Wood Carving & Crafts: Alder Spoon & Kuksa

Description

I spent a few days in Dartmoor National Park with some friends carving a spoon and the beginings of a Kuksa.

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Tags: woodland,forest,mountains,river,lake,tinder,Survival,Bushcraft,survivor,knife,knives,valley,axe,camping,tent,footwear,hunting,fishing,backpack,clothing,boots,primitive,nature,shelter,shooting,shotgun,rifle,rucksack,flashlight,torch,craft,plants,trees,education,wilderness,family,hobbies,fun,animals,game,Carving

Video Transcription

by their guys it's Mike memsahib bushcraft here and I'm down in Dartmoor at the moment very damp environment quite interesting and we're in a very beautiful woodland and I'm down here with Zed from Z outdoors on also John Mac who's a very established carver and he set up a camp for us very kindly and we're down here for a few days where he's really just going to be teaching us um some of his techniques of his trade and I thought I'd film it for you a bit of a video diary so I hope you enjoy the video so you can see this is the setup on running behind me got my DD 3x3 title a ticket to me and hammock snow pack softie for just quite a warm bag for this time of year but it's the coldest bag I've got with a sleep map and I've got my pack hanging here pretty nice setup we're expecting some heavy rain and maybe some thunderstorms say I've gone for the diamond setup which gives me a little bit more cover on the edges and stops rain creeping in and getting to these lines here and just gradually turning the hammock into a bit of a sponge so it's quite a nice little setup it shouldn't be see me through the next few days

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morning guys beginning of day two and there's a really beautiful morning we had some rain last night that barely rain at all just a little bit of drizzle and it was a nice dry warm night very mild at this time of year say quite nice over here but the woods are really singing this morning I got quite early and did a bit of work on my spoon you see I finished it off almost now lovely bit of older with some coloration in it this come out quite nicely but today I'm going to do a little bit more carving and make a hopefully a nice looking Bowl but I'm actually get the fire going this morning those members left from the oak I put on last night and with a bit of dry Goss and some dead standing hazel had a fire going in no time which was great and the guys are putting breakfast on for me now but we've been joined by Chris grant and Chris grant is a incredibly skilled knife maker he's been showing us his knives this morning and they are really beautiful so I just wanted to show you a few those night so we've got a couple of Chris's knives here you can see that are absolutely beautiful some of them are prototypes some of them in near completion

he's been spending quite a few years in testing these designs with John Mac and really putting them through their paces with Chris what do we got here and I'll start with my next step account yeah and this is the mattress which is essentially our carving life that's been reverse-engineered into a bushcraft knife writes which is the reason that it's fuel tank they came this was the end result of and dizzyland and the proof test and I designed and we reached the point where we tired we had a narrow tang version of this knife before most an identical profile and a slim down tap and we just said as I said noise someone's not right so what we did was we decided to split the design in two so we have reverse-engineered carving knife the full size that john wanted it and the one that he started with here right is the results where we split the design in half there design was a pen Tang and gnarly Tang which is what this knife has resolved and so rather than throw in the kitchen sink in we split them into this is much lighter it's essentially the same design and if you turn the edge down you'll see that the points tapered there okay which is really just for delicate cuts it mostly for cheap carving but if you like to get a space to do any detail carve and animals of whatever that's what that's a man this is this is birch is it this is a birch bar that's been stabilized with methyl acrylate resin okay and what what metal is this this is a 50 to 100 ball bearing steel and we were talking about earlier you really write that as the and absolutely hey years ago and I was mostly working in silver steel of time that was my steel of choice but it's only available in round bar okay half the fortune and and I was given massive bearing races by a friend of mine and had great fun forging them donors difficult stuff the forest but when you get it down it's great but it's wonderful because rarely do you get a keen edge with really good edge retention and edge strength it's almost like the Holy Grail and it's in it's not easy if it wasn't easy to find when I was first working was there an advantage to locate a supply of it and it's it's actually German it's in an origin it's not it's not meteor actually anymore but Tim it's for me and as an ex with Carver woodworker and then as a blade maker in terms of quality of edge edge sharpness edge retention meaning how long it'll be edge but also edge strength and how durable the edges in the perfect and a unity of the Trinity if you're right and I'll just see these are not the standard chiefs these are a special ones for join I say join likes less fuel cover yeah yeah at least he wears those on his out coin purely ago in a cargo pocket yeah yeah so they're absolutely lovely have a look at a couple of others thanks so we've got a couple of other knives here and these ones liquor look really beautiful Chris tell us a bit about these ones sure I start with a lure one this one this is my Cairngorm model and it's not Percy a bushcraft knife I just call a utility makes it okay it's for everything you know it's it's been fertile with it it's good enough to slice with but it's got a nice strong back in it the original spec is actually for a sex Mobley but this is a five Mobley okay and the materials are it's in finland Dahmer steel which is a Pulver centered it's a powder metallurgical combination of two steals okay and that are actually cast together there's no Ford welding in this and once this casting a big round a weird a cylinder they're like a Swiss rule

yeah then reduced it and forged down I say you have here in two different types of metal that are there's no welds and they're cast they are fused together at birth if you like yeah and and this is out like a special they should Karen gone that's why I call after the main and so in the regular model it would be six mil but there was no six mil in this dhamma steel as standard the tank steeper truly I don't reduction it's just nice it's a pretty flat handle yeah and very comfortable yeah it's for me you know a aergon omix was was my thing but yeah yeah this style a knife a originates with in a gentleman called lars field and Falken oven i guess you could say it's my version of it and i tend to see it as and the design is inspired by by those and i have tweaked it to the point where the profile no longer resembles in and certainly the materials and the finish i'm doing a kind of a step forward of these two names yeah it's more or less become that's one thing but and i was really in love with a flat going moan one actually has a convex edge but I said I was in love with a flat grain and I thought I'm going to try this handle and just find out how awful it isn't who by the bed well it works yeah the ball is actually very comfortable if you do that all day and I'll just see that stabilized there Aldo but that's really Oliver's and it was sorted by me yeah you wanna cut that down out no but it was actually cut it was lying by the side of a road oh really yeah it was just lying there so what I find and in the small and if this is actually a set for a gentleman and and this beautiful that one this is again the same materials Vinland dama steel stainless Damascus and that alder Bharata came from a garden and both of these are stabilized with methyl acrylate resin so they're essentially impregnated with plastic and you can still have the all the qualities of booth but they're waterproof if you do everything with that absolutely what the Sean Mulhall the gentleman that designed this and you know he wanted this go to scan and knife something that was large enough to do it dear yeah something that was delicate enough to be comfortable to do rabbits something like so again it has the tapered tang it's made from for milk stock but it's really nice and thin if you're a person we call a fool distal paper so it fends right to the point you got a nice delicate point you can do an awful lot with that yeah a lot of people pick it up licking it folks at him food that that are not nice people pick up its yes that's really nice I like her weighed in hurry yeah yeah I got a friend that's a stalker and he said you know that that's all you need yeah and then it's a neck people keep coming back to for that purpose or and in addition to the other two these are in this one is not in full production because I'm stalls currently sourcing the mail to use for the standard version but and this one is in sort of ceramic production and zouzou feel light or steel in the alloy yard up your third floor holding these sheets amazing as well you've got this part here you saying it's four para called yeah and it was like get I can have adapted from the old note in mind she because actually she for made for myself yeah and the fell slightly said I like that and the next thing I know there was paracord around and you can carry Bank two meters of particles are nice and and it looks nice and all the rest of it yeah yeah and then I'll just see him I not everybody does that this is my own method to fix and I think it looks rather neat to have brass in here yeah and I notice that the d-ring you know way it affects their doesn't hang with sickle I've seen the lips in the back I like that I just noticed it yeah this is a taper fiction called the Chicago screw okay which is essentially a screw together of it and and they are designed to be removed but I super glue them to to fix it and the reason for that is if the Deering if something that decides the door interviewing that could be removed and replaced I say yeah that having a commotion Marie's family just for versatility but I think it'll explain I think it looks really nice on the inside is it um sort of depressed in yet I'm still a count or sunk in its yeah it's sort of the blade will never touch it yeah okay I can actually see that by looking in it you probably won't be upset on the camera though yeah absolutely lovely thanks very much it's all the stories of a beautiful pleasure thanks I should be interested no no we're just you

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I'm a happy camper my kid

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place to sample more but stop this art to get that's why the river just go to suffer