How To Make Feather Sticks

Description

A day in the woods with the hardest student ever.... My wife!!!! I am walking her thru making feather sticks to be used as fire tinder

Tags: feather,sticks,feather sticks,fire,tinder,bushcraft,survival,Feather Stick,william myers,mantis outdoors,perparedmind101,Camping,How-to (Media Genre),Summer,outdoors,Fun,Survival Skills (TV Genre),how to start fire

Video Transcription

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something's then grabbed it okay guys when I'm scouting on an area i want the trap in and it's not like I'm the most expert trapper in a world ranking like that but I do have successes and failures it's like anybody else but tell you what you see this you see that so two different trails that converge right there so without me walking on the trail I don't want you that this choke point right here would be the place for a snare hi guys doing day this William iris minutes outdoors got the wife here and she's one to learn some bushcraft stuff so that's just great my opinion you know I'm real happy that she's interested in coming out and learning what I do and when I teach kids and things like that and watch each other people as well so uh today we're just going to do it you know run through the basic stuff with her what I like to start out as far as like basic fire stuff is feather sticks and things like that so i'm going to show you and her as well how to make some okay so good wood to start this out with is something that's from the softwood family like the poplars Cottonwood saw pines and think white pines things like that so a good test of that is to put your finger nail in it if you can make a dent in that wood with your fingernail hopefully that's out on the camera and that's good indication that it's from the salt woodsfamily not from licking a Hickory or you know oak or something like a something from the hardwoods so what I need you to do is this is where the knife techniques that I've been showing you is going to come in just take your knife and just kind of straight arm it just real one long smooth moment movement all the way across ok so I went ahead and cut this dick just to make really really sharp ridges so I could show you guys and you know when I make a feather

or a curl rather what that's going to do is give me two ridges just from each swipe in my blade and then I go on either side of those ridges to make a curl now this size got the cambrian layer still on it so it might be a little difficult to get a curl out of it but we'll get something and you see I made two ridges again so you need to follow down those ridges just a very light touch to get a curl out of it now go into this white meat here you see every time I go down I'm getting another line we get another line I'm just following down those lines now how can important thing to remember about when you're doing feather sticks and I'm just doing a very short one just so I can show you Megan I would prefer these to be at least my curls to be from here to here but I'm just the inference tration purposes only I did this real short one for you but these lines that you're following down these ridge lines if your knife is cocked to one direction that's the direction that your your curl is going to run you see it well maybe not that dumb you see how it cocked over that way and you can compensate that like on the other way as well cocking your knife the other way will bring a curl and run the other direction see or any other direction so keeping your knife as straight as possible we'll run a curl right on top of itself see how that curl went right on top of us so yep yes I mean if you need to throw a curl one way or throw a curl another way or you need to keep a straight you know you have the option of being able to do that so all right let's sit you down and see what you do and I want these curls to be fun enough to get a strike off a Ferro rod or not you cannot allow to use a lighter at this one all right well this is my new more mg from well yeah beginners night so I think first I wanna certain takes on the sparkle right I want you to change your grip up look how your grip is i'm going to show you your grip is like this with your thumb point it down like that i want you to get your grip around it with your thumb and everything is wrapped around that way even if I mean nothing's shouldn't anything happen but that way first of all you have power and control over the knife in this direction side of all your thumbs not up here whatever you're cutting is not going to splinter out and jab being a thumb ok ok so just wrap your hand around just like that the by the way you have the power control choke up a little bit more spark off there I like that more it's nice now barks fire tender too so don't just throw that away all right now what you're doing right now is ok I would like this crest of your your thumb to be a there you go and I want you to be using from here to here on the knife that's where your power and your control is going to come from ok see big curl but that's just fuel that's a fuel curable fuel curl thought was that's all right that's all right just real now do like a real fine girl is very very low light touch all the way down the wood urgh I'm probably gonna have to do one to show on camera one completely done it's okay though it's your first time no big deal no big deal no it's fine fine just do a cut nice curl stop right there now see the two lines you just made go on that Ridge good good there you go there you go beautiful all right you got to curls that are still on there and you got ridges to follow okay wait you get a curl your knife how much stab me you get a curl don't stop that's why I just seen you do like you got a curl and then you stop to hack at it again okay I want a fluid movement all the way down that Ridge not start stop start stop start stop just one fluid movement nice that's good curl now you're not on a ridge that's why you're not going to curl okay that'll work now you can have stopped you could have real beefy big curls at first and then that'll just be like fuel basically and then lighter more little ones more up more surface area almost paper thin to you can see through them and then dust and you know basically what ec I'm saying it would be graduating and do not put that on the ground either it goes in your sheath or in your hand so it's graduating from big small too small for smart dust that way it'll strike rail rot and you'll get it going

great Jean there's more other that's fine keep that yeah I'm just kidding basically prop that base of that stick into that would there you go just like that stay where the more Stabler thing is the more you're going to be able to get a good cut good curl the lightest touch will scrape down that wood and get decent pearl awesome all right I don't care if it stays on there or not I just want you to get curls at this point if you cut them off that's fine but you're seeing what kind of touch it takes to make that curl once you're used to that then you can focus on keeping them on the freaking sick what you doing standing around start an ever getting piss it off for fire all right try to cast

yeah yeah try to slant it home you slam the homeless when you go knocking other girls off ya know she's a sucks let me see it real quick I mean if anything look if you gather a bunch of a bunch of curls and look all right yeah that's tender put that in a pile strike a fellow out to it there you go so that's why I'm not concerned with you keeping them on the stick right now I want you to find out the feel of making thick curls small curls thin curls and even dust here in a second then you can worry about keeping them on the freakin stick again a little cocky there are we nice nice girl you get it there you go practice with shooting the curls left and right see how that's what my spin right nice girl thank you getting at there Darla feel like spongebob 12 hours later yes many kids there you go see what that wait stop yeah they're killing do that you're freaking broke it off but yeah you angled that knife this way and it shot that curl that way see how jumpy you are they like stops touched us to stuttering on the board that's what's breaking your curls the more fluid your swipes are from what the better your curls are going to be and they'll stay on there they're all the way down to the base of it you know what curls sticking halfway up yeah getting a cramp uh-huh say you're a muscled austerity was not used to doing this what you're doing right now try making a bow up eagleclaw for a week all right stop yeah I see it all right so you're making those real good curls getting a lot better makeup girls you know see those real fluid movements down the stick is going to create the really good curls and you got a scanner ground here so if you lay it the knife completely flat on the stick and then just put it up right to wear that scanty grind touches one of those ridges and then just swipe down alright I'm going to finish this one out for you so we can get some feral raw techniques in

alright well there you go I'm gonna put that right there and we'll go on some farro techniques okay so I don't want you using the back of your knife right now because your knife technique isn't great you know you're not experienced with your knife yet yeah like my fingers yeah want to keep them there well you know you'll get there I just don't feel that it's necessary for you right now so just use the striker that I have and you know this is kind of different from what I was talking to you about I was telling you that my favorite technique is to actually hold it brace this hand so it doesn't move and swipe it back that way that away I'm not tapping this way and knocking out any flame that I would happen to get out this is kind of against that I actually what I do with the feather sticks is I stick the ferrule Rock down in the feather stick like this and I swipe down but I'm not going all the way down see if I would to strike down like this and then go all the way down even if I did get a flame I'm just going to put it out what I do is I just basically tossed a spark into the feathers just like that yeah I don't want to I don't want to you don't fire but that's what you're doing I just want you to throw a spark now if you go all the way down like that then you're just going to throw it out and i just burnt myself actually so you just just tossing sparks just like that second gloves off this way yeah put that now put it right in no no right in the feathers just a gud I know you're pinning it down as well you want pin that stick down with the Ferro rod so it won't go nowhere and then just tossed up alright yeah hey I see you're one you're using the wrong side that's right to you're going you're smacking your feathers he's going all the way down to wallow down stop right here and just Chuck a spark in hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on stop you don't need to do it 5,000 times real fast just use a lot of downward pressure and just toss one spark in it put downward pressure on the Ferro rod and just throw a spark that way you can aim it you could toss it where it needs to go that's a good spot now put downward pressure on that 40 rod let's see you smack in the back in the feathers again is the same technique that you use to make the feather stick in the first place on that fella rod you want a lot of material coming off at one point this pop there you had flown all right let me see let me show you what's the technique is all right Megan so what I meant basically was to pin the feather stick down with the ferrule rod just like that that a way that thing is not going to go nowhere and then like I said don't pop it all the way down because then you're smacking the hell out of your feathers just toss the spark right where you want there we go we got flame here you go you got flame stop told me don't mean to me there you go Oh bushcraft baby well I'm proud of a B thanks all right Nikki practicing it own it be able to do one of those you want four or five of those at one time and then one that you're going to be able to light if you're using feather sticks just another one and then just like each one with it no you stack it now you'd stack all the feather sticks like in a pyramid or something you know somewhere around that those lines and then you would like one of the feather sticks and stick it under the rest of the feather sticks and then there you go I would be basically your bird's nest just feather sticks but that's for another another time I just wanted you to get this lesson in and you got it you got mean you got flame there you go all right let's pack her up all right guys well I hope you enjoyed the video just a quick lesson with me and my wife showing her how to do some feather sticks she's improving her technique as we speak right now yeah looking good and we're going to coach her into some more feral rod techniques and things like that she's brand new to bushcraft so she needs to work on feral raw techniques and different fell rod techniques and you know her knife technique needs work as well you know all the things are going to be coming to fruition really soon sure she's a fast learner so now I hope you guys enjoyed this video I hope you enjoyed the techniques that we discussed in this video appreciates all your views comments to support hopefully we'll see you out in the woods I want fluid movement fluid I want a flu everything I want to thank you every day what's a plan yeah I want some mexican plan