R&D of the Kephart Bedroll by Dave Canterbury and Duluth Pack

Description

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Tags: Dave Canterbury,The Pathfinder School,Bushcraft,Survival,Bedroll,Duluth Pack,Kephart,Horace,Shelter

Video Transcription

even good

back in the woods morning guys I'm Dave Canterbury the Pathfinder school out here at a primitive debris shelter that was built by the last basic primitives class that was out here and what I want to do today is I want to show you a product that I've been in research and development with Duluth pack company on for about the last six months and what it is basically there are similar products that have been talked about in video I actually did a video over a year ago about a raised bed basically called the poachers camp if you look at that video from about a year ago it's this very same concept and I saw that concept while I was in Asia and reading horse kept Bart's book camping and wood craft I have seen examples of the exact same type of setup by Horace Kephart used back in the early 1900s so I wanted to develop something very similar to that that would be a product that would become a bedroll as well as becoming a raised bed and also have the possibility to be used for a hammock if you wanted to use it that way so we're working on this product right now I think I've got a final prototype and I've had it for probably two weeks right now and I haven't shot a video on it yet but I brought it out to the woods today with me I set up a couple of tripods you'll see that in this video at the beginning and I use straight lash to set those tripods up to put this raised bed on you could also use a couple of logs that are notched out for your bed frame and I'll show you we'll talk about that when we set this bed up that's what Horace Kephart did the people in Asia usually just tie them to trees or put stakes in the ground over top of a log to hold them apart what we're going to do today is we're going to build tripods for them because as I continue with things showing you new wood crafting type skills like bindings and lashings like we did in the Roycroft pack frame I wanted to show you a straight lash and I use a straight lash today to make these tripods I also used a new camera today a POV type camera it's not a GoPro it's by weapons vision is the name of the company that makes it it's just a saloon Circle camera and it seems to work pretty good we'll see what the footage looks like when they get this video done and then I'll be the judge of that but I'm going to start messing with that camera a little bit too it's cheaper than a GoPro it's use high-definition footage at 30 frames per second so I've had a lot of guys ask me about cameras so I'm testing a couple different cameras out at the same time so I can give you guys even further information about how to shoot YouTube videos and things like that as well so stay with me we're going to get this these two tripods set up and get this bed going alright guys so we've got our two tripods that we lash together here we've got to pulse here approximately seven feet long and we have our bed rolled I've taken off my wool blanket and the way this thing works is basically you would roll your wool blanket inside of this bed roll and you have straps out here that actually buckle it down and then you could either attach that to a temp line if that's what you chose to do or stick it under the frame of a backpack like the bull pack frame or something like that and then when you open it up it's basically just a piece of real heavy canvas that has tubes on both sides almost like a stretcher very simple concept almost like the feedbags except you've got sleeves in there and very similar to what Horace Kephart describes in his writings so all we're going to do is we're going to put our balls through here set our tripods up between these three trees where we could stretch a tarp and then we'll test it out

put this thing on pretty solid ground it's not sliding around on us too much it's pretty much as simple as just feeding these saplings right through these tubes it should be long enough that they're sticking out a little bit on both ends and then we'll measure how far our tripods are apart move into where they need to be now give this one side pretty close we'll probably have to adjust this a little bit as we go okay guys so wouldn't let you know this is all about R&D so I think this is a little bit too wide as far this piece of canvas goes it was supposed to be three and a half feet by 7 feet which is about what Kephart called for in his book we may have added too much on the sleeves I wanted him to be at least 4 inch diameter in case somebody wanted an extra-large sapling in there depending on what they weighed and things like that but I think it's a little bit too wide so what I did was I rolled it up a little bit on one side over here and just diagonal lashed it so it couldn't come undone

I couldn't spin unroll so now what I've got is I've got that raised bed I've got a little bit of an angle down towards my feet and swallow the me up pretty good now that feels nice and comfortable there ain't no doubt I could sleep here I've got some clearance under the ground underneath me probably about that much what I would do in a situation of cold weather with this thing is I would probably stuff the whole bottom of this with leaves that way there's no convection issues like you get with a hammock I would just stuff a big bed of leaves underneath this and then I would sink myself in the leaves but I'm still up off the ground so I'm not getting a lot of moisture in like that stretch my tarp right over top of me yeah you could definitely sleep comfortable all night and this beyond the shadow of a doubt and it can stand to be maybe a little wider I couldn't took one roll out of this maybe but it's not bad the way it is for sure my shoulders are pretty wide but I'm pretty comfortable in here it's about like a hammock it just kind of swallows you up a little bit but it's definitely got plenty of length to it on both ends for me I'm only five foot eight so you know but it is seven feet long so it's got a few inches on each end feels pretty good I think that's a nice a nice option for a raised bed and it feels really comfortable okay so let's talk about another way that this piece of gear can be multi-purpose and that is because it's as wide as it is we can actually sleep on the ground in dry weather with just our wool blanket and we can use this for a tarp or a shade or cover so what I'm going to do is I'm going to tie just a piece of rope to one of these poles with just a clove hitch knot I'm going to shove that pole through one of those sleeves and when that's going to do for me is that's going to give me the ability to put this cordage through that sleeve so I'll just tie clove hitch and that real quick

shove it through the sleeve here like this right off the roll then when untie the other end I could pull that back out of there and I'll still have that piece of cordage sticking out the end give myself a little extra there and then all contree this stick out okay so I just strung that rope in between those two trees just exactly like I do pretty much with every other shopping video except I try to slip knot and release loop on the one side trucker stitch on the other now I'm going to take this pole and put it in the back side just like that beanpole I had cut and that will allow me to stretch that tarp out I've got a couple steaks cut right here and I'll just put these steaks in the corners just like this to hold this thing out tight and now I have a bit of shelter here that I could get under with my wool blanket that's going to be seven feet long so I'm going to have plenty of room and get under here and sleep and this will keep any rain off of me that would happen to come during the night okay so now what I've done is I've just ran those lines basically a rope line through both of those sleeves to make an impromptu quickie hammock now this thing is not going to be the most comfortable thing in the world it's definitely going to talk to you you could last a couple fork sticks together and put a spreader in here easy enough one on each end open that thing up like a lawn hammock at that point but it will work like this I got a bunch of equipment on here I'm trying to kill myself getting in but it's not too it's not too awful ugly like I said it is seven feet long so you got from your length and yes you're gonna be a side sleeper in this thing probably but it ain't bad for sure and if you're under a tarp or something like that you could definitely sleep like this without a doubt that's not to off ugly probably a lot harder to get out of than it is to get into it will be my guess but you could just shuffle your way to the bottom

stand up basically if you wanted to just like that and spread it back out before you got into it so it will definitely work as a quickie hammock if needed better for a raised bed but it will definitely work for that gives you some options and versatility of the piece of equipment okay guys well I'm Dave Canterbury the Pathfinder school appreciate you joining me today and this is basically the configuration that that bed rule is meant to be carried in it's got my wool blanket inside put a couple split rings on here or D rings on here and you've got yourself a tump line put a strap on there I've got one of the house for this more rd you know like I said I don't I could have released this product three weeks ago I could have turned Tom's egg on and said hey put on your site let's get rockin but until I test things like this and use them a little bit it's not good enough for me I've got axes I've got a condor Greenland axe that's been outside for ever since I shot the video on it probably five six months it hasn't never went in the house and until that thing falls apart then I'll know how long it's going to last we use it every class we beat the crap out of it you know I've got a bushel or condo a bushel or same story outside all the time my tarp that's set up if you remember when I did the canoe video of doing a canoe camp I had a Duluth trail tarp on that canoe it has never come off of there rain sleet snow winter summer fall it stayed on there I have never taken it in the house I want to put it on there leave it there until it falls apart I want to know how much weather and rain and wind and all that stuff it can stand so when we do R&D work we do it because we want to sell bulletproof products even if they're more expensive products like Duluth pack company but everything they make is guaranteed for life just like this bed roll will be when it's finished so I got a little more R&D to do on this before it's going to be released for sale but it should be within the next couple months it should be out on Toulouse website with a link on our website I appreciate you guys joining for this video I thank you for your support I thank you for anything you do for me for my school for my family for all my Pathfinder affiliates and friends and I'll be back another video as soon as I can guys thanks you