Blades & Their Uses.

I have already made a post on blades on this forum, but your choice of blades & how you use them are of the utmost importance, so I would like to share some points here too.

Blades in the old days had specific uses, & foresters & woodsmen new how important it was to make the right choice of blade & to never abuse that blade. These days there are a wide array of so called “survival knives” some of them “Rambo” type knives. These knives are general purpose, some better than others, but NONE of them are for a specific use.

Have you heard of “battening”? This is where someone uses their knife for splitting logs by placing the cutting edge on the wood & then they strike the back of the blade with another chunk of wood! Knives were NEVER designed for this purpose, a froe yes, axes & bill hooks will split small logs.

If you look after your blade, it will look after you.

A hunting knife is for skinning & butchering. It may be used to dispatch game & it may be used in self-defence. You may even use it for eating meat or even cutting patch material for round ball if you are using a muzzle-loading gun, but that is it. The most popular blade used by woodsmen & Indians in the 18th century was the butcher knife. It generally had a wooden handle & a carbon steel blade. I would advise you to carry the same blade.

I carry three knives as many woodsrunners did in the old days. A hunting knife, a legging knife, & a clasp knife. The legging knife is a back up to the hunting knife. If I accidently dull the edge on my butcher knife when butchering or field dressing game, I do not want to hang around touching up the edge, I simply use my legging knife to finish the job & get out of there. The clasp knife is used for camp chores, making trap triggers & kettle hooks, small stuff.

Bigger work such as making trap stakes & hammering them into the ground is done with my Trade axe, or tomahawk. The tomahawk can also assist in butchering & self-defence & as I can throw my tomahawk accurately it can also be used for hunting if needs be. It can be used for constructing fire tripods, drying racks & shelters, but it is never used to cut firewood. Wood can be collected from the ground, & it can be broken by hand or broken over a rock. You can even place a long piece of wood across a fire & let it burn through.

Your tools, all your tools, should have a specific use. Do NOT abuse them. A broken knife blade is of no further use as a knife, at the very least it will no longer function as well as it did before it broke.
Keith.

 

like most survivalists I am an avid collector of knives and have quite a few, but I suppose I have 3 favouries, my EDC lock knife, a sheath knife and a slightly larger Bowie knife.

 

This says it all I think.
Keith.