Just Asking. What’s Up With Everything “Bushcraft” Nowadays?

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Well despite the world turning into a dystopian free-for-all in three years, i guess. I still don't see the need for every Tom. Dick, Harry to HAVE to do bushcraft. Furthermore, and to be on actual topic, nearly any knife can do bushcraft well enough to work. Full disclosure, while I may come across to some in the thread as equal parts latte sipping elitist as well as having my head in the sand to all the awful things that are going to happen that can be evidentially mitigated by using antiquated techniques to live off the land, I grew up in rural indiana and still live here (never said I was a smart guy). I can do all the cool manly stuff. I can build traps and makes a fire from flint and steel, fish without a $400 rod and reel, not get too assbackwards lost in the woods using the position of sun, and track animals and know what they were, where they came from, and about how long ago it was etc. I don't really need a special knife for all that. That's the point of this thread. Not that bushcrafting isn't a valuable skillset. It's just not a NEEDED one and certainly doesn't need a special knife to craft one's bush for optimal survival despite what the manufacturer says.

For years in my youth, before I knew any better that it was the wrong tool for the job, I did pretty much everything with an antique Old Hickory butcher knife that my grandma got at a yard sale and my grandpa sharpened up for me. My buddies and I made shelters for fun and even camped in the woods a couple of nights, cut reed fishing poles for catching little blue gills down on the creek where the water collected into a pond (catch and release. Not eating creek fish when I could be home for pizza rolls in 10 minutes), we didn't have a flint and steel but we did have a ferro rod and even got a small fire started using a magnifying glass. All bushcrafting things of some degree. All done for fun using just that old worn out knife. 30 years later, and I still haven't NEEDED to use these skills. That's my point. I've accrued a lot more than that from hanging out here and learning from folks on this board over the last 20+ years, but it doesn't change the fact that it is not a crucial skill that I have staked my life upon.

YMMV
Thank you for saying that without being dismissive and belittling.
 
Well despite the world turning into a dystopian free-for-all in three years, i guess. I still don't see the need for every Tom. Dick, Harry to HAVE to do bushcraft. Furthermore, and to be on actual topic, nearly any knife can do bushcraft well enough to work. Full disclosure, while I may come across to some in the thread as equal parts latte sipping elitist as well as having my head in the sand to all the awful things that are going to happen that can be evidentially mitigated by using antiquated techniques to live off the land, I grew up in rural indiana and still live here (never said I was a smart guy). I can do all the cool manly stuff. I can build traps and makes a fire from flint and steel, fish without a $400 rod and reel, not get too assbackwards lost in the woods using the position of sun, and track animals and know what they were, where they came from, and about how long ago it was etc. I don't really need a special knife for all that. That's the point of this thread. Not that bushcrafting isn't a valuable skillset. It's just not a NEEDED one and certainly doesn't need a special knife to craft one's bush for optimal survival despite what the manufacturer says.

For years in my youth, before I knew any better that it was the wrong tool for the job, I did pretty much everything with an antique Old Hickory butcher knife that my grandma got at a yard sale and my grandpa sharpened up for me. My buddies and I made shelters for fun and even camped in the woods a couple of nights, cut reed fishing poles for catching little blue gills down on the creek where the water collected into a pond (catch and release. Not eating creek fish when I could be home for pizza rolls in 10 minutes), we didn't have a flint and steel but we did have a ferro rod and even got a small fire started using a magnifying glass. All bushcrafting things of some degree. All done for fun using just that old worn out knife. 30 years later, and I still haven't NEEDED to use these skills. That's my point. I've accrued a lot more than that from hanging out here and learning from folks on this board over the last 20+ years, but it doesn't change the fact that it is not a crucial skill that I have staked my life upon.

YMMV
Those OH knives are pretty amazing.

There is several older guys around here, some of them veterans from Vietnam, who keep a OH slicing knife in a makeshift pocket sheath in their front right pocket. Handle sorta sticks out a bit too.

They use them for everything. Cutting up food, hunting, fishing, self defense...you name it.

Even seem a few younger hunters using them. Inexpensive, easy to service and replace handles, and easily found at stores.
 
There is no such thing as a bushcraft knife. Please tell me something that a "bushcraft" knife can do, that I can't do with a multitude of other knives?

Yes, certain knives excel at certain tasks - but yes I can (and have) filleted with Khukuri. Yes, I can (and have) skinned with a machete.

Boom, you answered your own question, and agreed with what I posted. What constitutes a bushcraft knife or fileting knife, or skinning knife is different for each user. People have different uses and requirements/preferences for what they need in a knife. I may be skinning a rabbit while you may be skinning elk.

You wrote a response "disagreeing" but really just repeated what I said lol

Alright, let's get into it. Please describe even a single "bushcraft" task that a normal fixed blade knife can't accomplish. Full disclosure, I've been hiking and camping for over 30 years, and am always ready to learn something new.

:D

Then for you it sounds like a bushcraft knife would be a normal fixed blade you carry (whatever that may be). Whatever "bushcraft" tasks you require of your knife are perfectly suited for that style of knife apparently. Im confused, you seem to be agreeing with me as well. Perhaps I did not explain well, if so that is my mistake.
 
Boom, you answered your own question, and agreed with what I posted. What constitutes a bushcraft knife or fileting knife, or skinning knife is different for each user. People have different uses and requirements/preferences for what they need in a knife. I may be skinning a rabbit while you may be skinning elk.

You wrote a response "disagreeing" but really just repeated what I said lol



Then for you it sounds like a bushcraft knife would be a normal fixed blade you carry (whatever that may be). Whatever "bushcraft" tasks you require of your knife are perfectly suited for that style of knife apparently. Im confused, you seem to be agreeing with me as well. Perhaps I did not explain well, if so that is my mistake.

My point is that "bushcraft" is a made-up term to describe a set of skills that existed long before the term, and by which they're now called this term in order for companies to market and sell "special" knives to people. So, in effect, there's actually no such thing as a "bushcraft knife", because if there were, that specific knife would do things other knives couldn't do, which as we know, is patently false. I've made countless feather sticks with any number of folders, for example and I've carved pieces of a figure 4 trap using a SAK. I've batoned wood using a thick bladed, flat ground fixed blade, I've used a Cold Steel Recon 1 to rough out a kuksa. The skills can essentially be accomplished with any knife, which is why I asked you that question. I already knew the answer, no offense.
 
My point is that "bushcraft" is a made-up term to describe a set of skills that existed long before the term, and by which they're now called this term in order for companies to market and sell "special" knives to people. So, in effect, there's actually no such thing as a "bushcraft knife", because if there were, that specific knife would do things other knives couldn't do, which as we know, is patently false. I've made countless feather sticks with any number of folders, for example and I've carved pieces of a figure 4 trap using a SAK. I've batoned wood using a thick bladed, flat ground fixed blade, I've used a Cold Steel Recon 1 to rough out a kuksa. The skills can essentially be accomplished with any knife, which is why I asked you that question. I already knew the answer, no offense.
Not sure why the resistance to using the term bushcraft. I see no harm in it. And this debate is meaningless without us having come to a shared or agreed upon definition of what we would consider bushcraft. (I suspect it's going to be different for each person).


Whatever it may be, a certain type of knife has to be most suited towards those skills selected. It's literally impossible not to have one that is best suited for the particular tasks.

Not sure we are getting anywhere here though. To sum it up:

Xyz skills are called "Bushcraft".

Therefore particular style knives best accomplish xyz skills. Everything else is irrelevant.
 
Not sure why the resistance to using the term bushcraft. I see no harm in it. And this debate is meaningless without us having come to a shared or agreed upon definition of what we would consider bushcraft. (I suspect it's going to be different for each person).


Whatever it may be, a certain type of knife has to be most suited towards those skills selected. It's literally impossible not to have one that is best suited for the particular tasks.

Not sure we are getting anywhere here though. To sum it up:

Xyz skills are called "Bushcraft".

Therefore particular style knives best accomplish xyz skills. Everything else is irrelevant.

Totally agree. Where the disagreement lies is that there's a special "particular style knife" that "best accomplishes" those skills. That is absolutely objectively false. People have camped out in the woods and bummed around a fire carving stuff on virtually every continent for thousands of years. We know for a fact that most of them weren't using a "Scandi" grind puuko style knife.
 
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Not sure why the resistance to using the term bushcraft. I see no harm in it.
Just because it's become so overused and trendy. It's not that there's anything wrong with the original concept behind the word at all.
And this debate is meaningless without us having come to a shared or agreed upon definition of what we would consider bushcraft. (I suspect it's going to be different for each person).
And therein lies the problem. 100 years ago, no one had a "bushcraft knife" - they just had knives, and used them for lots of different things. And it varied some, depending on where one lived, and what one needed a knife to do. I don't know why it needs to be any different today.
 
And therein lies the problem. 100 years ago, no one had a "bushcraft knife" - they just had knives, and used them for lots of different things. And it varied some, depending on where one lived, and what one needed a knife to do. I don't know why it needs to be any different today.
Bushcraft knife is just a label for a type of knife that accomplishes whatever is considered a Bushcraft tasks.

So yes I'm sure they did have bushcraft knives, they just didn't refer to them as such. Also their definition of what we now call bushcraft would most likely be quite different.

You are debating over labels which is ultimately meaningless. It's the tasks being accomplished that matter. So many replies saying "I been campin for xyz years never needed no bushcraft knife!"...ok...you are literally saying nothing lol just denying the use of the label bushcraft.
 
You are debating over labels which is ultimately meaningless.
Well, that's largely what the conversation has been about, as I see it - the label. I don't think the debate is about making fires or carving cups.

And in a sense, we are agreeing - the label doesn't have much meaning, because it can mean a lot of different things.

If we aren't debating the label, what are we debating, exactly?
 
Well, that's largely what the conversation has been about, as I see it - the label. I don't think the debate is about making fires or carving cups.

And in a sense, we are agreeing - the label doesn't have much meaning, because it can mean a lot of different things.

If we aren't debating the label, what are we debating, exactly?
I thought we were all just trying to get angry at one another 😁
 
I thought we were all just trying to get angry at one another 😁
Ha. I'm having a hard time thinking of a more worthless thing to get upset about. 🤣

The last thing I'll say is that, being an eternally immature North American male, words like "bushcraft" will always make me snicker a little bit. Kinda like when I worked with an Aussie and they kept talking about "being in the bush."
 
feeling like you were prepared for the inevitable end of the world because we were in the height of the cold war.
Bingo , give this guy a kewpie doll ! 🥳

People are often motivated by unconscious archetypal forces .

That makes them uncomfortable trusting the continuity of our current western civilization (in this case) .

It was the cold war for my generation , but the apocalyptic dread is still alive and well in many never exposed to that .

Survival , tactical , bushcraft , combat / field knife etc all serve to ease the unconscious fear of societal collapse . SHTF ! :eek:
 
In my convoluted mind, I sorta rationalize my hoardin...errrrr....accumulating a wide range of knives with a fantasy thought process that they could be banned in the future, and that they may become valuable as a necessity of daily life in a Hunger Games sort of way (sorry for the run-on sentence).

It is poor way to justify my ridiculous collection, but hey... its my fantasy.

😁😆🤣

I got all my bases covered for cutting tools.

FullSpectrumCraft.

😁
 
From Ellsworth Jaeger, Wildwood Wisdom
"The knife is the first choice among tools and weapons of the Indian. Given only a knife, a Woods Indian can live comfortably in a trackless forest. One Cree woman escaping from the Sioux was forced to hole up for the winter because of deep snow and storms and lived the whole winter through with only a knife to aid her. She built her shelter; made traps, fire sticks and cooking utensils; hunted and skinned her game; made warm robes - in fact made everything she needed with her knife alone.
The Sheath Knife: And so, to all outdoor folks, the knife is the most important item of equipment. In fact, a small, light sheath knife is indispensable. It is always handy and is easy to clean and dry after messy work - cleaning fish, skinning game, cutting up meat, peeling potatoes, and a hundred other jobs. Don't get a large sheath knife; a 4-1/2 or 5 inch blade is large enough. The handle should be smooth, preferably of leather.
Usually the average hunting knife blade is too thick, and only after repeated grindings does it assume the right proportions. At least I have found it so. Be sure the steel is tempered right. Often it is too hard, making the blade very brittle."

From Mors Kochanski, Bushcraft
"The general-purpose bush knife should have a blade as long as the width of the palm, although blades half or twice the length are within acceptable limits. A blade five centimeters long would be an excellent survival knife except for being too small to fall and limb trees of wrist-thickness. A blade 10 to 15 cm will do intricate work like carving a netting needle, yet be large enough to present a good target for a baton when cutting down small trees. A blade 20 cm long is a superior tool for heavy work, but awkward to use for fine work.
All general-use knives should have the blade tip close to the profile center line of the handle. The back of the handle and the back of the blade should be on the same line. The back of the blade should not be thinned down or sharpened to that a baton can be used more effectively without being cut up. There is absolutely no advantage to a two-edged blade in bush living.
The blade should be of a good quality carbon steel, from 2-1/2 to 3 mm thick and about 2 to 2-1/2 cm wide. The size of the blade is light in weight, yet difficult to break. The steel should be soft enough to be maintained at a shaving edge with common sharpening tools, without frequent sharpening. Such steel is found in Mora (Sweden) and Solingen (Germany) or Sheffield (England) knives. Carbon, unlike stainless steel, can be used as the striker in the flint and steel method of fire-lighting. Inexpensive stainless steels have had a bad reputation with respect to producing a keen edge let alone holding it. The Mora stainless steels, however, are every bit as good as their carbon steels.
The metal of the knife blade should extend for the full-length of the handle (a full tang) for strength. The handle should be a durable, water-resistant material that can be shaped to the user's hand if necessary. The knife should have a strong pommel that will protect the handle if the knife is driven tip first deep into wood.
The curvature of the cutting edge should extend for the full-length of the blade. This cuts well and is one of the best shapes that quickly sharpens to a razor's edge. The knife blade should have a sharp enough point to penetrate deep into wood with a minimum of effort.
The knife handle should be about as long as the width of your palm. A handle that is too thick or too thin fatigues the hand and causes blisters. The cross-section of the handle should be oval instead of round or rectangular. An oval handle provides an adequate indication of the direction of the cutting edge an raises fewer blisters than handles with rectangular or rounded corners.
A guard on a bush knife is in the way and detracts from many operations. It prevents the use of a simple, secure, deep sheath. Some people prefer a guard for fear of slipping forward onto the knife edge, but unless the knife is used for stabbing, the hand should never slip in this way. In all my years of instructing I do not recall an injury due to the lack of a guard.
As a test of strength, a good knife should not break when driven 4 cm into a standing tree at right angles to the grain, and the handle bears your weight as you stand on it."
 
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They are not wrong though. You didn't make a case against it.

Knife design and geometry are both more important than steel choice provided you are using an adequate steel to begin with and not unknown

Thank you for agreeing with me, the steel matters too.
 
They are not wrong though. You didn't make a case against it.

Knife design and geometry are both more important than steel choice provided you are using an adequate steel to begin with and not unknown

Thank you for agreeing with me, the steel matters too.

Steel matters only to the extent that it makes a serviceable blade, nothing more....
 
Then please differ. I enjoy hearing all sides of an argument. I gladly change my mind if you give me data points I didn't consider.

I didn't mean to hit a nerve, but ask yourself the pure multitude of just the roughly 300,000,000 people in the US if 1% of them were put in a situation where you NEED bushcraft skills that would equate about 3,000,000 people needing to know how to set a deadfall, snare, or how to collect condensated water. I'm not talking about getting lost on a gravel trail for an hour. I mean actually needing survival skills to not die. I don't see that on the nightly news much, but I'm an elderly millennial/tail Gen Xer and don't watch much live TV. YOUR circumstances may be different. Maybe you walk out the door at 5:30am with nothing but a small day pack, sun dial and a compass. I dunno, but for the average 21st century human belonging to a 1st world society bushcraft skills are a fun and useful but not needed skillset when most folks need nothing more than "Siri, where is the closest Starbucks?" to survive.

Whether that is a smart survival strategy is up for debate. Once again, no harm meant. Just doing the numbers.
I'm going to attempt to be very polite, as you've really done nothing wrong. However I strongly disagree with both your worldview and opinion. If you look at the world, and the word "Stable", "Safe", "Secure", or "Unbreakable" come to mind, you're probably not looking at things correctly. The United States is teetering on the brink of collapse, as are a lot of other developed countries. Even if the economy doesn't implode, (it will) other factors play a part, as well. I'm sure you've read about the situation in Ohio? You do realize a lot of food is grown/prepared there? What about all of the fires on food production facilities, and shipment centers? You do realize it's been over 120+ facilities destroyed/shut down/burned up in just under 3 years? What will people eat when the grocery store is empty? You've mentioned bands of roving meth-heads in Suburbia. Over here in California, that's actually a real thing. My overarching point being that everyone's situations are different and your percentage of 99.998% of people is utterly ridiculous. Time will prove me correct. I suppose we're all entitled to an opinion, however yours seems very callous and naive. If your situation allows you to be so carefree and innocent, good on you mate, but that reality doesn't and won't ever exist for a lot of folks. And if what I'm seeing is any indicator? That situation won't exist for you, for long, either.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I hadn't really wanted to get into it. But your comment really rubbed me the wrong way. It's this complacency that's gotten us in this mess in the first place.
I've said my piece, and you yours. I have no desire to continue this conversation, as I know where it will lead.
I genuinely wish you the best, as you appear to need it.
I agree , in some some measure , with both of the above posts .

History , at every time scale , from cosmology , thru geology , and right down to human evolution and history is one of punctuated catastrophe .

We are not generally taught this as a reality that might actually impact our personal experience , but as simply an academic curiosity .

When you grow up in a golden age of relative wealth and plenty , it is difficult to imagine anything less .

So many potential sources of "bottlenecks " exist , that it is difficult to know even where begin to prepare .

There is also precious little the average citizen can do in the worst "survival " scenarios .

Why worry over something you can't prevent or effectively prepare against ?
 
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