#AskPaulKirtley Episode 1 - Bushcraft Knives, Books & The Kitchen Sink

Description

#askpaulkirtley is your chance to ask Paul Kirtley questions about wilderness bushcraft, survival skills and outdoor life.

In this episode Paul answers questions about bushcraft knives, tarp knots vs hammock knots, writing bushcraft books and the kitchen sink he uses. Yes, really.

Ask Paul Kirtley is a regular Q&A show (also available as a podcast) with leading bushcraft instructor Paul Kirtley, founder of Frontier Bushcraft and author of Paul Kirtley's Blog. Find out more here: http://paulkirtley.co.uk/ask-paul-kirtley/

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Tags: paul kirtley,#askpaulkirtley,bushcraft,survival,outdoors,outdoor life,camping,wilderness,skiing,nordic skiing,canoeing,snow shoeing,questions,answers,Knife (Sports Equipment),Survival Skills (TV Genre),Summer

Video Transcription

hi there welcome to episode 1 of a sport Kurtley in this episode we're going to talk about everything including the kitchen sink we're going to talk about knives we're going to talk about books and we're going to talk about kitchen sinks so first question Eddie or edu asks what's the ideal bushcraft knife for five or six inches steel handle material sheath material ok so edu I do whatever you want to be called thanks for the question and it's a common question people want to know what's the best knife to get for bushcraft and it's really personal thing and everybody's different and I know it sounds like a bit of a cop-out but everybody is different some of the people who work for me for example one guy six foot seven I've got females who were five foot two five foot three and everything in between hand size is a different level of strength is different and what you want to get out of the knife is different so I would say as a general purpose something is about the length and the length of the blade is about the width of your palm that's a good starting point for your size so if you're a bit bigger you go for slightly bigger knife if you're a bit smaller go for a slightly smaller knife unless you're going for specialist carving knife of course we're generally you want something that's quite short and with quite a stubby little handle so you can do nice powerful cuts but for a general bushcraft knife for five or six inches are going to be suitable for somebody six inches is probably the longest you know for a general purpose bushcraft knife you could probably even go a bit shorter than four inches if you're a bit smaller and but for a general answer I would say go about sort of for four to five inches

a good general sort of size but if you want a a rule of thumb go across across the palm of your hand that's a good size so for example those of you that are watching the video you can see that my knife there is just a little bit longer than the breadth of my thumb and the palm of my hand in terms of steel again common high carbon steel oh one tool steel if you're buying a handmade knife or a custom-made knife is a good place to start it's not an expensive steel it's not a fancy steel but it works well it holds an edge well but it will potentially corrode if it gets wet and stays wet so if you've got it in a leather sheath and the sheath is wet for an extended period of time even a day or two it will corrode so if there's a chance of that maybe you want a stainless steel and RW l 34 is a very good stainless steel and holds a very good edge and actually I'm beginning to prefer that 201 carbon steel so my recommendation the moment would be start looking at some really good quality stainless steels they tend to be more expensive though so that's that's the downside for a similar sort of quality that tend to be a bit more expensive in terms of in terms of quality of what you want the knife to do in terms of how easy it is to sharpen and how easy it is to how good the edge retention is and then in terms of sheath material and again that's a personal choice if it's going to get wet and if the sheets going to get wet then maybe go for and you've got a carbon-steel knife go for a plastic sheath and if you're getting a custom-made knife go for kydex sheath if you've got a bog-standard mora it comes with a plastic sheath and that's easy to dry out and my concern for example if I'm doing a canoe trip if I've got a carbon-steel knife and I fall in it's not going to damage anything particularly I can dry the knife off really quickly but then the sheath is going to be wet for a day or two and that's going to corrode my knife which is why I prefer a stainless steel knife now but if you're worried about a car if you want to use a carbon-steel knife but you're worried about the sheath being wet for an extended period of time get a plastic sheath for it those are my general recommendations obviously everybody's a little bit different in terms of the sizing but that's my Knights my general recommendation good question Thanks what's the next one Sean asks have you any plans to write a book covering the skills you have learned and stories of your mini adventures good question Sean and enjoy your podcast thanks so yeah it's a good question and quite a few people have asked me recently if I'm going to write a book either about skills or about some of the adventures and think this idea of combining and some stories about adventure with some of the actual skills is a good one because i think the skill side of things has been covered pretty well and both in terms of books that are you know very old and also there's some very good recent books with with skills in there's also some fairly poor books with skill you know the sort of skills in and you know publishers like to try and put things in particular categories they'll try and find a big publisher will try and find a book to put into a category they're not always that good but there are some very good books out there with skills and also there's some good travel writing there's some good adventure writing but I think the combination might be something that it's certainly something I do on my blog and I could extend into a book so yeah I will look at that but I'm also I've also wary of the fact that writing a book is a big it's a big endeavor and anybody that I've ever met this written a book says that it's kind of like a sort of masochistic exercise and I'm not sure I'm ready for that side of it yet but yeah I'm building up to it I think and the more people prod me with pointy sticks and send me tweet saying we'd like to read that sort of thing I think that might push me over the edge at some point so watch this space Sean watch this space thanks for the question Tim asks which knots should you use to tie up atop versus a hammock heart versus Anna okay good question Tim I think a lot of people can get hung up on specific knots for specific reasons as a helicopter going around in the background there you can probably hear it on the audio but will I don't think it'll spoil things too much and you can use the same not particularly the one that you start off your top line with if you do a vein hitch you can use the same even if it's a piece of tape around the tree even if you've gone around the tree twice for you to start off your hammock you can still use that I venk hitch to start off the time process and you can use it on the other end as well pull it as tight as you can use your vent hitch on the other end the thing I would say though if you're using any knots that a quick release then you've made it quick release by passing a bite through as the event kiss you basically got one pull and the thing comes away with a hammock I would put the I'll put another bite through and pull it tight so that you can do 12 before the thing comes and done and you end up on the floor and do that at both ends but use the advantage of both ends that'll work well good question Tim and if you here's some shameless self-promotion if you if you don't know the event kitsch there's some videos that show you how to do all the top knots on my youtube channel and on my blog and I will link to the event Kitsch on the video and I can stick in the show notes I'll sticker a little link through to that as well so if you want to learn that not if you don't know if you're listening to this you be a link for you to learn that not April it's mark Yates here from big man in the woods podcast and my question to you is about knives basically I've been in the whole camping and scouting scene for about six years now and I've been using the really cool more robust knife but now I feel it's time to upgrade it step above step up it should we say um but then I'm into mine story do i upgrade the knife or using that saying don't change it if it's not broke you know i love my robot my robust knife but when i do courses or go out camping other people I see they've got you know nice big big knives and then getting kind of jealous would you recommend stay with my more robust

I'm happy with or do i upgrade and get a proper full tang life and looking for she answers and keep up with a podcast loving your work pool it's pretty soon thank you alright good good ? thank you and loving the stuff that you're doing on the big man in the woods podcast at the moment the tick stuff was really good so looking forward to what you got coming coming in there in the near future so this is the classic question you know people have a more a knife and they get given them on a bushcraft course or somebody buys one for them or they buy it for themselves to start off with and they're great knives and there's certainly any beginner I would say get a more a knife don't worry about getting anything more expensive and partly because when you learn to sharpen you're going to mess things up a bit to start off with and do it on a cheaper knife rather than a more expensive knife that's just a monetary thing and then in terms of that the crux of your question for me though is the full tang versus not having a full tang knife that's the key thing and the rest is really about aesthetics and we'll come back to that in a second and the question for me is if you're in a position where if your knife breaks if the handle breaks or you can't use your knife if that's a real issue and it can't be replaced then you need a full tang knife and because if you're on an expedition and your knife breaks and it can't be resupplied clearly you're in the middle of nowhere then that then causes you an issue so the thing with amaura is it's a tab tang knife and they don't break very often but I do see one or two of them break every year on our courses it's almost without exception when people are battling and the handle splits away from the knife it's just because the the handle is molded around the blade and the tab tang of the blade and at some point enough force is exerted and that will break away splits the handle another plane going over helicopters and planes and all sorts going over today and peaceful quiet countryside here and so the point is with a full tang that isn't going to happen you've got one solid piece of metal now whether its handmade or part handmade or hand finished and that's going to a large extent that's going to determine how expensive it will be you know and what you're paying for is not so much the materials although there will be some more material costs to a nicer knife as you put it than a mora but a lot of it a lot of what you're paying for is all that hand finishing that hand making hand stitching of a nice leather sheath for example that all adds up you know man hours of a woman hours of work and that's largely what you're paying for you're paying for the craftsmanship oh one tool steel as often handmade knives are made of is not that expensive the mate the major cost is of the hand making and so it's really unless it's critical you've got a full tang knife it's really anaesthetic question of do you want to have a nice thing you know you're working with something quite regularly it's nice to have nice tools and there's an argument that if you've got nice tools you make nicer things and it's the whole argument that app will have about having nice macbooks and nice imax you know people like using them creative people like using them because it makes them it's a nice thing to use in that creative process and it's the same with your tools and and the the thing about the thing about more is is if if you're going to be battening again if you want to do a lot of battening again even if you're not far away from home that's where I see them break so if you're going to be wanting to do a full range of things or you want a nice tool to use then yet upgrade to a full-time knife whether that's you know almost all kind of machine made or whether it's completely handmade depending on what price you want to go for go for it but otherwise if it's just whittling and using it close to home where if it breaks it doesn't really matter stick with what you've got save your money spend it on something else spend it on a trip by canoe do something else judge says he really likes your videos and was wondering what the name of your folding kitchen sink is called okay George that's the first a good question so and if you haven't seen my videos and the particular video that George is talking about is a couple of videos that that features in I have this little folding sink which folds up a bit like a pop-up tent and it goes inside my Billy can I use that for washing and washing myself washing clothes it's a 5-liter it's actually called the kitchen sink and it's made by sea to summit sea to summit and i'll put a link to that on my blog as well in the show notes to this and so that you can find it but that's what it is Sita submit 5 litre kitchen sink easy question George thanks Cheers that's everything for today super well thank you very much for watching thanks for your attention and thanks for listening if you listen to this on a podcast send your questions in I want more questions send me questions about bush craft stuff as well not just about kit and kick questions are always good I'm you know I use stuff and I'm happy to help where I can but ask me questions about the nature stuff and the bush craft stuff the material skills happy to answer those sorts of questions as well tweet me m @ p Kurtz that's pki RT and use the hashtag ask Paul curtly or send me an email and by my blog via the contact form you can do that again put asked Paul curtly in the title so i can find it in my inbox and finally if you go to the ask paul page of my website there is a button there where you can record and leave me a message so that's the quickest way to leave me message like marketed in this episode and it's nice to hear somebody's voice and asking the question as well so thanks to everybody who asked questions if your question didn't get featured in this one check out episode 2 which will be coming soon more questions coming there and speak to you soon Thanks hi there welcome to episode 1 of ask Paul curtly in this episode we're going to talk about knives actually we do we do need to do I need to do that then I we talking about but I not and knives hammock not and