Bushcraft Instructionals: Shemagh and Tomahawk Outing

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In this video, I show another use for the shemagh, and after putting my hawk through some work, I show sharpening it. Some Basswood bark processing as well.

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Tags: Bushcraft,tomahawk,fire,shemagh

Video Transcription

well this is the time of year for mushrooms that's for sure the size of that then I wish I knew more about my mushroom IDs I'll be a meal but not going to chance it's been a while guys since I've been over the woods in my last video was in June my buddy Carl came over so I've been been waiting to do this video for a while couldn't almost fall now although it's unseasonally warm the dogs panting like crazy it's a nice day minimal mosquito is minimal spider webs there's more time for me to be back in the bush today I got a couple new things this shemagh I've never really carried one before I've been carrying it like a pack like a have a sack over my shoulder it's been actually walking around for a couple hours it's been pretty comfortable its sling it over like that tied it and corner to corner I'll show you guys that in a minute works really well I'm able to get quite a few things in here as well my cutting tool for today at roe hawk really useful piece of kit I had a couple questions about sharpening and maintaining and why I choose this it's not like I choose this all the time I actually rarely take this out but on days like today when I'm just going to walk around me to have a little fire to keep the mosquitoes away I'm not doing much this isn't cool to bring for me I didn't bring a knife today it's actually got a sandwich in it my water bottle dog leash an apple my dc4 I'm going to show you guys how to sharpen the tomahawk and just some stuff I was foraging some acorns and some rose hips so you can see like the water bottle alone weighs a pretty good amount all this together inside this Smaug is fine we didn't bother me at all we're in it so you can put a lot of things in there

my plan of action for today I just want to walk around the woods towards what I can grab some firewood maybe some more acorns see what I can get I want to come back here have a little fire mosquitos are starting to come out more oh yeah quite a bit more since I stopped moving so I have a little smoky fire my sandwich and just relax just enjoy the woods with my dog here's a good example of a tree I'd like to use which is a basswood tree is a dead one and it's a it's in good condition most basswood when they die they go to Punk real quick and this one still has good bark on it they grow in clumps there's two of them together here sometimes they can grow up up to like five six clumps all at once this is a really good tree I'm going to use the bark and I'll show you what for blombo you here I'm panting it's a lot more hot than I thought it would have been end of September so that's what I'm looking for the bar peels off in strips like that then we can use that for tender but it takes some processing still I've got that one piece of basswood bark that came off fairly easily

now what you really want to do is separate the ODA bark from the inner bark outer bark is tough and useless inner bark is very very fibrous once you rough it up some can be used for everything from tinder bundles to cordage to just straight tinder hitting it with a spark by itself before I mess with that I got this other piece of bass hood and if it doesn't just peel off like I showed you earlier you can kind of just work your way around with your fingers or your knife whatever use a tomahawk as well just kind of peel it down

okay and that's probably more than enough for what I need mosquitoes are starting to get me Scout took my bass would once again so we got our two pieces and really got it you got to kind of rough it up a bit I like the way it comes off in strips like that that tells me it's not very old not very long dead and it's still very tough so here's the intercept we're looking for here that's all the good stuff there there's a nice smell to it too very earthy

it kind of helps to break the odor pieces off when you rub it on the side of a spine your knife or your tomahawk and then you can just peel the other pieces off like that a little bit easier way of doing it this stuff is really tough it's good it's just I'm used to working with them a little bit easier to work with bachelor bats will bark this stuff a strong level I'm really starting to get swarmed here by mosquitoes so I'm gonna do the rest of the processing back at my little camp there where I have my water bottle in my sandwich left so I'm just going to throw my fast wood bark into it and I can rough it up when I get back to camp go off and find some wood but

it really bums me out when I find stuff like this in the woods I don't know what this is it looks like maybe a pool cover heavy-duty plastic with like bubble wrap stuff on it as much as it's ugly and intrusive in the woods I want to put it to use

I've decided to change camp spots for today where I was someone was coming in it was just making the camera have a real bad glare on it so no big deal I'm just going to set up here and this way I'll be able to show you another thing how I make a bench first I got to get this would process the smaller stuff is going to break off the bigger stuff I use the hop for me like this I've broken down as much as I can with my hands I'm use a hawk this is ash I'm using pretty dense wood let's go and now this would be L also dense wood here

Oh get a little amped up he hasn't been out in a while I'm never swinging towards myself it's always one way away along my knee just for safety sake trying to hit it in the same exact spot every time something like this is gonna be perfect for what I need I could chop into it but I think it's going to fall so I'm just going to make sure it's down before I work on I don't want to start chopping on and have it fall on me or on the dog I'm going to get my pump from the bottom it was where it was way more punky get a few pieces like that call it good I'm just making myself a chair here I've counted four states into the ground on the angle and I'm going to use that piece of garbage have blue piece of pool cover or whatever as my seat so I can actually use it as what I'm sitting on and to rest my back against lusco against the log so I'm not getting jabbed in the BOP it's actually quite comfortable in the woods it's nice to have something to rest your back on I got this fire going soon here's that Baskerville dinner bark I've already started to rub it up a little bit it looks a little bit more frayed but it still has a long way to go basically it's the most simple thing going you just rough it up in your hands maybe pull it apart a bit until you expose all the fibers if you've ever tried to take apart jute twine to use as a tinder bundle it's basically the same thing you can see all the stuff flying out in the air a little dust you just want to get as much surface area as possible lots of little lots of little let's go to get kneading by mosquitos - all around space there I'm all set to make my fire I'm going to strike my fire steel on the blade of my tomahawk I would never do this with my knife my tomahawk is a tool I don't mind putting in the dirt I don't want getting it dirty I don't mind chipping the edge because I can repair it easily it's a tool that in my mind is for that so basically the way I'm going to do it I'm gonna brace tomahawk and then pull go on scope pull the fire steel across it like that it's important to have your fire prepped up and ready to go before you even start to attempt this I've got all my fuel my kindling all that ready to go here goes nothing it caught one out keeps going out I might not have it fibrous enough we'll see good idea to flip it over so it gets all the surface area of it brace it lay your small twigs on you don't need to do any kind of fancy way I just toss them on all at once and then my next stage and I'll usually wait at this stage until it builds and gets a fire going before I add more

if you can pick it up on the camera but there's a ton of birds that just started making noise behind me it's gotta be hundreds of them it's one of the things I like about being out here you know it's being close to nature you don't see that kind of stuff or hear that kind of stuff in your backyard unless you're real lucky to live a rural area I'm gonna go try and sneak up and see if I can find those birds let's see if I can get them on film for you man they are loud

oh man they didn't like that those birds just stopped going crazy squawking whatever you want to call it and I never really understood the phrase that the silence was deafening well as soon as they stopped they all stopped at once and it was just like I went my ears were mute it was really crazy but I'm kind of glad they're gone ha ha ha so now that my fire has died down some just two coals and not not red-hot coals with ash over I'm gonna put my Punk on top I didn't want to burst into flames it is a little damp so it probably wouldn't happen anyways but I just wanted to wait a little while so I wouldn't burn it up because I want it to smolder I wanted to smoke as pot much as possible the player itself was smoking good but this is the point here using using the punk wood for smoking so we're going to let that sit for a little bit and it's going to start to smoke and I will probably blow on it a little bit just to get it going up first but hopefully it'll work for me now you can see it's starting to smoke a lot I might even take a smoke bath and get get all the smoke smell on me get rid of the mosquitos even more seeing is how I've used my tomahawk to split wood chopped down wood started my fire still mainly and dig into the dirt it does need to be sharpened I carry dc4 with me these DC pores are synonymous for falling breaking into pieces doesn't bother me one bit you can glue them back together I just left one as is there's two pieces rough side which is like a diamond hone and then the ceramic part nine times out of ten I don't have to use the diamond part there is a bar on it though from using the fire steel so I will do it all I really do is just circular right on the edge I have to use much force and just try to keep the same angle that's probably all I have to do with the diamond stone part of it and it's super sharp right now I just want to get the edge finer take the ceramic part same thing right on the edge this is why I don't mind using this tool the way I do it's like takes two seconds to get it back to the shaving edge really this is a cold steel trailhawk super cheap you can make handles for them yeah I think it's really sharp out last touch I've just hit it on my strop strop goes into the same little kit that I keep my DC foreign stops a little bit different I don't do a circular motion just go away from the edge stupid sharp

yeah

well that's how you maintain it as simple as that they're good for throwing too it's real fun once you get your pace off you get one rotation you can almost stick it every time be prepared to make a handle though if you're gonna throw it because they do break I have had this one that's the original handle I've had it for years has been going fine so it's a testament for a cheap tool I told you I'd show you how I made that have a sack with the shemagh just getting ready to leave here so I'm going to tie this up and get out of here basically smog big bandana this is the first I've ever used when I picked it up a couple days ago so anyways you got it open they take two opposite corners

time together I do just to overhand knots try not to use too much material because you lose that much more to alright so then you kind of just hold it back right side in instead of it being inside out alright what I do is I sling it over my shoulder to where I'm going to wear it I take the outside corner I just tie it up here as high as I can that way you don't have a hole in the back just a one overhand knot up here okay so that's on then I take it off I flip it around I'm sure there's a better way of doing it but I can't figure it out take it off flip it around that way I have a full pocket here this is my flat

okay then I'm just going to end up tucking in so my full pocket here get all my gear my water bottle sandwich container my share up in here my gloves in my dog leash put them all in there my tomahawk kind of situate the tomahawk a little bit better because it's obviously longer okay it's all in there I take my top piece and you can either tie it on or just tuck it in eyes tent tuck it in maybe do a couple wraps and really that's how I walked around here all day for two hours the thingy moving it's not the most comfortable thing in the world it's not going to replace my backpack that's for sure but for a multi-purpose item you know this could this could do a lot this Shema you could filter water before you boil it you could leach acorns in the stream or the river with it a multitude of uses char cloth it's just a big useful thing that doesn't take up a lot of room and all of you see has a double purpose so that's it for today I hope you guys learned a little bit ID fun out here today and see you on the next one