The Blade - Survival

[Paintedhorse]

I agree that a blade is one of the most helpful tool, but I think that being able to make a fire with a stone or a bow drill is more important. With fire you do everything from making a hard wood spear point to working metal tool. Flintknapping is also extremely helpful(don't forget that man have lived this way for million years, metal is only +/- 6000 years). With a stone, you can do what you want ,from
knife to axe, from arrow point to a lot of specialized tools.
Learning those primitive skills is more important than a metal blade.
In fact,knowing the primitive skill, will make you using your metal blade better than ever .



PS, I do apologize for my american, I'm not a native but I learn hard
to make less mistakes.

 

[Hoodoo]

Depend's on the situation, dunnit? Out on a boat in the middle of lake michigan, a flare gun might be the one thing. Stuck in a car in a snow drift in the middle of a winter blizzard, water and a warm sleeping bag would be preferred.

As for the one knife scenario, I'm definitely with Alberta Ed on this one. For the north country, make my dream survival knife a GB Small forest or Scandanavian axe. For practical purposes though, it most likely would be a GB mini hatchet. Unless we are talking about the tropics in which case I have no experience but will defer to other more experienced voices who usually vote for a parang or machete.

 

[Eric_Draven]

Pretty Much what Hoodoo wrote.

For the jungle a machete is king. In the Northwoods an Axe rules.

For more temperate climates, and perhaps even displacing the axe, is the humble Swiss Army knife. I like a large locking model with a saw, or the Swisstool.

 

[dartanyon]

Well I'm blown away with the great responses I've got. With help from you, how can someone not learn about survival.
Big-Target - WOW.....thankyou! (survival.com) Now why didn't I think of looking for that address? Thats one of my attractions in life other than raising my children.
Longbow - Almost identical to my favourite blade. A bolo ay? Thanks also for the parang shot. A very practical blade.
Paintedhorse - Yes I appreciate steel but I am learning flintknapping as I understand that it is back to basics. You have no problem communicating with me.
HooDoo - Good points! I hope that I'll always have the correct survival kit with me depending upon environment. Do you have any pictures of these axes?
Eric - My keys also have the basics ....... micra, ledlight and flint I collected from empty lighters glued to a bit of magnesium alloy. I agree that VicNox has good quality.

Thankyou BladeForums for the opportunity to communicate with these special people.

 

[Eric_Draven]

Dear Musketeer,
HEre are the axes Voodoo Hoodoo was talking about.

They are available from www.cutsforthknives.com

They are very fine edged, and can be used for many knife like tasks:

Even the little mini is capable of suprising performance:

 

[psy-ops]

today I was clearing some brush and small trees in my yard.

I used a cheap $5-10 machete.

it did fine. unless you are going to move permenantly to the woods, a machete will totally do everything you need.

I hacked a 3"-4" limb hanging over from the neighbor's yard in 2 strokes.


plus a machete is excellent defensive weapon.


in survival situation, brush clearing, small limbs and such is gonna be more than adequate.


axes are great for splitting firewood something that the machete can't do. but you can get enough small limbs to build a bon fire with a machete.

 

[dartanyon]

Eric - Thanks for the pic's mate. They look good, dinner looks good too. I diddn't think the heads would be so small. How are they for carving and making traps?
Chris - Yea the machete sure is a handy tool except for the size. Once again, how do ya recon it'd go with carving? You'd have to make sure no one was near you ay