Michigan Meet Up Last Weekend

[kgd]

Last weekend I attended a bushcraft meet-up in Michigan near Ann Arbor as part of another forum. It was a lot of fun with about 25 or so people attending. One aspiring maker brought a neat charcoal forage with a hand pump and two forgers were giving instructions to folks on how to make simple knives and strikers. Several folks made their own strikers. There was a flitnapping demo's, trapmaking, bowdrill (I was leading this one), atlatl throwing and a surprise visit by George Hedgepeth who gave us an impromptu plant I.D./walk and hand drill demo's.

One of the guys out, Sean, decided to sleep under a tarp on a wool blanket. What was impressive about this is he did so with his wife and 2 year old toddler! Not that was cool! Several of us were sleeping in hammocks and there were a few tents present also.

Jamie, aka, bowguy, making bannock the first morning.

And a dutch oven version of it.

Adam, a really cool immunologist and one of the forge instructors also provide tutorials on how to make pop can stoves.

Trap making demo. The guy in the hat is Brian Andrews who showed up in his ultra-awesome tent-pi for the weekend.

Here Brian is setting up a really cool version of the split stick trap.

More coming...

 

[kgd]

A couple of guys learning bowdrill in my tutorial area. Earlier that morning, I went into the bush and found a standing ~8 foot dead juniper tree. Never used juniper before but I remember reading that it was a good wood for bowdrill. It worked really great and completed the 8th type of wood I've worked up coals on now.

Here is the portable charcoal forge that was brought by a fellow by the name of Randy from the U.P of Michigan. Randy made the forge himself.

I didn't get too many shots of the flintknapping...

More coming...

 

[kgd]

George Hedgepeth working a handrill, yucca on yucca.

George demonstrated a cool trick that I never heard of. He brought a dried out gourd, like what you find around holloween, but very dried out. He removed the placenta, the tissue under the top of the guard (inside) that would connect to the stem. He then proceeded to demonstrate that he could catch a spark with it using traditional flint and steel. He then demonstrated the same thing using the pith of dried mullein, you have to slice it into fine slices to do so, but it worked. Until then, I only ever used chaga and charcloth.

George then gave us an a little plant walk which was super fun.

More coming...

 

[kgd]

Jamie, bowguy demonstrating the Apache method of fletching arrows. He was using river cane as his arrow shafts.

We didn't really do as much hiking as I would have liked, but we did go on a foray for some fatwood and we were well rewarded for our efforts.

The blades I brought. S-curve and Brian Andrews bushcrafter received in trade from JCavSD.

The S-curve was used for some batoning and a bunch of my kitchen chores. I didn't really use it very hard this trip just because I was really trying to learn and use the bushy.

Brian's bushcrafter was on my belt all weekend and it was the first chance I really had to get acquainted with this blade. Perhaps, not surprising, I really like it. The ergo's are excellent even though I had some concerns about the aggressive contouring of the handles. Spine throws sparks like crazy and the blade length is perfect for most tasks. I'm slowly getting to like the scandi profile, but I did not particularly like how a scandi behaves when notching hearths. That was the only thing that bugged me though and that is a pretty minor thing.

One thing that was cool was that George Hedgepeth, who didn't really know Brian, was all over Brian's blades. Brian had along with him that little slim terrasaur model he just made as well as a full size terrasaur and smaller version of the bitterroot. George didn't even know that Brian was the maker when he showed him his blades and the guy had nothing but good to say but his work and the handle ergo's. I'm pretty sure Brian will be getting an order from George sometime in the future.

 

[Ken_McCarty]

awesome pics.. wish I would have known about this one.. where in michigan was it?

 

[bigcountry1315]

Wish they would have had events like this when I use to live in Ann Arbor.If I would have known I would have drove the 350 miles South to attend.

Mike

 

[TheGame]

Brain Andrews makes some really sweet blades. Makes me want one, seeing the contours of that handle, looks like it would really fill out the hand. :thumbup:

 

[WalterDavis]

Dang, looks like a good way to spend the weekend, Ken:thumbup: Did you try your hand at the flintknapping?

 

[KuRUpTD]

Looks like everyone had a great time ... that portable charcoal forge is a neat idea :thumbup:

No pics of the tent-pi ?????

 

[mtnfolk mike]

awesome pics Ken... looks like a great time...