Feather Sticks 101 | How to Make Feather Sticks

Description

Feather Sticks or Fuzz Sticks? Two names. One purpose. Feather sticks are used in order to aid in fire making during wet conditions, and they are also a great way to practice bushcraft knife control. Krik of Black Owl Outdoors creates feather sticks with 4 different knives with 4 different grinds: a convex grind, a saber grind, a Scandinavian grind, and a full flat grind.

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Owl Creek Handmade - http://owlcreekhandmade.etsy.com

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Tags: Black Owl Outdoors,Outdoor Skills,Outdoor Gear,Outdoor Films,Bushcraft,Woodcraft,Wilderness,Sustainable,Self-Sufficient,Nature,Backcountry,Camping,Hiking,Trekking,Self-Reliance,Feather Sticks,Fuzz Sticks,Fire,Fire Craft,Knives,Knife,Skills,Wet Weather,How-to (Website Category),Fun

Video Transcription

hey what's up Turtles Creek here with blackout outdoors today I wanted to do a video explaining some in depth knowledge about feather sticks what they are how to use them and how to make them but before we get into the actual feather sticks you've got to back up and talk about the tool we're going to use to make the feather stick and that's going to be a knife actually I'll probably use all these knives in this video you can use an axe any sharp edge will work but I have knives out with me today first I want to talk about this knife this is the bark River I forget exactly its model name excuse me we've done a video on it you can search our channel for this knife specifically but why I chose to bring this one was because of its grind this is a convex grind and the reason why we have these four knives out in front of me is are all different types of grind to show you can do a feather stick with multiple types of grind so right here we got a convex grind moving over to this knife did not do a video on this knife yet had it for about a month this is the BHK Brumby picked it up at a show this knife I'm sure I don't think it's being made I don't think ever really was a production knife from BHK everyone they were blind or snobs but this has a saber grind why I chose to bring this knife out has a saber grind on this next to that is the Mora companion Scandi grind on that use mores a lot and you like the Scandi grind and finally Riccio this is a c4 with a full flat grind and like I said you can you do a feather stick with any of these types of grinds but what's more important in the grind type is the knife needs to be very sharp because when you're making a feather stick it's light pressure but that only works if your knife is very sharp so these are the four types of grinds we have with us today and from this point on I'm going to start actually producing the feather stick and talk a little bit more about when it comes in handy and how and when I use use a feather stick here's a piece of wood going to be using to do some feather sticks and produce some kindling for our fire today I'm going to get a little bit of a fire going just to show that's all working in concert with each other this is low underfoot standard measurement and it's a piece of tool pop there's a little bit of green towards the center of this that's okay I've used this before and I know it will work for feather sticks and just you know hope get a fire going in general so a few things that's going to happen when we're going to actually baton this piece of wood down we're doing a couple things if this woods really wet we're going to be exposing the inner wood which most likely will be dry which will give us dry wood to create our feather sticks with and like I said already we'll be producing some kindling for our fire so we're doing a lot of different things just with producing this MA this might be a little too green like a green that is but you know we're going to try it we're going to try it and see how it fares I want to keep producing or yeah producing some kindling cutting this down now they want to switch between knives and just show you all these grinds how they will work or so this is pretty green in there we're going to see doing experiment together all right doesn't want to split and leave it where it is toss that down and ground for now we'll keep that as kindling and your some of this for some feather sticks just one more okay cool now I'm going to start actually creating some feather sticks with this piece of wood now like I said because this is green inside here and I can see you can see the coloration to where this is more dead and dry this light color wood on the outside I'm going to keep my feather stick I'm a star on the outside as opposed to from the inside because this is green a few things to keep in mind when you're going to be doing a feather stick if you're not really comfortable with carving an optimal experience is that you really want sort of a flat plane if anything look for your a flat plane or you can use one that sort of dips down you can see there's a slight dip indentation right here with the wood and that would be okay because what I can do is just come in and carve in that depression if I try to start on a hump and it's slight it's very slight but if I try to start on a hump what will happen I'll start my feathers take another knife because this area is lower it's just going to keep it's just going to basically knock the feather off I'm not going to have a continuation with that cut so if anything try to find it flat or find the sort of impression depression if you will spot on the piece of wood they are going to be doing I'm probably start my cut here and work my way down this way I'm going to start this flat grind first thing before start cutting is a few things to keep in mind if I tilt my knife this way the curl is going to go one way it's going to come back this way if I tilt it this way it's going to kick it out that way if I go perpendicular to the piece of wood it's going to curl right on top of itself with that being said I'm going to sort of turn my body sideways sort of lock my arm from the shoulder not hyperextend my elbow joint but sort of lock my arm and generate the force from my shoulder and start the cut and usually when you first start you're going to have to do a couple passes to get a ridge to sort of clear yourself for working space and basically what a ridge is is now that I've gone once flat this the exposed wood I just cut there's a ridge on this side that the tips vary running on and there's a ridge on this side and I want to work with those ridges so my next cut pay attention to here the tip of the knife is tracing I'm going to focus on that and work that now I've create another Ridge and I can go here that can work come over this way and work on this Ridge if I want kick the knife up this way and it'll push it out the other way and it's basically what's comfortable for you if you already hold the knife like this this way or down I really don't prefer this way too much but some people do you just have to practice and see what works for you nice big slicing motion like I said this knife is sharp very sharp and if you do this correctly with enough light pressure you can actually get curls that will take a spark that's a full flat grind I'm going to switch now to something else switch into the Scandi grind look at this really nice pronounced corner if I go really slow which makes it more difficult if you go slow but you can sort of see light pressure like pressure light pressure sort of jumped off a little bit and I'm making this way more difficult on myself why well because I'm trying to talk and explain it the whole time while I'm doing it see I'm not really getting curls on this like I initially was a few reasons for that one lost my concentration to didn't have the best Ridge and three there might be a three in there but I'll leave that for another day oh yeah the third one I switch knives switch grind types there's always that little bit of a curve when you pick up a knife for the first time if you have you use in a while to figure out the geometry again the angle how it likes to be used all that stuff see else I'll go really slow can't see it from that angle definitely not my prettiest attempt to add a feather stick but nonetheless it will be useful I keep working with this and maybe get a fresh piece of wood for the last two knives I'm going to stop talking and just concentrate on doing this now

definitely definitely not my best attempt at a feather stick I'd like a little bit more beef to it if you will a little bit more wood but that being said that's got another piece of wood and we'll make some more and try out these other grind types eventually I'm just going to make one without talking to see how I really can do but now switch to the saber grind and I'm just switching these knives just to show that you can make these for once the fall off there's a few reasons why that'll happen one you're not getting a level sort of cutting field or you're just continuing your cut too much condition of the wood really matters a lot to what I mean by that well what's the moisture content how long has it been dead is it seasoned has it been standing dead for 20 years and it's super-hard now all that comes into play with the quality of the feather stick I'm just going to keep practicing I'm getting that green wood right now probably just stop again not a great attempt usable absolutely as pretty is as effective as other ones I've made in the past no definitely not but I'm going to finish one out maybe get another one finished with that convex grind

this is the last knife and be using today this is the convex grind and try to make a really nice wine and make some few few curls at the end excuse me that will take take a spark for my Ferro rod man this is just biting so much more really made it difficult myself a changing knives but I'm not only getting curls

what I want to do this wasn't the best choice of wood for this I can just tell the way it's reacting to the knives doesn't really want to it's not really cutting like a more dried wood I expect I mean not really getting hardly any curls with this convex but I have before go check out the video on this knife this bark River specifically and you'll see a feather stick I did on there and just try straight not happy with this one at all I'm doing it on camera let me switch to scan D see if I can get some little nicer curls with this ya see that instantly my ridges are pretty jacked up at this point I'm on a goofy situation too trying to get a nice frame for the camera not completely comfortable that is ugly I thought I was good at feather sticks change position got a little better angle stop caring about the camera this is all Greenwood now probably not going to take a spark but I think that would be enough to get a fire going yeah think so before I do this I want to try just get some really really really small light very thin curls try to take from a feather stick to take a spark these are the type of curls I've been after the whole time usually what my feather sticks look like I just was feeling a little goofy on camera talking too much Oh crack always talking too much yep third-person referenced do one or two more of these little curls like light feathers and then we're going to the fireplace and use all this and show how it works all right so I have everything at the fire I need right here is are the small curls I'm going to shower with sparks to get the initial flame ideally this is what all I wanted all my bigger feather sticks to be these type of curls just in a ball basically that fit in size my hand but it doesn't always go as planned now in the wood condition had something to do with that I believe here I have a three janky looking feather stick so I'm basically just going to put on top of this very lightly and sort of manipulate it as this fire gets going then I have twig bundles I'm going to add on top of the feather sticks or in a teepee fashion build this fire up and then I have last but not least sort of some kindling that I'm going to put on top of the twigs in system stuff stuff we baton down now there's a few ways you can mess with this you can sort of get this down in the feathers and sort of scrape like this I've done that sometimes you end up destroying your feathers because they're delicate and kind of grinding right into them doesn't work but I like these soft fire steels or not fire steels fair rods because I can just shower from a distance we're inside that way nope

well kind of got lower resolve it overzealous with it but we'll be alright as you saw when I started adding my twigs towards the end of my twig addition I sort of got a little rushed if you will drank some caffeinated coffee while been out here stay warm don't drink it that often got a little jacked up which is okay but you can see this fire still got going well enough prices slowed down a little bit but that's basically all there is to it if you have any questions any techniques I didn't go over that you're curious about or issues you've had creating feather sticks or getting them to light anything like that let me know leave a comment let me know your impressions of the video did you enjoy this video things you did didn't like you know just let me know leave a comment trying to create videos and create content that you find enjoyable that you want to see let me know this is Craig signing out with black outdoors later Turtles