Basic Carving Kit

Description

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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 self-reliance outfitters in the pathfinder school we're getting ready to embark on a new DVD series on basic spoon carving techniques and it will be sold with a kit on the srl website eventually but for now I'm shooting the segments of the DVD that's going to take me a few weeks to get that done most likely but I thought that as I go through the DVD I would include some of the segments here on YouTube for you guys as well so stay with me we're going to get started and the good thing about learning to carve spoons is it gives you the immediate gratification of a project that you can start and finish very quickly it also teaches you how to understand the qualities of different species of wood and how the grain acts when you're carving and cutting that wood it teaches you basic green woodworking skills that transfer over to more complicated projects so carving spoons is one of the most rudimentary and beginning type projects that I teach students when it comes to carving and making things from the landscape okay the first thing we need to talk about when it comes to simple carving projects is the tools needed to affect the project and the great thing about green woodworking is it's very simple it doesn't take a lot of tools to make great projects to make simple things like camp utensils spoons spreaders spatulas things like that take only three to four tools to be able to make that happen

and if you add a couple extra little specialty tools in there it makes it a breeze and you don't have to sink a lot of money into a karlie kit you can build it as you go you can do it to begin with on a budget very easily okay so let's first discuss the tools that we need to affect these projects well one thing that you're going to want is you're going to want a knife that's capable of doing some fine carving type work and you can get away with a three and a half to four inch blade like this Mora classic has on it here and it will do fine carving work for you no problem you can get a lot of projects done with a simple knife like this that's a very inexpensive

you can also go to the extent of getting a specified carving type knife or a slide type knife and this is a very simple Mora

that's called their basic wood carving knife and this knife retails for less than $15 so it's got a plastic handle on it's got a plastic sheath like the more 511 I think it used to be that was like this with the plastic handle but it's a very very small very sharp very thin blade and that's really the key to carving is how wide that blade is and how long it's going to stay sharp this has got a very fine tip on it so that you can get tucked into small areas for carving it's not very thick so it takes off nice long shavings without pulling itself out of the wood and all of those things are very important but you don't have to spend a lot of money on a carving knife the knife that I use the majority of the time for most of my fine carving work there's nothing more than a wooden handled version of that same knife that I've trimmed up and made a little bit more personal for me and more comfortable in my hand but it works exactly the same and is pretty much exactly the same knife as this one blade wise it just has a different handle and it's a little bit more expensive but if you're really trying to get into this quick and cheap this is the way to go again any good sharp Scandinavian grind knife will work for you for our Carbonite even a pocket knife will work fine what you want to remember is the blade width and the blade thickness those things are important when it comes to a carving blade okay so the next tool that we want to discuss is the hook knife and the hook knife is just a curved blade that's made for removing wood and cutting across the grain in a concavity so that you can make that spoon bowl or create that bowl of that cook's ax or that deeper ladle that you're making and they come in left and right-handed and you can spend a little bit of money on them or you can spend a lot of money on them my suggestion to you is starting out and get yourself a simple Mora in either left or right handed depending on what you're comfortable with and learn how to you

that one tool to do lots and lots of things it's very much like your belt knife the more you learn to do with that one tool the better off you're going to be and you can get a whole lot done with this one simple hook knife now you can also get these hook knives by a company name file and these are easily available on the Internet as well and these run about forty five dollars they come in a little bit different pattern than the more of up knife and this one is a left-handed knife that's made for just pulling material out of the concavity of a bowl cutting across the grain very simply just like this it's a pretty dry piece of wood but you can understand how those knives are meant to be used now if you get a little more experience under your belt you want to try something a little higher end a little different Ben Orford makes a great hook knife or what he calls a muck Haagen as well and this one is a market tagging which is really meant to be held with a reverse grip and pulled towards you but it can be used in lots and lots of ways very similar to a spoon knife I can hold this thing in my hand this direction and sweep with it exactly like I was doing the other blade and sweep material out coming across the grain just like that and it works just fine for that again maybe this is a more versatile tool in the long run because of the different grips that you can use you can use a left or right hand I can use as a push knife this way I can use as a draw knife this way I can use it for carving the conch cavities and spoons like this so this is a very versatile tool but it costs quite a bit more money than a simple Mora tool does so again starting out start simple start cheap get used to the tool that you have get used to the versatility of that tool and then as you decide to upgrade or as you can afford to upgrade you can do that alright so the next tool that you're probably going to want is a simple gouge and a gouge is not something that's necessary but it can either accompany the hook knife or in some cases replace the hook knife and maybe easier for you to find at a yard sale rummage sale at flea market this is a grizzly gal just a three-quarter inch Japanese gouge and it came off Amazon and they're only about 25 bucks so that's pretty cheap for a gouge and this gouge could be used with a pole lathe which we've shown in other videos as well as being used for carving concavities and spoon bowls and things like that alright so this is a Swiss gouge and it can be used exactly the same way it can be used as a hand tool for cutting it across the grain to remove material from the bowl it can also be used in conjunction with a mallet to remove more mass amounts of material to waste away material quickly and it could also be used with a pole aid as well so you have the same advantages the cost differential is about double something like this is about $60 where this one is about 30 now the main difference with these two as well as far as different types of gouges is that when you buy these gouges like this off of Amazon you're pretty much limited to one sweep in different widths and the sweep is the depth of that gouge the depth of that curve is to sweep and you can see this one is a number 9 sweep 25 millimeter gouge whereas this one's just listed as a 3/4 inch gouge so if you want to buy different sweeps or different depths for different types of cutting different angles on the head and things like that on the cutting blade you're going to have to go to a more expensive type gouge but if you're looking for a simple starter tool this one will do the trick for sure ok so let's talk about the axe for a minute because the axe is going to be one of the main tools you're going to need to harvest the materials to begin with your action or saw are going to be very important components of your kit again you don't necessarily have to spend a lot of money you can go out and buy any old hatchet from a yard sale and it will work it's not going to give you the best results but it will work and the longer you use the tool the better results you're going to get with the tool if you repro file a tool it's going to give you better results now let's talk about that for now I've got two axes here that I use quite often one of them is a hELCO and this hELCO Rheinland hatchet I believe is called has got a nice wide bit what you want to look at for a carving axe is you want to look at this cheek thickness right here if you're trying to do only hewing with it you may want a single bevel I prefer a double bevel so it's a more utilitarian type axe and the thinner it is here in the bit the better it's going to carve for you I like the wide curve and the wide bit on this he'll he'll hatchet this is a very good German design carving hatchet it's not real overly expensive it's not going to be a yard sale axe by any means but it would last you a lifetime and it's great for carving so that's one of the axes that I prefer again you don't have to go out and spend a lot of money on an actor off the bat get what you can afford and then work your way up you know upgrade or high-grade as you can now my most preferred axe probably right now is a cut-down Holtz Brooks akka and this was cut down to a better length for me for a carving axe it's got less than a two pound head on it's got about a pound and a half head on it which I really like that weight for carving it also has more of a carpenter style bit where it has a gentle curve and a little bit of flare up here above the eye and I like that really well this is a great utilitarian access akka to begin with but once I cut it down to give myself that right length and good throw without anything getting in my way or hitting my clothes when I'm carving with it I found what I consider to be one of the most perfect carving axes out there and I've always been a big grants for this Brooks guy and I like this axe as well or better than any grants firs Brooks carving axe I've ever used so that says a lot for this tool now again thickness grind this has got a nice scandi type grind on it it's got nice thin bit on the front of it head less than two pounds it's not going to wear your arm out when you're trying to carve wood you may want a bigger axe that you can use for splitting and things like that but this actual do that job is well for you or you could get a fro but we don't need to get that complicated in the beginning because we're only going to be splitting branches down about three three inches maybe four inches in diameter to make these spoons utilitarian type tools so any hatchet will work for you but there are certain patterns and design that give you better functionality of that axe over the long haul so don't get too hung up on it right away like I said get what you can afford use that get good at using that tool and then high-grade as you go okay so the last thing that you're going to want your kit for a basic tool kit for carving these are going to want some type of a saw and I'm not talking about a bucking saw or a large saw for cutting down the trees to begin with I'm talking about a fine woodworking saw that you can use to make stop cuts in your material to keep them splitting it out when you're wasting away with your axe now the finer tooth pattern a saw has the better off it's going to be and probably the most aggressive saw that I would choose to use would be the bahco laplander

I've used this saw for years and years and years and I trust it I've never broken one of these saws the tooth pattern is a little bit aggressive for this type of work but it will do the job so again if you're looking for one all-around type tool to buy that's going to be multifunctional for you a bahco laplander is probably the way to go and you can use just a tenon saw or a dovetail saw for that matter and it'll work great but it's a little bit tough to carry in your kit you can buy these smaller lighter Japanese saws and they work great as well again this is something like this a little difficult to carry in kit but you can also buy these larger silky type saws and I'm not a big fan of silky saws when it comes to bushcrafting but this type saw that's made for fine woodworking is a great sauce got a really really fine tooth pattern on it I'm not going to abuse this thing and beat on it I'm just going to use this thing for making fine stop cuts with

it does fold it into the handle which makes it very convenient to put in a kit so there's lots and lots of saws on the market again you know the price differential is pretty tremendous between a bahco laplander and something like this saw that's made by silky that's made for woodworking there's about a double price difference there this one's about 25 bucks this one's about 70 bucks so get what you can afford

get good with what you've got and again high grade as you go all right so just a few last-minute thoughts real quick on this stuff don't get hung up again on cost price or brand get hung up on what you need that tool to do for you and what the characteristics are of that tool that are going to make it a good tool so when you're talking about your knife that you're going to use to carve with will your bushcraft knife work absolutely it will you can do double duty with that thing but it's not going to do the finite carving that a blade that doesn't have a lot of width and doesn't have a lot of thickness will do for you and has a good Scandinavian growing like a carving style knife so think about that when it comes to your tools like your hook knife in your gouge gouges are great but really if you don't have a way to lock the material in place gougers can be a pain and they can be unsafe whereas that hook knife is always going to be in your hand and you're always manipulating it with your hand and holding the material with your other hand that's important to remember as well so if you have to choose between one of the two go with the hook knife if you don't have a way to hold the material down in the woods when it comes to your axe again you don't have to spend a lot of money necessarily but get a good quality axe that's got a good grind on it already well you're going to have to spend some time reprofiling that action there's nothing wrong with that either if you want to put some elbow grease into it and then with your saw just get yourself a good quality saw that's got a fairly fine tooth pattern so that when you're making those cuts you're not taking a bunch of chips and splinters out of the face that could be a finished face when you're done or could split it out so bad that you can't use that piece of material and you have to start all over I'm Dave Canterbury with self-reliance authors in the Pathfinder school I appreciate you joining for this quick video on the basic tools for carving I appreciate your views in your support I thank you very thing you do for a school for a family for a business all of our sponsors and structures affiliates and Friends I'll be back then to the video as soon as I can thanks guys