How to make a Birch Bark Container

Description

How to harvest, and make a birch bark container.

Tags: Birch Bark,Birch Bark Container,Container,How To,William Myers,Mantis Outdoors,Birch,Craft,Wilderness,Outdoors,Survival,Survival Kit,Bushcraft,Woodcraft,preparedmind101,Weekend,Survival Skills (TV Genre)

Video Transcription

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alright guys how you doing this is William Myers some ass outdoors today we're going to show you how to make a purchase part container be right back alright so when I get birch bark of a tree I try to make it as thick as possible when I'm removing it from the tree and then what i can do is one sheet a bark that i take off i could select two or three layers from that and then i could peel that away just making that Bart go just that much further and I could make a container out of this that's off pretty flimsy though but the Sheep right here is probably four or five thick and that's really what I'm looking for you know it's still going to fold without snapping in half see that's the fold and it's still watertight and and it's gonna be a little bit thicker more hard here so just wanted to show you guys that how to process that out real quick and you know just because you tape one section out with the tree off doesn't mean that you have to make Tanner all that plus it would probably be about that thick anyway is pretty difficult to work with so we're go ahead and show you guys what I do and these are just pieces of fencing and what I use these for stretching small small hides and things like that and like bigger things like possums and things i'll actually put two or three these together and you know i don't have to cut and make them you know I just go out to my local hardware store in a relatively cheap actually so that's what these are and what I'm using them for is to cut on and a straight edge relatively straight edges those need to be you know absolutely perfect

that's just a guideline for me so I get a decently straight edge doesn't need to be absolutely perfect just needs to get the job done I really would like to try to separate this without creating more separations but looks like I've already created two of them no big deal all right so we're gonna get this border off here and we'll be right back with you hi guys so this is the piece of birch bark that we're going to be using here and I've tried to make this as square as possible but what we're going to start out doing is 14 s directly in half just like this they call the stuff patriot paper bark for a reason this stuff holds up really really really good and we got a crack in it already but it's only on one level so once we found the middle right here we're going to take our first side right here and we're going to fold that pass the middle about an inch so if right here's the middle we're gonna fold that about an inch past the middle just like that trying to keep everything as even as possible and it's kind of try to use kid gloves and stuff you don't want it breaking through completely we got a couple knot holes in here but that's nothing we can't take care of with some pine resin so will probably show that as well if not into a part two so we've got that fold in so now what we're gonna do is we're going to fold this back until it meets the middle so right here is that middle crease we're going to fold this back just like this a little bit past the middle but I got a knot I'm trying to contend with here I don't want to snap it just like that maybe we could turn it around you can make sure that folds pretty tight and then we're going to do the same exact thing on this side as well but with this one it's a little bit easier because we can just come right to this edge right here and this is what's gonna make everything nice and even for us here those snapping popping and cracking hopefully that's not all the layers of the burst park there are several layers in here one or two snapping and popping isn't gonna bother me very much then fold that back just like that no problem no problem and that's what we're left with right there that's the start of our box so we're gonna come and put it vertical to us and they go to each of the four corners I'm gonna fold them in just like this and this is where you really really got to be careful you don't want to snap all these layers that are in here but you want a good tight line on that all right I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna fold all four corners and we'll get right back to you alright guys so this is what we want right here trying to make it as even as possible but I mean this isn't an exact science I mean it's flaps that we made we're just gonna tuck them right over those corners just like that and now we're gonna actually pick up our box and this is how it's gonna for them just like this just start picking up the middle and push down on the bottom just like this and be very careful not to snap this thing because then you'll be very angry all right so here where the flaps were folded that's where our corners are you just kind of want like I said use kid gloves and give those a slow press get in your corners made just like that you see we got a pop right there that is not a big deal we'll make this thing watertight with some pine resin not a big deal at all you see things like that just keep moving keep moving on we'll fix that in the end all right let's go to our second corner here turn that see if your go slow and you be really careful you'll start to feel the pops and the cracks and that's what you know where you got to be careful at all right so once we're done with those two corners we can work on the bottom and we can just slowly work in the bottom and get a crease going where we want our bomb to be on this side it doesn't really help that it's cold out that's one reason why this is popping and cracking as bad as it is on me but I don't let it affect me I just keep going plenty of pine resin out there guys now what I'm doing right now is I'm working on the other side the reverse side now the bottom and we'll be able to see what we got what we need to fix here about two seconds so as you can see this is the start of our birch bark container right now but as you can see these two sides are drawing out what I'm going to do is pull these sides up and then put a stiff piece of bark right Ernie that lip that's what that lip is for and I'll show you that in about one second alright so all we really have to do is kind of eyeball this and we're gonna have to take just a little bit off like I said this isn't an exact science so if we kind of cut straight enough line as we can on this really stiff piece of bark right here it'll give us what we need we're just gonna slide that right Ernie that flap just like this and that'll bring in the sides they're kind of get a tighter line on this and you see this that sides already brought in let's do one more for the other side okay so we cut our second piece here of that really thick bark this stuff's really a lot thinner compared to this this is just the to stabilize that corner we're just going to throw it right underneath of that lip right there and that is going to serve us two purposes one you see it brings in the sides makes our box more square and add two we could take it all and we could punch a hole into those two sides where the bark is thicker then we could run some cordage there and we can make something that we could hold on to hear that or put around our neck like this by the way we can collect like berries or whatever what we're doing on wild edibles and we could have our hands-free to be collecting which is a lot more conveniently especially if you know like collecting autumn olive or something like that having something around your neck and just being able to use both hands to collect those just makes things go a lot quicker and we're going to show you how to seal this up right now because this isn't watertight it's not going to hold water as it is right now we busted a couple holes in it so hang on all right so what I got here is a can of sterno and the really cool thing about this is this is what goes around my 40 ounce klean kanteen stainless steel water bottle and it's from the Pathfinder school it's just stove top mmm and you know it's really convenient especially in places where you're not allowed to have fire I go to a couple places where they would appreciate it if you didn't build a fire everywhere in the woods and you know you really got to respect the landowners in that so this way i still can boil water and things like that but this can of sterno and this this grill top can is going the fire and that gets my water bottle or my cup up above the coals and it really speeds up the process of boiling water or cooking or whatever but it serves dual purposes as well because I can attach it to the top of the sterno right here and like that it's kind of hard to see just kind of make sure that it's gone

I thought it was for sorry it was never you and the wind blew it out please let it out yeah oh no still not yep it's hard to see that alcohol flame it's really gotta be careful and I got some pine resin here and we're gonna kind of dump this up so we don't need all this stuff right here there's gonna take one nice little hunk here throw it in there and then throw it on top of that stove right there just let that know and as soon as that does we'll get right back to you okay as you can see inside the container here we got several holes plus we have a couple cracks that we're going to be sealing up let's go ahead and pay attention to this one right here first so I'm going to take as much resin as a key in here and I'm making sure this doesn't actually go to the point of crystallization I'm just kind of coating that hole with that there that's gonna make that water tight make sure that nothing's gonna be able to get out of there didn't you see a couple pinholes in there and pay attention them a little bit and watch this stuff dries it's going to be real permanent it's not going to go anywhere I mean will address those corners there that's gonna took a lot of pitch in there I'm sorry resin this doesn't pitch yet you start clapping in those corners right there till you get a nice seal there you go then we got one more to take care of and then you can start closing this up on the sides as well you know whenever you're working with a natural material like this you're always gonna have these variables you know something's going to snap something's gonna bust on you and you're gonna have to be prepared to take care of those problems and pine resin is pretty much a fix-all in my book those hairs out of there all right so got another hole there okay where I don't see it a little tiny one in the corner a little tiny one in the corner okay okay you know Torgy alota I like I see another one I here anyway so good take care of that what were it like the line art above where you just put that oh I soo show up Thanks I didn't see it did not catch that one all right so that boy is waterproof right now we're gonna let this cool down a little bit right now let's go ahead and start sealing up these corners here where we didn't we had a couple busts just making it now I mean this is just aesthetic I'm kind of just making it look better for my reasons doesn't actually I don't have to do this

you know if you ever get too much on there I you just lightly take your take your knife just kind of it'll be like hard candy at that point you just kind of scrape it and it was bust off okay guys there we go again put that attach that down mostly key in there see that Knothole is it's not gonna split it's not gonna seal as much as I'd like it to choose some pine resin to close all this up

all right flipper over and pay attention to the other side here now puts tens hot see how quickly that cools down all those strings and hairs it looks like hopefully you can see that on camera because how cold it is out here as soon as you expose that off the fire pretty much cools down kiss a bark in there there we go all right so there we go there's our birch bark container really easy project no fuss no muss you know and uh this is one of them that I had to actually pay attention to some of the cracks that we did in there I've done plenty of these where they just fold right up and you don't have to put anything home they just our water tight as it is but when things happen you know you've got to be prepared to fix them all right guys listen Ben William Myers with mass outdoors hope you like this video if you did I really appreciate it if you click Subscribe like in my video really helps me out a lot I appreciate all your comments and support hopefully we'll see you out in the woods this is William Myers with mana mana mana matter this William Myers Manas outdoors hopefully enjoyed this video if you did I appreciate it to click the subscribe button the like video down below really helps me out a lot like like our video yeah uh-huh