Woodsman's Gear of the 20th Century Part 1

Description

In this series we will discuss the Gear used by Woodsman of the 20th Century, this time was the actual beginnings of Sporting outdoor recreation and many companies created some innovative gear choices for the outdoorsman, we will explore both the common and the obscure in this series to get as lesson in both History and Development of this Gear

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Tags: Woodsman,Gear,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury

Video Transcription

afternoon guys I'm Dave Canterbury what's up reliance Outfitters in the Pathfinder school my plan was to start a new video series today I just got down here to the classroom it's pouring down rain today I've been really really busy doing lots and lots of different things from filming to traveling overseas and teaching to appearances and things like that but I want to start a new video series that I think is gonna be really cool

so I came down here it's poured down rain let me get dried off let me get things set up and we'll get started stay with me guys back in the woods [Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

all right so what I wanted to talk about was I wanted to start a series that concentrates on different types of 19th century woodsman's gear that really isn't used much anymore and some of it is obscure some of it is still used to this day but some of it has importance in that that design or that type item has been copied or different renditions that have been made over time different improvements in some cases have been made in some cases not to enable that equipment to still be used to this day and I think that's important for us to understand I've concentrated lots and lots of videos on 18th and 19th century type items from flintlocks to cap locks the different types of accouterments and things that were carried in the 18th century different types of mountain man type videos and I thought that it was important to understand that the 19th century really is the era of the American woodsmen

when I say woodsmen I mean the sporting type woodsmen the era when nesic and horse Cup are and those type people Daniel Baer Thomas Seton all of those people started writing and talking about going out into the woods going out into the woods for recreational purposes for hunting for fishing for trapping and those types of things and lots and lots of gear and companies were developed during that time period a lot of that gear was very innovative for its time and I think it's important that we look at some of those different pieces of gear and get a little bit of a history lesson on where they came from and what they were used for so today we're gonna start in the first of our series on twentieth-century woodsman's of coutras that's what we're going to call this series 20th century woodsman's accouterments i want to talk about a knife and this knife is one of the top 20 knives created throughout history by field of stream and these 20 knives are not all woodsman style knives these 29 also included things like the US Marine k-bar which was a combat fadi knife it included things like Randall knives Network fighting style knives but it also includes several woodsmen type knives within that kit within that article and I want to discuss one of those knives with you today which actually came up as number two on the list infield the stream stay with me okay so the knife that I choose to start this series off with is the D H Russell Canadian belt life also known as the Grohmann number one I have two examples that this one is an original D H Russell from probably back in the late sixties early seventies and this one is a frost Mora which was a contract knife that Moore was contracted to make a cent to a Canadian retailer probably in the mid to late 70s if my research is correct and this is probably the closest copy of this knife that I've seen and lots of lots of companies have copied this design throughout time cold steel has made renditions of this knife Tops has renditions of this knife and several other companies have also made their renditions of this knife but the closest one that I can find to the original is the frost more so let's talk a little bit about the history of this Canadian belt knife real quick and take a closer look at these two okay so let's first talk about this original D H Russell Canadian belt and high for Grohmann number one now if you are in the United States unless you have a long history of woodsmen and your family you've probably not heard of this Canadian belt knife but if you live in Canada grooming is a household name over there very much like Gerber or case or buck would be in the United States and it's a little bit of an odd design so we should talk about the history of how this night came about because it is very utilitarian in its design Grohmann was a knife maker from Czechoslovakia who had sold knives into Canada as an exporter and Russell was some a Canadian official I'm not sure exactly what he did for Canada at that time but he was an official government type of fishing when he contracted Grohmann after he moved to Canada to create some type of knife for the Canadian market that would be a Canadian made knife because many of the knives that were being sold into the sporting market at that point were imported from overseas or from outside of Canada so what Grohmann came up with was a knife very similar to this Canadian belt knife and instead of taking a marketing team and saying hey let's see if we can make this thing real fancy and how is it going to appeal to the masses and what can we do to this thing to make it super cool they took the prototype design and they made several knives and they handed them out to trappers and guides and sports hunters within Canada and asked them for their input what changes they would make to make it a better utilitarian knife and make no mistake about it this knife was only made for one thing it was made for a hunting and trapping woodsman's knife I saw it written on the internet that this knife was made to turn animals into fur and game into meat and that's what this knife was designed for it's not a bushcraft style design per se as we think of it today it's not a survival knife as we think of it today what it is is a hunting trapping fishing style knife for the sportsmen who is in the outdoors

who's processing food and meat and fur with his knife so the final rendition of this growing number 1 or D H Russell Canadian belt knife came about in about 1957 and it was released onto the market and won several awards for its design you can see it's got a leaf shape designed to the blade it's got some jimping on the back it has an offset handle with a very thin neck on it here and then it widens out at the bottom and it sits in your hand very very comfortably you really only have to pick this knife up one time in your hand to understand how comfortable it really is when you drop it into your hand it just fits every nook and cranny of your hand it fits perfect for things like gutting skinning taping all those types of things that you would do and even cutting up meat for processing it for food it has a nice curved belly on it it's got a very short point it has a nice grind that's a little bit higher than a Scandinavian growing would be and it has a secondary bevel on it as well and even the mora has a little bit of a secondary bevel but more of a Scandinavian grind it's a little bit lower than the original Roman was but you can also buy this currently because they still make this knife to this day you can buy this knife from Canada with either a full flat grind or the original grind that you combine in carbon or stainless steel this one is carbon steel and originally this thing was made from c70 which is like a 1070 type steel and it was made from a softer steel so that it could be kept sharp easy in a with an environment with very little tools this particular Mora is also carbon steel I also have one of these that's in stainless and it's mark stainless around the blade and the stainless version of this Grohmann at one point was made from 41 and 10 I believe it was which is pretty much like a 40 140 if I remember right let me consult my notes real quick here with a 40 110 stainless at that point I think that's very compliment you like a 40 140 now as far as a stainless steel goes somebody lect me if that's wrong the blade was 4 inches long and the handle was a little over 4 inches long so you had a knife with an overall length of about 8 and a half inches with a 4 inch blade it was 1/8 of an inch thick so it was just the right thickness just the right size and the right width being only one inch wide to do really good finesse cuts on highs and things like that without poking holes are wrecking too high and also for gutting tasks without punching as well when you were doing those type tasks so I think that this knife deserves a place in this series and I picked it as the first tool or the first type of item to use in this series because it is a knife that you don't hear a lot about nowaday it's not like the Kephart that you hear lots and lots about nowadays it's an obscure knife unless you live in Canada for the most part but it's a very very good design and it came with a belt sheath that basically was just a simple leather fold-over sheath sewn up the side riveted and I had a fold-over loop to put on your belt so it was almost like a dangler so it kind of ride with you the seat that I bought with my original had been redone you can see here where the tie had been on it like this original one ass and someone had recently a stitching gave way at some point of time and put a lanyard on here so that it could be worn around their neck inside their shirt or a jacket most likely so this is not the original design of the sheath although this is the original sheet or the knife the original design is more like this one that comes with the frost Mora this is very very typical of the original design the sheath and you can still buy today in this design plus a couple other designs with a flap over on it if you want a belt loop on it if you want things like that they have lots and lots of options and they now have a full line of knives on their website this was the original knife that was made again it's called the Grohmann number one or the D H Russell Canadian belt knife I appreciate you joining me today for this quick look at the Grohmann number one or the D H Russell Canadian belt knife we're going to continue this series with lots and lots of items of accouterments and equipment from the twentieth-century woodsman don't forget to hit the subscribe button don't forget to check and make sure your notification bell is on because all those things are kind of going hey we're on YouTube right now I appreciate your views I appreciate your support I thank you for everything you do for our school for a family for business all of our sponsors instructors affiliates and Friends I'll be back to another video in this series as soon as I can

thanks guys