Ooh, That Smell...

Yesterday I put two of my surplus wool blankets through the wash and hung them out to dry. The Italian Army blanket, when wet, reeked of mothballs but the smell lessened as the blanket dried. The German Army blanket in the front is the one I picked up while at Briar Patch for the Primitive Skills course last year and it just smelled like wet wool blanket.

We're getting some rain this morning and there's just enough moisture in the air to bring out the scents of those blankets again.

The temperature is noticeably cooler than the mid to high 90s we had late last week and there was a bit of a breeze while the kids stood outside waiting for the bus to summer school. To show them how wool can protect you even when wet I had them both walk in between the two blankets and then describe to me how it felt in there.

Jake thought it was itchy on the back and soft and fuzzy on the front (it was) and Laura noticed that it was both warmer and less windy in the dead air space.

It was the smell that really got to me though. Like I mentioned above, this blanket will forever remind me of the time I spent in the woods with George, Dom, Kevin, Mark, and the rest of the gang. It's a scent memory much like the smell of grandma's apple pie, or in my case, grandma's fried perch. YUM!

Interestingly, the reason I decided to wash up these two wool blankets is to prepare for a trip up to see George on his new piece of property and to attend one of his plant classes with my daughter. She wants to camp, I need a day or two off, and there's never an excuse needed to get out and see George and sit around a campfire with him.

Thanks for reading,


B

Got a Package Yesterday

I got this box from Ragnar at Ragweed Forge yesterday for a project I've been planning and working on for a bit. That's 15 Mora 510s.

I mentioned just a week ago that I was in a sharpening mood didn't I? These 510s need some attention out of the box to get the bevels as flat as they can be but then they'll be ready for some refinement.

The plan is to take these knives to different levels of finish on the sharpening and then do a comparison at various cutting chores to find out what finish lasts the longest, which cuts the best, etc. If, for example, a 600-grit finish on the bevels was good enough then spending the extra time to take a knife to 2000 grit would be time better spent elsewhere.

I have a hypothesis that I'll be testing over the next several weeks once I get these bevels flattened on my DMT Coarse stone.

Stick around, this could be educational.

Thanks for reading,


B

Working...

I'm working on an article but finding it tough to get enough time to do it well...

I may have to switch the format of the blog to a more article-driven / less daily-posting type if I can't get on and post daily.

I've got some new stuff to show you, some trips planned, and a tutorial or two in the works...

Soon (like after July 4th) I should have more time available to get back into the routine of posting, taking pictures, and the rest.

Thanks for sticking around during this slow period,


B

In A Sharpening Mood

I've been putting new edges on the kitchen knives today and am now on the prowl for something else that needs a new edge. I'm not having any luck...too much time spent IN the house and not enough in the woods.

I'm putting out a call to the neighbors to see if anybody wants their cutlery sharpened. I'm getting desperate here. :)

My current setup involves an old two-sided coarse/fine oil stone that rests in a bath of mineral oil until time for use. Once I'm done it gets lapped on a DMT Extra Coarse stone and then back into the oil.

The edges are coarse enough that they'll slice through whatever I put under the edges but a quick strop keeps the edges polished enough to prevent what might otherwise be daily or weekly sharpening.

The edges will pop hairs and slice a carrot paper thin. It's nice to have knives in the kitchen that can be taken to such a thin edge while still remaining some toughness. My field knives are a bit thicker to handle any abuse I may throw their way.

Anybody use a special setup for sharpening in the field? I'm thinking about cutting down this stone and dropping it into a DeCon container for field use. The container has a snap-on lid and it's watertight so it should keep the oil from getting everywhere. The JRE Industries field strop just rolls up and drops into the bottom of my pack and it's loaded with the good stuff (Black Magic) which gives me just the right amount of polish while still keeping the edge a bit toothy.

Ah well, off to find something else that might need a new edge...

Thanks for reading,


B

Firesteel Failure

Over the weekend I had the head come clean off a Light My Fire Army Firesteel and it got me thinking about the repercussions in the field.

I was striking the firesteel with the spine of my knife when the rod simply fell out of the plastic head and into my tinder bundle. If that'd happened at the same time as my spark set fire to the tinder bundle I would've had to make a quick decision about whether or not it was wise to reach in and risk a burn to retrieve the rod.

As much as I love the Army Model firesteel I think one of the rod blanks from JRE Industries or Going Gear might be a better option. I drill out a hole on the blanks and run either a split ring or cordage through the rod. This gives me a solid purchase on the rod and I don't have to worry about it coming off as the rod would have to split at the hole before failing.

The JRE rods in particular are especially low profile and I can drill the rod and run a piece of ball chain through it and it'll drop in a pocket or even in a wallet. The Going Gear rods are the other ferrocerium/mischmetal formula and come in many sizes but I think much smaller than the Army size (3/8" diameter?) is getting a bit too small to drill a useful hole. There are, of course, other methods to attach smaller rods but we'll go into that another time.

Now don't think the head coming off the firesteel is a real deal breaker. A few drops of super glue or epoxy into the head and a few hours clamped up has prevented repetition of this problem. I've had two or three heads separate from the rods but each time a spot of glue fixed the problem permanently.

I'm not giving up on my LMF Army firesteels just yet...I may even pick up a couple more to keep in reserve for when I wear this one out. LOL!

Thanks for reading,


B

Day at the Lake

I spent yesterday at my parents' lake house and got a chance to build a fire using my knife, firesteel, and found natural tinders. Everything was wet but I did eventually get things going.

Along the way I got a chance to use my new axe performance tuned by Brian Andrews at Off the Map Outfitters. It saw more use splitting wood than it did anything else and I even managed to knock off the top corner on a nail hidden in a piece of wood. (Off to the sharpening stone today...)

I tended the fire for most of the day and used that axe hard throughout and never developed any hot spots or blisters.

It was nice to get away from the day to day for a short while and I got to exercise my inner-pyromaniac too. :)

Thanks for reading,


B

Hey BCB!

One more thing I forgot to mention, the folks at GoingGear are going to toss you an additional prize for your Custom Firesteel Awesomeness!

I'll email you the contact information. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. :D

Thanks,


B