Buzzbait
Gold Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2001
- Messages
- 6,700
Heres my newest SAK project. Its a match safe or dry tube. Call it what you want. Its basically a container for whatever small things youd like to keep dry on the trail. Put aspirin in it. Fill it with sugar candy. I just wanted to challenge the SAK as much as possible, and try building something. Ive always thought of the SAK as the tool that builds other tools, and figured Id put that theory to the test. To be as tough as possible on the SAK, I chose a particularly hard wood to work with. This is cherry that has been sitting around the house for some time now, so its quite dry and hard. If I were to do it all over again, Id probably choose something much softer, such as pine of basswood. Cherry was a killer to work with, but the finished project is nearly indestructible.
I initially used the saw blade to cut a fresh end on the stick, and used the large blade to skin off the bark. Then came the challenging part. I had to make a hole in the tube. I started the hole with the awl, until the hole was wide enough to insert the knife blade. Surprisingly enough, the knife blade acted as a rudimentary drill bit, cutting straight down into the tube. It took some time, but I eventually drilled out a hole deep enough to insert your average wooden matches, and then went a bit deeper. The extra depth was needed for the stopper on the cap. The blade did a great job of widening and smoothing out the inside of the tube, just by twisting it and shaving away the sides. Obviously, I did not drill straight through the other end of the tube, but left about 1/4 inch thick base.
Once the tube was finished, I went back to the end piece I had initially sawed off, and began to fit it as a cap. I cut a groove around the cap with the main blade, and chipped out the end to make the stopper. This required quite a bit of hand fitting to make a smooth and tight fit. Once the cap was placed on the end of the tube, I could see how uneven the outside gap was. Some spots on the seam matched up perfectly, and other areas had a 1/32 inch gap. So I started evening up the seam with the cutting edge of the file, working my way around the gap. I could have used the saw, but that would have made a very rough seem. The file worked perfectly as a very fine bladed saw. The file cut easily into the wood, and made a perfect groove exactly the width of the file blade. The cut I made with the file went from the outside of the cap, straight through to the stopper.
Next came the gasket. I grabbed a piece of leather just a hair thicker than the gap made by the file, and cut a donut out of it. The inside of the washer was almost perfect, and the outside was a left a hair too big. Once the washer was pressed onto the cap, I popped the cap onto the tube. With the match safe fully assembled, I used the main blade to whittle the entire outside, getting everything nice and smooth and even.
Now for the extra TLC. As we all know, even the best wood can shrink and expand from moisture, humidity, etc. If this happens, the cap can become too loose and fall off easily. Extended use will also compress the wooden stopper over time, making the cap somewhat loose. I wanted to make sure that the cap never fell off accidentally. So I used the awl to drill a lanyard hole in the cap. I also cut a couple of grooves on the other end of the tube, inline with the lanyard hole in the cap. Then I took a piece of rawhide lace and made a cinch fit lanyard. The rawhide runs through the lanyard hole, over the end of the tube through the grooves, and cinches shut.
Okay. I did cheat a little, but just for cosmetic reasons. I ran over the entire outside of the match safe with sandpaper, just to pretty it up a bit, and rubbed on a coat of stain. All of the work to make the match safe fully functional was done with just my Victorinox Tradesman. I guess that the SAK really is the the tool that builds other tools!!!!!
