Best Woods For Featherticks; Remedying Chipped Axes | #AskPaulKirtley 74

Description

Welcome to Episode 74 of #AskPaulKirtley, where I answer questions about featherstick material recommendations, remedying chipped axe edges, washing down sleeping bags

TIMESTAMPS:

02:23 Featherstick material recommendations

10:50 Remedying chipped axe edges

16:03 Washing down sleeping bags at home

LINKS MENTIONED:

How To Make Fantastic Feathersticks:

http://paulkirtley.co.uk/2013/how-to-make-fantastic-feathersticks/

WHAT IS #ASKPAULKIRTLEY?

#askpaulkirtley is your chance to ask Paul Kirtley questions about wilderness bushcraft, survival skills and outdoor life.

Ask Paul Kirtley is a regular Q&A show (also available as a podcast) with leading bushcraft instructor Paul Kirtley, founder of Frontier Bushcraft and author of Paul Kirtley's Blog.

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Ask a question here: http://paulkirtley.co.uk/ask-paul-kirtley/

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Tags: bushcraft,survival,wilderness,camping,hiking,outdoors,question and answer,advice,questions,answers,bushcrafting,nature,self reliance,self sufficiency,outdoor skills,outdoor knowledge,Paul Kirtley,askpaulkirtley

Video Transcription

in this episode of a sport curtly we are going to be talking about Fela stick would choice remedying chips in an axe edge and washing and down sleeping bags and hydrophobic down [Music]

welcome welcome to episode 74 of us Paul curtly where I answer your questions about bushcraft survival and outdoor life and if you've not listened to or watched in a sport correctly before I'm Paul curtly what I do for a living is teach bushcraft and wilderness skills I'm also a qualified Mountain leader and a qualified canoe leader so I bring a lot of different aspects to my thoughts on the outdoors and share my experience and knowledge with you the best I can in answering these questions and if you want to ask a question a sport currently you do it via my blog at Paul curly coat UK if you go to that place and click on a sport curtly or just go straight to Pocoyo at UK for /aa Sport curtly you'll find out more there about how to ask a question there's four ways basically you can send me an email you can leave a voice message you can make a public post on twitter using the hashtag ask Paul curtly you can make a public post video or photograph on instagram using the hashtag a sport curtly don't send me direct messages on Facebook and whatnot I will find those difficult to collate later on there's four very easy ways of making sure that I see things when I search either they go to my inbox via a voice message or an email or they are easily searchable on Twitter or Instagram when I search on the special hashtag so there's four ways there that you can ask a question and I'll do my best to answer it on I spoke early so questions to day are first off this is a voice message from Vince let me just see if I can get this to work hi Paul Vince Li Road here first of all just like to start by saying thanks very much for the invaluable in part it's very much appreciated my question is regarding feather sticks now I've done feather sticks with you on the elementary course but my question is regarding the materials that you would use for feather sticks I are there certain woods that are very good and some trees that you would avoid making feather sticks from thanks very much all the best all right so question from Vince there about feather sticks and Vince did an elementary wilderness bushcraft course with me earlier in the year and he did another course with me last year he's pretty into his fire lighting he's pretty knowledgeable on his trees as well so that's a really good question to help further his knowledge fellow stick so generally what we want is something that's dead something that's dry and something that's standing and I know Vince knows that but let's just start from there at the beginning for most people's benefit dead dry standing wood standing because it's going to be less wet than if it's lying on the ground off its lying an angle there's going to be less moisture in there from rain or snow or what have you so dead dry standing and then what we're looking for in terms of the specifics of the materials we want material that's quite straight grained and because we're going to split that material out and we're going to carve those nice curls and if you're not familiar with what a feather stick is at all I'll link to an article on my blog about making feather sticks and where you can get some more idea on how to make feather sticks the the carving skills and a couple of tips and tricks there for you and I'll link that in the notes below the videos whether it's on YouTube or my blog and I'll also in YouTube put a link at the top there and so if you're listening to this on a podcast any of the links that I talked about you can go to Paul curtly co dot uk'

forward slash and then go to the episode a sport currently 74 you can always do that

a spoke at least seventy for whichever episode we're talking about just as a general rule you can do that so if you're listening you just go to that episode and there's a short link there that you can go straight to that or just find it on my blog and below the video and below the audio player will be any links that I talked about in here so just to remind you that any links I talked about whether they're on my sites or other people's web sites around the web I will collect them all together there so you don't have to be making notes or trying to scribble them down while you're on the bus or driving hopefully nobody's making notes while they're driving and wherever you're listening to this as a podcast you can go straight to my blog when you get the chance and get all the links for further reading further watching further study if you wish so just to remind people about that particularly if you're new to a sport currently so feather sticks you want straight grained wood and I will put a nice article there on my blog for you to see about making them and then you also want not free wood if possible and if there are knots in the wood because it's it's often difficult to get completely not free wood most species of tree have some sort of side branches at some point in their life and therefore there are going to be some knots in there if you have a knot you basically want to cut the rounds of wood that you're using so that the knot is at one end and the rest is pretty clear of knots little pin knots are not going to be too much of an issue once your your skills are okay and your knife is sharp and but if you've got any larger not so I would have them at the top end of the stick if possible where you're going to be holding it so you're not going to be shaving there anyway because your hands going to be there so that first couple of inches or you know four centimeters can have a knot in it it's not a problem because that's where your hands going to be and you're not going to be bringing the knife there but the rest wants to be straight ground and relatively not free so that then gives us some indications to the species we might want to look for so things like Scots pine so let's talk about this side of the Atlantic specifically at the moment Scots pine sort of dead standing small Scots pine trees are really good because they tend to grow with pretty straight grains not free sections between where most of the knots are things like lodgepole pine tend to do the same as well on the other side of the Atlantic

pine is Banksy honor though jack pine is a lot more knotty and contorted white pine would be a better option for example so there's pines on both sides of the pond where a lot of listeners are to this podcast where you're going to find pines for example dead standing small Pines that are going to provide you with with the good materials and also you may get the benefit of them being quite resinous as well that fat wood that people seem to prize could give you an added advantage as well but primarily you want it dead dry standing straight grained and relatively not free and you can cut between those knotty sections and get that nice straight grained bit some of the spruces will give you similar similar sections but they tend to be a lot more not either tend to be a lot more branched when they're small classic kind of Christmas tree for example things like balsam fir and some of the silver firs will give you some nice sections as well if we're talking about the the needled species some of the the largest Alaric's genus larches tamaracks they tend to be quite naughty as well and not so great better options would be say Cedars and eastern white cedar western red cedar even though they've often got small pin knots in there you can get a nice straight grained sections and you know how nice if you've used Cedars at all you know how nicely it splits and if it carves really finely you can make really wonderful feather sticks from Cedars in terms of the deciduous species willow tends to be quite good tends to be quite fine

wood that carves quite nicely but even fairly coarse grains you know quick growing species like sweet chestnut you can make half decent fella sticks with and actually they're quite good for practicing for some of the some of the panache a species as well because they split in a similar way and often have a similar grain structure so they're quite good to practice with things like lime a nice although you don't see that so often you can even use Sycamore dead standing again although that can be a bit brittle birch doesn't work super well although you can make some okay for the sticks with birches there's lots to lots to play with there I would avoid things like Hawthorn black thorn the fruit woods you know apple pear all the hardwoods that are quite contort in the way that they grow elder doesn't really lend itself you know that some of the prunus things like cherries yeah you know Prince avium would work okay although there's a lot nicer things you can do with that generally and you don't always find don't often find dead standing bits you know if we're thinking about things were going to find out in the wild of places I'd look at Pines I would look at willows I would look at maples I would look at Cedars in particular and they're going to give you some good straight sections where you got dead standing stuff so good places to start have a play with all of those and then we'll see if we can think of some more for you and don't forget to check out the article on on making feather sticks okay this is a post on Instagram from makhmur sir about remedying a chip or a couple of chips in his axe edge so there's a picture there where Mick has taken a couple of little almost symmetrical Dinks out of his axe and he asked so recently used my axe on a multi-day trip and somehow managed to put a big dent in the cutting edge my questions are in what way is the axe performance

degraded by such damage does the entire Knick need to be sharpened out or will the axe perform well with it still having a small neck one sharpened I sharpened the neck out as a personal punishment for making such a mess of the axes I'm sure I could have avoided it I thought of doing the whole job with a six thousand grit just to make the point to myself but in the end went through the grits still took a long time thanks Mick okay well first off Mick I think you've been a bit hard on yourself that's not a particularly large dink in an ax edge I've seen much worse that's a little nick really and nothing much to worry about maybe you were being hard on yourself because you know how you did it and you realize okay well I've hit some stones or whatever that you've that you've hit and that's caused me to do that and you feel a bit silly for doing that that's fair enough but I wouldn't worry too much about that of course we want nice edges on our cutting tools but in terms of your day to day I'm just looking back at the picture in terms of your day to day use of the axe for things like splitting you know firewood around camp roughly hewing camp utensils making spoons and ladles and you know all the things around camp that's not going to affect things too much even felling you know it's not going to affect things too much and I've had Nick's like that sometimes they appear and you're not quite sure how they've appeared and basically I just I just remove them over a number of sharpens because of what I don't want to do is shorten the life of my axe dramatically by taking a millimeter off the edge just because there's a tiny little neck in there and so generally I would just sharpen it a number of times when it's needed and remove it that way if you really do need to remove a nick while you're out and about or even in your shed in your workshop I'd use a file I'd use a metal file to start off with and you can use a coarse one to start off with and a finer one and then you can move back to your stones do be careful about taking material off symmetrically though you don't want to end up with an asymmetrical cross-section to your axe bevel you want to make sure that it stays nice and centered that edge not being offset on your general purpose bushcraft outdoor axes as it were there are some really extreme ways of getting rid of Dinks if you put big Dinks in so in terms of rubbing the edge on a stone or on a file to take it right back down again and then sharpening up again but for the size of dink that you've got there it's definitely not necessary one thing I would note though is whenever you're sharpening make sure you're taking metal off the whole bevel where it's shiny there don't just take metal off towards the edge because you'll end up changing the blade profile the axis that we tend to use the general purpose axes like the grounds for the vetterling z' or the hultafors etc they tend to have convex bevels and if you just sharpen them like your bushcraft knife where you're taking the stone to the edge close to the edge you're going to end up with a flattened secondary bevel on that and that's going to make it harder to sharp in the long run it might also make it more depending on exactly what angle you set that at you might end up making it more prone to Dinks as well you want to keep that convex shape so what you need to do is make sure you take your metal off the whole bevel by varying the angle using your sharpening stone and people keep asking me about axe sharpening and I really should do a video on it before too long so I will try and get that made in the coming months on using a small stone like the Grantsville stone or a falcon even TK for even a DC for even for sharpening your small forest axe for example I think that would be useful to a lot of people Act sharpening seems to be an area that people some people struggle with so I will I will add that to my list of things to make in the not too distant future I hope well thanks for the question mech this question is from Sebastian move on over height and this is sent to me via email and his question is hi Paul first of all I'm a huge fan of your YouTube channel and can't thank you enough for sharing your experience and knowledge with all your viewers I'm originally from Germany and have been hiking and backpacking in the south of Bavaria for many years since 2015 I live in Vancouver Canada

so I've got another level of nature and adventures to explore right on my doorstep and constantly expanding my skills and knowledge in your videos and podcast is an amazing source of knowledge so my question in your episode lightening the load part war on sleeping systems you clearly advise against trying to clean or wash a down sleeping bag at home but to give it to a professional cleaning service instead could you share some of your experiences on that subject I've got a mountain hardwear ratio 15 with hydrophobic down and my old Lefou mer down sleeping bag I've treated with Nick wax down proof after washing it at home with Nick wax downwash direct I have to mention that I have a front-loading washing machine and a dryer at home and put the recommended tennis balls in the dryer as well all seems fine so far I think but it was the first time I've done it and I'd be grateful to hear any further details about your concerns if you have any thoughts on hydrophobic down in general I'd be interested to hear those as well Thank You Sebastian so there's a number of questions in there but they all Center on this whether it's sensible to wash your down bag at home or whether or not you should take it or send it to a professional cleaning service and so my experiences with that are the overtime down bags when you use them tend to reduce in their performance as the down becomes matted with dirt with grease and that can that will be from you and it will be from the environment and then they lose their warmth and that can be a season or twos warmth that's lost from the bag over time if you let them get really dirty so the first thing just as a general point not so much for Sebastien but this is a general point for listeners is do make the effort to try and keep your sleeping bag clean whether you're using a down bag or a synthetic bag any sleeping bag will reduce in performance if it is dirty because it doesn't loft as well and it doesn't hold as much air and therefore you won't stay as warm so that's why we're interested in cleaning bags as well as keeping them clean I find they get most dirty most quickly around the hood I do tend to use a silk sleeping bag liner in down bags not so much in summer weight bags because I'm often too warm in that combination or I'm just trying to be super lightweight and I will just reduce the weight even further but the other advantage that a silk bag liner gives you is that you can pretty much just sleep in the silk bag liner if you want to as well so it depends on what you're going for winter bags I tend to use a silk liner as well as certainly take a silk liner and that will increase the warmth as well as keep it clean for longer so where your where your liner isn't is where your face and your head is and clearly you're not necessarily washing your hair everyday and face every day on a trip etc etc and you're going to be a bit more greasy than you are at home when you're showering every day perhaps and that puts quite a lot of muck into that part the sleeping bag and you can see the hood that the the the hood area and above the baffles tends to get quite greasy and it tends to map down more than the rest but over time the rest of the bag will reduce in performance as well and so I've cleaned quite dirty sleeping bags in my washing machine at home and it doesn't get that grease out as well as sending it to a professional service it just doesn't and and if

fact one occasion I tried to clean a four-season down bag in my washing machine at home and it came out sort of half clean it also took me about three days to get the thing dry and after after after using it and the down was all clumped and I kept having to unclamp it while and it was hung outside in quite sunny weather and it still took several days to get properly dry and properly lofted I had to regularly sort of unclamp down and so there's a faff ass of an irritation factor there yes you can put them into a tumble dryers and and and sort of fluff them up that way but even so you need to be careful with them because they are they are quite delicate the contents are quite delicate and the down can clump together and stay clumped together so you often end up having to sort of prise it apart and even so to cut a long story short it still needed sending off to the cleaners because that it wasn't happy and I was using knick wax and it does work I think the knick walks down material the down cleaner works well on on down jackets that are quite small and I think it works well enough on to season two to three season sleeping bags and although as I say if they're particularly dirty they don't tend to come out as clean as if you use a professional cleaning service and so once you get on to the larger bags they tend to be too heavy with too much down to wash in a domestic washer anyway and they take a long time to get dry even in warm conditions and when you can get them out in the sunshine I found that you've had to sort of unclamp them manually and it's also a waste of time that I could be doing something else with frankly so for all of those reasons while yes it is possible to wash your own lightweight you know two to three season hiking down bags at home and probably put them in the tumble dryer frankly I just find it easier to send them to a professional cleaning service they come back like they smell nice they fully lofted there's no grease there's no dirt and it's like having a brand new bag again when it was looking pretty grim before I sent it and it costs not too much money at the end of the day in the UK the service that I use it costs about thirty five pounds and to have one cleans and I don't do it that often as I say I try and use a silk liner with those bags which extends how often that extends between the periods you have to clean them so having tried both I just like to send them off I know that I'm gonna get a consistent service it doesn't take any of my time yes I have to pay for it but it doesn't take up a lot of time in terms of managing the wash managing the drying managing the re lofting of the bag it is just a time versus money thing for me as well as fundamentally you get a consistent result with any of your bags whether they're light weights or heavy weight from getting them sent off to a professional cleaning service so that's that's that's my thinking on that hydrophobic down as well I would just be a bit careful about cleaning that in a in a domestic washing washing unit as well because hydrophobic down has is treated in a certain way and so without giving generalized rules I would look at the manufacturers recommendations for cleaning for those bags because the more technical the material the more carefully you often have to treat it or the more specifically the treatment the washing the reap roofing if you like needs to be so I would look at what the recommendations are of the manufacturer and follow those frankly so that brings us to the end of episode 74 of a spork curtly and I will look forward to answering more of your questions on a spork early episode 75 before too long and if you are listening to this on your favorite podcast platform please remember to subscribe and if you're watching on YouTube please remember to subscribe if you'd like to hear or watch more

or Kirklees and please like this video as it will help other people see it - much appreciated thank you very much and I look forward to receiving more of your questions going forward take care and enjoy the outdoors [Music]