a couple showers of sparks, the fatwood lit, and I used my hands to turn the tinder bundle on its side a bit because the tinder started burning from the top, and I wanted to let the flames start burning up through the bundle. After it was starting to blaze well, I started adding my kindling sticks to the top of the tinder pile. I over-did it a bit, and the flames started to smother a couple times. But it stayed lit, and after a couple of minutes I found that there was even a little tiny bed of coals forming under the pile, which I blew on a few times to get the flames started again after I over-did the kindling.
All in all, I had a merry little miniature fire going for several minutes, and Im confident that if Id really been in a survival situation, I could have built it up into a nice blaze without too much trouble. Once the flames started to burn down, I stomped it out and spread snow over where the fire had been, just to make sure that everything was extinguished. Then, after collecting the stuff I had brought with me, I started walking back home with a renewed sense of confidence in my ability to get a fire started in a pinch, despite the cold and the snow.
Thanks for reading, and please feel free to leave comments or suggestions!
I didn't get any pictures of the actual fire-making, but here's two pictures that I took this morning of the snow, to give you an idea of the conditions.
Snow on the grass and some bushes
Snow-covered infestation of kudzu by my parking lot
