Knives ~ by WoodlandsTV

Transcript

Justin Sterry: I've got an array of knives here. From the extremely large machete, jungle machete. British Army Glock, great bushwacker, inexpensive. To a specialized parang designed by an ex-S.A.S. Quite expensive, but good steel. To the custom hand-made knives like Ray Mears 01 carbon. Holds a very good edge for a long time and is a good size. To a carbon tool for finishing wood projects, game preparation. Folding knife. This is an opah. They hold a very good edge, but with all folding knives, they can close on you. It has a simple locking mechanism. But they can come down on your knuckles if you not retrieve backwards. You don't have that with fixed blade knives. A little lamb's foot. A lot of farmer's folk carries these, because they do get the mud and stones out of the hoof of the animal and that's hence the blade.

A little specialist knife called a mushroom knife. You can always tell if it's a mushroom knife, they come with a little a duster to get the soil off, but also to scrape the spoors for fungi identification. They're usually curved.

We've got specific tools. This is a crook knife which is bent around and it's for hollowing out spoons and bowls and working towards you. To a draw knife. This is for leveling off pieces of wood. As a draw knife should, you draw it towards you. Finishing off our arrows. Smoothing down pieces of wood.

People ask, "What makes a good knife?" It's not always a price. The British Army Glock. There's two sizes. This is the larger. There's another one slightly smaller. The steel's not too bad. Takes a good edge. And it'll split wood. Great camp craft. And combine that with a good sword, you've got all the wood you would need for preparing for fires and basic structure building. If you're after craft, you'd go for knives like this, which can be pressed into harder work, splitting batons of wood rather than logs. And then refined work with feather sticks, carving, and things of that nature.

If you're clearing paths through brambles and bracken and you want some heavy job, you'd go for a knife like this.

Of course, with the big knife debate at the moment, there is an argument whether to have a knife at all. You can carry a three-inch blade legally these days and combine that with a bush craft tool, like a good axe. And if the axe is kept after, it is as equally as good as a knife for felling and shelter building.

This is my personal saw. It's a Laplander. Very common in bush craft use now. They're very strong and very sharp. The beautiful thing about a saw, as long as your hand's against the log there, it's very unlikely to cut you, unlike when you're using a knife. So, it's a very safe tool to use, as long as you use it correctly.

Sometimes when you're over for a long period of time, I like a bow saw. And I've actually got a collapsible bow saw. So I can carry it on hikes easily. It consists of a letter H type set up. And once that's set up, you tighten it together by turning the string. And this can deal with substantial size pieces of wood with a lot of back muscle and strength.