Tools and Wood Processing

Description

http://www.thepathfinderstore.com

Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

morning folks I'm Dave Canterbury with the Pathfinder school wind what you see behind me is very typical of the environment that I live in you can see that the vines the honeysuckle strangler vines things like that the brambles the small bushes are very very thick in this area of the woods in the summertime it's a hundred times worse than this and everything from brambles to wild rose and things like that grow in here as well as raspberry and it's very thick and very cumbersome to get through especially in the summertime in winter it's not too bad you can avoid areas that are really thick like this but in the summertime that's hard to avoid for me that's an advantage in a lot of ways because it allows me to test a lot of different tools and tool methodology and I think that tools are one of those things that a lot of people misunderstand as well and there's a lot of you know this is better than that out there and again I go back to the tool that you have is generally going to be the best tool for you when you need it if it's an emergency but on a day to day basis when you are out scouting trekking through the woods on an overnight camp whatever the case may be we all have preferences and tools that we carry and I want to talk about three different tools today that are about the same size I want to talk about an 18-inch hunters axe from grants Brooks a 17 inch tomahawk with an equal poundage of head - an axe from H and B Forge and then I want to talk about the new Jeff white forest tool that has not been released yet that I'm developing as a longer chopping style knife for environments like I'm in right now and I think the advantage of the longer knife in the summertime here not necessarily a machete but a knife something that's at least an eighth of an inch thick made of 1095 with a very long blade is a big advantage in the summertime in this environment now I think a tomahawk or an axe will do you very well in the winter time here and I carry an axe most of the time especially in the winter time but I'm starting to ten to use machetes more and machete type tools more in the summertime out here and I don't think I'm machetes quite heavy enough to be a three-season type tool out here I think a heavier knife would be better but I don't want something that is a quarter of an inch thick and twelve or fourteen inches long and is really too big to be a knife and too small to be a viable tool I want something that's dust lint that's bedroll length overall length of eighteen inches like an axe or tomahawk give you that reach but something that's got a heavy enough blade to do some work to clear trails to be able to cut kindlings and small smaller things as well and be able to do smaller tasks if I have to but be able to handle the big stuff as well I'm always going to have my belt knife so I don't have to worry about it being a one tool option if that's what you want to call it but I want to have something that is capable of doing chores that I would want a larger tool for and much more the environment that I'm operating in I think that's an important factor in any tool selection is does it match the environment that you're operating in and going against a standard is what I really think about most of the time how can I make this that's the practice standard of survival and bushcraft and wood craft a better option for me for where I live in the environment that I operate in I have four thousand acres behind me that I know like the back of my hand and I travel it quite often I trap it I hunt it I fish it and I hike it but that doesn't mean that I'm never going to get stuck out there from twisting an ankle or something like that that keeps me there overnight when I didn't plan on so I still have to have those type implements with me and I also like to use that four thousand acre classroom or laboratory as an experimental place to test all different types of methods and tools of survival bushcraft and wood craft so that I can give you better information on what works in this environment and what works for me may not work for you but I want to look at those three tools today in a couple different applications in my environment and tell you my sentiments of those three tools there adjust in disadvantages stay with okay so you can see this is a pretty thick area right here to try to break trail through and there's a lot of heavier branches in here an axe would be very difficult to get any kind of a swing in here at all to cut branches a long cutting blade that you can just make short chops with it's going to do you a lot more good in an area like this so I have a maple cut down here got some pretty stout limbs on it let's take a look at the lemming abilities of these tools remember that any kind of you are swinging a tool you're taking a chance on an accident so one of the things that I like to practice a lot it is using a mallet in conjunction with the tool because I can then come in on the limb that I want trimmed and use a mallet and I don't take any chance of this tool hitting me if the tool is designed to be baton or designed to be used in conjunction with a mallet it's always going to be a safer tool we've got the ability to do finer chopping to process things down if we need to and get finer materials for our fire no problem an axe gives us good advantage for them we can also choke up on the axe and get finer shavings as well just like this which also is great advantage of a smaller axe and a tool like this has a lot of advantages the biggest disadvantage to a tool like this is if you live in an area where you're going to have to break low brush and bushes to get through an area this is not going to be a very good tool for that as far as processing wood goes you'll never hear me argue that an axe is the king so let's look at a tomahawk for a minute because the tomahawk should not be a whole lot different than an axe the difference is it's a multifunctional tool a little bit more than an axe and to me the entire precedence of a tomahawk is that the handle goes in from the top and there's no wedge holding it in place so the handle should be much easier to replace in the wild if needs be where an axe handle goes up through the bottom and is held in by a wedge this goes into the top and it's held by friction as long as you get a decent blade and you keep it good and sharp you should have lots of advantages with this over an axe in some cases and if you look at these two tools they're about the same size the head's a little heavier on this than it is on this H&B but you can get the same type chopping abilities from this at tomahawk that you can from an axe easy enough so being able to remove this tool from the handle gives you advantages of having an extra hand tool that you can use for scraping or processing highs for skinning tasks and fine cutting tasks and things like that that you might not have with an axe if it were the only tool you had because if you have your belt knife you should need to do all that with this it should all be able to be done with your belt knife most of the time and you would never need to necessarily remove that handle but if you got saddled with this you didn't have anything else then that would be a distinct advantage of that tool a large knife like this one and again we're talking about a knife here we're not talking about a machete this is not spring steel and it's not you know a foot and a half two foot long as far as the blade length goes this is a 1095 eighth inch piece of metal so how does it do at the same type tasks that we would use our axe for not too bad i processed that down pretty quick and dirty it will process the wood pretty much with wood like this as good as an axe it's not going to process large pieces of wood as good as an axe but I can use this in conjunction with a baton almost like a fro and it will do a lot of the same things an actual do and the question becomes to me is how big of wood do I really need to process well that depends really on what I'm stuck with in the woods but to me as I've always said the reason I prefer a five-inch belt life is because I don't think I should ever have to process anything bigger than four inches in diameter especially in the short term so if I'm going to stay with smaller diameter stuff this tool is going to get the job done for me no question about it and I can do all right so let's look at these tools on a butt end piece of white oak this is just a chunk of crosscut white out from a firewood pile and it's got a lot of fiber in it so it's going to be difficult on a tool and we'll use a baton on this and we'll use it without a baton and we'll just look at how the tools act there's something I want you to think about you know every time I am splitting this wood unless I force myself to use a baton of ice every time I do this I'm taking a chance with an axe especially if I'm not experienced with this axe and I've only got it in my kit and I'm using it once in a while if I don't have any experience with an axe and I haven't practiced with it I really don't have any business using it in an emergency because an axe will hurt you bad

not a lot of work involved in this not a lot of danger involved in this especially if I'm tired if I'm cold if I'm wore out this is a lot less likely to slip out of my hand than an axe if I don't have gloves on I think a flat process a lot of firewood fast I have to tell you guys that I have stopped have started this video or done more takes at the end of this video than probably any video I've done for a long time and I'm trying to describe why I like this tool without offending anyone because it's so easy to do nowadays on YouTube but this is not a machete and it's not a tactical crowbar it's an eighth of an inch so it's thicker than a machete its 1095 so it's made out of a knife steel so it will hold a good edge and it will be robust but it is a design that I believe works really well in a machete that's been incorporated into a knife to be used in the Eastern woodlands and I'll leave it at that but to me a tool like this especially in the hands of someone with a little less experience using an axe would be much safer than having an axe for me because of the ability it gives to cut brush and things like that in the summer time and spring time it's going to be a fantastic tool for the area that I live in of the Eastern woodlands and it's very very easy to process firing one with this as well which makes it a bonus for me it has all the abilities of a multifunctional tool for me without being saddled into one thing most people look at the axe and they say that is for chopping down wood that is the norm yes you can do some fine carving and things like that with smaller axes or different shape taxes but the normal accent people carry through the woods really is used for chopping lumber and processing firewood this will do that task in passable fashion but it will also allow me to cut through thick heavy brush of the Eastern woodlands in the summer in springtime environments that I don't have that advantage of being able to do with an axe so it's a happy medium for me as a tool for the Eastern woodlands that I'm actually becoming pretty fond of I appreciate you guys joining me for this video I thank you for anything you do for our school for our family in for our business for all of our sponsors instructors affiliates and Friends and I'll be back with another video as soon as I can thanks guys