One of Iz's brutal challenges...

kgd

kgd

Joined
Feb 28, 2007
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I don't post all my completed challenges here but I thought I'd share in one of what I feel was one of Iz's most demanding challenges. It took well over an hour to complete and one has to completely re-think how they approach the problem.

The challenge is to build a split wood fire (one stick fire) and light it with a firesteel. What makes it difficult is that you have to do it ONE Handed and also WEAK Handed. All wood has to be gathered with just your one hand and you aren't allowed to just use sticks. The latter would be much easier, but this simulation covers the 'everything is soaked' situation. You are allowed to take what tools you want with you. Many of the folks successfully completing this challenge brought their axe with them. I didn't want to bring an axe because I don't regularly take one with me and I wanted to keep it more real for me. The first time I tried it I broke my knife. The second time I tried it, I brought my condor bolo machete and got it to work.

Breaking the knife sucked, but then again it taught me a lesson - which still isn't to guard your tools like they were your first born son. When the knife broke, it was still pretty much usable in a survival situation. It just isn't part of my pretty little collection anymore. Really, the lesson it taught me is that I really do need to keep some kind of chopper with me that can compliment and act as a back-up. I usually have a mid-sized knife or the machete when backcountry camping along with a saw so this seems essential.

Anyhow, I don't want to preach here. I think if anybody has a few hours on their hands they should try this out. Its slow and frustrating to do, but then through the practice you really do begin to perceive things in a slightly different way. This was one of your better challenges Iz - at least in terms of making you really think about what it is you are doing and why!

[youtube]7_921iyCPaw[/youtube]
 
Good job. Sticking the knife into the log making the shavings is so much easier than trying to handle the knife one handed. How long did it take you from start to finish?

And how'd you break your knife the first time?
 
PropThePolecat said:
Good job. Sticking the knife into the log making the shavings is so much easier than trying to handle the knife one handed. How long did it take you from start to finish?

And how'd you break your knife the first time?
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Thanks. I had over an hour footage that I cut down to size and probably about 20 minutes or so of things moving off camera, e.g. I did decide to forage for more wood after processing what I had and I wasn't trying to rush myself so I took a break here and there. Joe was doing another challenge right beside me so we were conversing often while doing our respective tasks.

On the knife breakage - I had a rather staunchy piece of cottenwood with a natural check in it. I jabbed my knife tip in the crack to try and wedge it out. I then used my left hand with a baton and pounded the tip in further. This stuff was a lot harder then the other pieces of wood I was working on and when I tried to rip the wood through the split the tip snapped about 1/2" up. When I split the wood later, the grain was all twisted there, so I stuck the tip of my tool in a place I shouldn't have....Nothing strange about that right???? The knife performed as it I would have expected it to. This was clearly a case of my abusing it and I was far more focused on my task than worrying about my knife. First knife I managed to break in all my years.
 
Very nicely done Ken! Just starting any fire one-weak-handed has a degree of difficulty, even using chemical tinders, but split wood is a real challenge. One of my techniques involves a larger heavier knife, chopping into a larger dead log twice about 18 inches apart (something I use a baton for if using two hands to save on the edge) then stabbing the tip of the knife into the log at the base of (and in line with) one of the cuts, driving the knife through that section of the log and prying out the piece. Then repeat to get to the heart. Then some lateral chopping at the exposed ends of those cuts and some prying yields dry-ish wood for fuel. Practicing for worse-case you learn to use your chest, stomach, and legs to hold things in ways you'd never really thought of before. It always leaves me hoping that later I am either dealing with a hand injury and can at least use my forearm or an arm injury and I can use my hand and not both injured beyond use. Another reason I am glad that in the environment I spend the most time we have one of the best wet-weather fire starters of all time laying all around. I still prefer my method of striking the firesteel but i understand others not wanting to put their knives through that just for practicing.
 
VERY VERY nice!! I guess now if you lost your arm in a boating accident you could still stay warm.. Well done!
 
Good stuff Ken, great video !

Could you not knock your knife into the wood and then baton the wood you want to split against the knife edge ? That might not make sense, I might try it today and take some pics so it's easier to understand.
 
Thanks Pit,

I think I know what you mean, this would be like how folks clear wood with an axe during splitting, where after sinking the axe into the wood, you lift the two, reverse it and pound the axe pommel first onto the wood block. Is that what you are referring to? Might work, but could also screw up the angle of the knife. Hard to say, give it a go and see how it works out. Pics would be great!
 
Great video, Thanks for sharing Ken!

Looked like you almost took out your camera when you were braking firewood over that log.
 
Hey Ken this is all I was talking about. Toughest job today was finding any wood that didn't turn into a pile of moss covered mush as soon as you pick it up. I just set my knife in the log and then batoned the piece I wanted to split toward my knife. !!!

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It's hard to keep the splits straight just using one hand but as long as you finish up with dry kindling I guess it doesn't matter.
 
That looked like a very frustrating challenge but great job sticking with it.

May I ask what knife model broke?
 
Oh I see Pitdog - cool - yeah just like a plane and bang it at the end. That would work.

Crossada - it was one on my B. Andrews (whim........per......)
 
That really is a hard challenge Iz got going.

If you spend one day doing everything with your weak hand, you get an idea how difficult Iz's challenge would be. Switch hands for one day. Brush your teeth and uncap the paste tube, unlock doors, using eating utensils reversed your usual way. I've read it's actually good for your brain to do this.
 
LMT66 said:
That really is a hard challenge Iz got going.

If you spend one day doing everything with your weak hand, you get an idea how difficult Iz's challenge would be. Switch hands for one day. Brush your teeth and uncap the paste tube, unlock doors, using eating utensils reversed your usual way. I've read it's actually good for your brain to do this.
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The one great thing about this challenge, is you get to spend the whole day with your right hand in your pants :D :D :D
 
kgd said:
The one great thing about this challenge, is you get to spend the whole day with your right hand in your pants :D :D :D
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Then the challenge changes to not getting caught! lol Great video. Looks like it would definitely be awkward using your off hand. Pitdog was thinking exactly what I was thinking about batoning against the blade. By the way the music selection was top notch!
 
Great Job Ken !!
What really stuck with me is (What if I was really hurt!!) This was bad enough but put the pain factor/bad weather ect, in and thing would go downhill.

THANKS!!
 
G'day Ken

Would cotton wood be classified by Iz as a hardwood?



kgd said:
.......On the knife breakage - I had a rather staunchy piece of cottenwood with a natural check in it. I jabbed my knife tip in the crack to try and wedge it out. I then used my left hand with a baton and pounded the tip in further. This stuff was a lot harder then the other pieces of wood I was working on and when I tried to rip the wood through the split the tip snapped about 1/2" up. When I split the wood later, the grain was all twisted there, so I stuck the tip of my tool in a place I shouldn't have....Nothing strange about that right???? The knife performed as it I would have expected it to. This was clearly a case of my abusing it and I was far more focused on my task than worrying about my knife. First knife I managed to break in all my years.
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I guess it is going to depend on the sorts of wood you are used to using.

Twisted grain is the norm over here. Combine this with hardwood that is over 2400 on the Janka hardness scale (as opposed to 1023) and I've got to say that I'm suprised that you expected the knife to have "perform as it was expected to" and are ready to blame your self for abuse, rather than the knife not holding up. :confused:



Kind regards
Mick
 
Codger_64 said:
Cottonwood is just above basswood on the scale, a normally soft wood.
Cottonwood has a Janka rating of 430lbf. and a specific gravity of 0.45.

Read more: Timbers Similar to Basswood | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_8162281_timbers-similar-basswood.html#ixzz1cS5I2TdG
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As we all know, sometimes specs can be misleading. Sometimes you pick up a dried piece of wood that just behaves like a son-of-a-gun. A quirk of its growth pattern and the conditions under which it dessicated. Some woods punk up during this process, and some woods get hard like the dried out driftwood you find once in a while. This was of the latter. Its the type of piece you pick up and think it looks promising, swing your axe at it a few times and say - screw that shat then toss it aside and just lay it on the fire once the fire is burning hot. I have a stupid ornamental thornless locus in my yard that does this all the time and I've worked enough cottonwood before to know this happens once in a while to the stuff.

Anyhow, I'm certainly not going to blame a respected knife maker because I know that I could have broke any number of my knives in that circumstance and this one has been through its share of paces in the past to give me full confidence in it. If I was going to pry with a knife, I would have pounded it in a lot further, which in hindsight is what I should have done. As it stands, the knife broke at the tip just at the spot where it was buried and being one handed on all this, it wasn't buried too far.

Mick - the term Hardswoodsman that Iz coined refers to temperate deciduous hardwood biome types not the janka hardness of wood you are working on. The term was coined because so much of published works and documentaries on bushcraft, as you well know, pertain to coniferous forests, a.k.a. softwood (which obviously varies because not all conifers have low hardness ratings). The point is that the techniques, at least when it comes to foraging strategies, often differ and this was a way of distinguishing the two.

Maybe you can create your own term and call it the HardJankamen or the 100-mile-from-nowhere-men that best describes what you tend to do.
 
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