Neck Knife to Carry or Not to Carry

Description

http://www.selfrelianceoutfitters.com

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 guys I'm Dave Canterbury with self-reliance Outfitters in the Pathfinder school I had a buddy of mine a maritime spook asked me to shoot this video and probably is a video I should have shot awhile ago anyway because there seems to be a lot of confusion on my viewpoints lots of people seem to take what I say very literally in videos sometimes even when I'm stating an opinion but that's beside the point so the question was is to carry or not carry a neck knife or to put a knife around your neck or not wear a knife around your neck and really to me that's a very subjective question I choose not to do it while I'm walking through the woods and the reason for that really is just because anything hanging off your body seems to get hung up on every briar bramble and everything that you walk through it's the same reason I don't like to have a bunch of junk on my knife sheath like feral rods and things like that when I'm walking through the woods because I don't like things catching on things I like narrow backpacks because in Eastern woodlands we have very thick underbrush anything that you've got hanging off your body even your hat my hat gets caught on briars and brambles ripped off my head more times than I can count a lot of times so anything I can do to minimize that I'd like to do now you could say well you can just tuck that knife and we'll just use we'll just use the knife that I've got on here today we're going to talk about and the reason I chose this knife is just for the adaptability purposes of being able to show you some things is the companion HD by Moore and right this is really one of their most underrated knives I think and again it's the companion HD model it's not the normal companion it's got a thicker spine than the regular model does and you know while we're on this video about hanging knives around your neck I really think that these more sheets are very underrated as well a lot of people try to put these things in kayaks and leather and I just love Moore's plastic sheets so for sure adaptability I just went from having a dangler loop on this thing and we'll talk about that in just a minute

now I can just snap that thing around my neck now you could say that you know if you want to avoid this thing hanging up on stuff you can just stick it inside your shirt and you could absolutely do that the reason I don't do that and sometimes I overanalyze things is because now I've got moisture inside that I'm working away from my body when I'm sweating and walking that is going to collect on that knife one way or another whether you've got it in kayaks whether you've got it in leather or whether you've got it in plastic with a drain hole it's going to collect moisture over time which just means more maintenance for carbon steel life so I don't like to just tuck it inside now when I'm working around camp if I'm sitting and I'm not moving through the woods and things like that I wear a neck knife quite a bit of the time

just because of ease of getting at the knife to be able to do find work and put it back in the sheath when I'm not using it so I don't have to worry about fishing around trying to get it in and out of a belt sheath if I'm doing a lot of work with the knife that requires put picking it up putting it down picking it up putting it down and I want a safe place to keep that knife that's a great reason to carry a neck knife and again I think it's more environmental and there's no wrong choice there if I were walking through a snow-covered area without a bunch of thick underbrush and things like that the chance of this getting hung up on anything or nil but again if it's around your neck it's swinging around so the solution to that goes back to sticking it inside your shirt which goes right back to what I talked about about the knife collecting moisture especially if it's a high carbon steel blade which I try to avoid at all costs again because less maintenance so do I think there's something wrong with carrying a knife around your neck no do I choose to do it not unless I'm in a camp environment where I'm not walking around and exerting myself or have a chance on it catching something in the woods then I'll carry it around my neck and it's very easily adaptable for that purpose and that's why I like these more she's so well because they're so adaptable so now let's talk real quick about a couple other things you know one thing that you can do with this knife it's got this hole in the back of it and some people don't even realize what that's for and that's okay but that hole is made to go over a button so if you're wearing a jacket like this hasta that's got that button on it you can put that sheath right on there and snap it down on it and you can have your knife right there around camp instead of having to worry around your neck if you choose to do so it's easy enough just to pull it off your belt snap it up there while you're using it and fiddling with things and then put it back on your belt when you're done and snap it off of there put it back on your belt when you're done if you prefer a dangler it's very easy just to put a loop of paracord inside this thing and now you've got a dangler and I do that a lot of times but I don't necessarily carry it as a dangler and I'll show you what I do a lot of times here in a minute but the adaptability of the sheath to me makes it a great option and the fact that it's very very durable over time I saw a video that a guy put out a few years ago and it's been a few years since I saw the video so I can't give the guy credit but he was talking about different ways that he carries the companion and I think that it's a good thing to look at if you can find the video because he also talked about you know taking a bigger loop and put it over your shoulder and hanging that thing on there like a baldric type rig and I think that's probably a good idea too the good thing about this is the adaptability of the sheath so let's get back down here and I'll get the camera down on my belt we'll talk about a couple different belt carry options or gene or pocket carry options as well with this knife okay so if I want to just have a dangler loop I can just put that thing through the loop that I created with a piece of paracord on my belt just like that the other thing that that loop affords for me because I'm not a real big fan of the dangler carry because I don't like things flopping around like I said before I'm not a big fan of having things flopping around that might get caught on things when I'm walking through brush but what I can do with this because I've got this Dengler loop right at pocket level is I can also take and hook this thing right in my pocket just like this so it's not flopping around but if for some reason it were to come out of my pocket which it would be pretty difficult to make that happen because of the way the sheath is built but if it were to come out it's not gonna fall off in the woods somewhere because it's still connected to my belt so that's a good option now you can also just put that thing right down on your pocket if you want to just like that and hook it on you can hook it directly to a pocket and on a pair of jeans you really kind of have two options you can hook it to the lower pocket so it's a lower carry or you can pick that thing up and put it in that little mini pocket right there just like this for a little bit higher carry if that's what you wanted to do like this or you can move it up onto the belt if that's what you chose to do so you really have three different height levels that you can adjust that sheath to very very easily on a pair of jeans and that's one of the things that I find really great about this sheath as well as its adaptability to be able to be carried so many different ways I really like that again that's about my favorite way to carry it right there is with that dangler loop attached to my belt and the actual knife stuck into the pocket and you could also go down into a cargo pocket if you wanted to if you have a pair of carpenter jeans on like this you can put that knife clear down here but I generally carry my baccala planner there or one of my folding saws and carry the knife up here so there you go okay guys well that was just a quick video on my personal opinion about carrying a knife around your neck and again I don't think there's a wrong answer I think everything is what you're comfortable with doing and your rationale for doing what you do it's just like everything else in bushcraft there's really nothing new that's been reinvented and there's really nothing that's wrong if it works for you that's what the key is this whole thing with bushcraft is what works best for you now what I can tell you is as far as neck knife carry and woodsman of America I can find no real reference other than possibly in historic photographs of Native American people's having some type of small knife around their neck but as far as American woodsman go from writers all the way back from nesic to Hyatt Verrill to Horace Kephart and all through the lineup to Ellsworth Jaeger I really can't find a reference to them carrying a neck knife of any kind now if somebody's found that reference I'm sure they're gonna correct me on this video but I can't find those references in those books to the rationale or the reasoning or them saying hey it's a great idea to carry a neck knife guys like more ski hang ski have carried neck knives for years and I think that's great but again what I look at with Moors is he's a very very smart guy that guy knows has probably forgotten more than I'll ever know and so when I look at it I look at everything in context most of the time when I see Morse having a neck knife on he's in camp he's seated in camp he's working with something I've never heard him say hey I'm gonna take this neck knife and go walk you know 10k through the woods with this thing flopping around my neck you know stuffing it in my shirt to do the same thing I don't know that he wouldn't do that but again that's a personal choice I think and there's no right or wrong there and I think that understanding that is the biggest part of understanding what we do in bushcraft is that there's really no right or wrong answers there's just different ways of doing things and as long as the way you do it works for you then it's fine the other thing I would say would probably a good idea if you're gonna carry a neck knife configuration of some sort would be to especially we gonna carry it away from camp and over distance would be instead of putting a knot in the cord put some kind of a liner or some kind of a cord lock on this thing that could slip off if the thing we're really to get hung up on something hard and you couldn't get off of it or you to fall when it was caught on a branch or something like that it would break away before you hit the ground or before you put a big ligature mark on the side of your neck because that could be dangerous as well but I don't think I worry about that near as much as I would worry about the thing flopping around hanging up on brush when I'm walking through things and getting hung up like that that's my main concern along with the maintance factor of sticking it inside my shirt when I am exercising or trucking and things like that that I'm gonna build up sweat so anyway just a couple personal opinions take it for what it's worth I appreciate your views I appreciate your support I thank you for everything you do for a school for a family for a business for all of our sponsors instructors affiliates and Friends I'll be back to another video as soon as I can thanks guys