Chris shares stories of his lifelong journey with knives, from his first Swiss Army blade to custom bushcraft tools that shaped his outdoor experiences. Alongside practical tips on knife safety, sharpening, and survival use, he reflects on Hebrews 4:12, drawing a powerful parallel between keeping a knife sharp and keeping faith sharp.
Episode Highlights
Hot day under the tarp at Camp Wut-Da-Heck and the focus on knives
Childhood memories with a Swiss Army knife and homemade haversacks
Knife evolution: homemade bed-rail knife, Mora Garberg, BPS Bushcraft II, Mora Companion, Bobcat by Dirt Bound Survival
Field stories: batoning wood, six days of rain, and skinning hogs
Knife accident lesson: respect your blade and carry first aid
Knife maintenance: stones, belts, improvised sharpeners, and strops
Devotion: Hebrews 4:12 — the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword
Action step: sharpen both your knife and your faith this week
Resources Mentioned
Book: Primitive Camping and Bushcraft
Facebook Group: Primitive Camping and Bushcraft
Call to Action
Sharpen your knife and spend time sharpening your spirit in the Word
Share this episode with a friend who loves the outdoors and faith conversations
Join the community and keep learning bushcraft and survival skills
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the Primitive
Camping and Bushcraft Podcast.
I'm your host, Chris Speir.
So here we're gonna talk about gear,
grit and the kind of stories
you only get around a fire.
It's all about learning, adapting
and keeping your faith strong.
So whether you're a seasoned outdoorsman
or just looking to unplug and reconnect,
you're in the right place.
So pull up a chair by the
fire and let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
Hi, welcome back to
Camp Wut-Da-Heck, guys.
Today, I wanna talk
to you about something
that's more than just gear.
That's pretty personal to all of us,
to anybody involved
in the great outdoors.
It's something every
outdoorsman and every bushcrafter,
all the hunters, all the,
almost everybody carries a knife.
That's what it boils down to is a knife.
And I actually have a couple
of three of them right here
that knives can teach
you a lot about your faith.
And hopefully by the end of this episode,
I think you'll look at your knife
and maybe even your walk with God
just to touch differently,
a little bit differently.
So it is 98 degrees outside today.
We are underneath the
tarp at Camp Wut-Da-Heck.
I do not have a fire
rolling this afternoon.
I do have my old Jerry fan
over here in the corner blowing
and giving me a little bit
of some relief from the heat.
But if I think back, I
guess I was about 13,
maybe 14 years old.
I had received a Swiss
army knife for Christmas.
It was some big, huge survival blade.
It didn't have a full
tang, Swiss army knife.
And matter of fact,
I think it was a
knockoff brand Swiss army knife.
It was just red.
But I love that knife.
I carried it with me everywhere.
So my mom had made my
brother and I some Haver sacs.
And back in the day,
MacGyver had come out,
the TV show MacGyver.
Richard Dean Anderson
was the original MacGyver.
And dude, let me tell
you, he had a satchel.
It was, I guess they
call it a man purse today.
That's what you won't call it.
But the satchel we used it,
mom made one out of blue jeans.
She was real crafty and
she did all kinds of sewing.
She made her own clothes for years,
but she made us one of these
with our initials embroidered in it.
And we use that for everything.
We can go out into the woods
and we would collect things
and do things and just put all our stuff
in our little
MacGyver bags, quote unquote,
quote in quotes, whatever.
And man, we're at a good
time, 13, 14 years old.
My brother and I would be out there
just running through the woods
with our little Swiss army knives
thinking that we were topsknot.
And that knife wasn't the strongest.
It wasn't the sharpest, but at that age,
it felt like it was pretty
much freedom in our pockets
or our Haver sacs or
Haver sacs or whatnot.
That little Swiss army
knife started me down a path
that led to years of trying
and carrying different styles of blades.
I use bigger ones, I use better ones,
I use ones that were more
suited for the outdoors,
but the lesson started right there.
Carry something you
trust and keep it with you.
Now in the book,
Primitive Camping in Bushcraft,
on page 18 and 19, I go
over finding the right knife.
And we go over all the types of steel,
we go over the tang, the single most
important part of it,
the grind, the spine,
sharpening it, the length of it.
And it covers four, one,
two, three, four, five pages
of all about the knife, the
kind of handle or the tang,
the partial tang, the full tang.
So a knife is gonna be a tool
that you're always going
to use in the grid outdoors.
And I've done several
episodes on it here on this podcast,
but today I just
wanted to do a touch on it
a little bit different.
Today is the first time in many moons
that I'm actually
recording the video as I do this.
So I'm just using the GoPro to set up
and just hitting the record
button and recording it raw.
And I just figured that I
wanted to go over a couple
of pieces of gear here.
And I left one back at home,
the newest addition to the outdoors club,
but it'll be all right.
So as I got deeper into bushcraft,
I started carrying
different types of knives.
And I finally years into it,
I've had Kaisers and
different brands and stuff like that.
And I've even made my own.
One of my favorite was a homemade knife
made out of a bed rail,
a queen size bed rail.
And that bed rail was
bent or broke or something.
And we were gonna discard
it and I just chopped it up,
cut it up and I wish I'd
have brought it with me
to show you on the video,
but I made it into a knife.
And it is a very good knife.
I carved the scales or
the handle out of oak
and stained it, bolted them things down.
Now I'm not all that
skilled in epoxies and rivets
and all that good stuff.
So I drilled a hole through there
and I put a bolt in there
and I bolted that thing down.
And it is still with me today.
And I've used that many, many times
and it has really,
really done a very good job.
The only problem with
that particular knife
is that the edge will
wear off real quick.
But I finally moved up
to this guy right here,
which in my hands, for
those of you listening,
is the Moore knife Garberg.
And this is a very
economical, affordable and usable knife.
And it is amazing because for
the price, you can't beat it.
It is $69, I think.
And on my Amazon affiliate page,
you can get your one right
there for 60 something bucks
or 70 bucks with a leather sheaf.
And that's the part
that you're not gonna beat,
you know, the value of that.
And this knife has been
through thick and thin with me
for many years.
And I have used this knife, I
have run this through trees,
I have split logs with it,
I have dug holes with it.
I have done, if you could
think of what needed to be done
with a knife, I have
done it with this knife.
And it still holds a very good edge.
And the only problem with this is that
whenever you're slicing vegetables,
(laughs)
and this is silly, but
the knife is so thick
and the grind, it will
not cut straight at all.
I know that sounds weird,
but that's what I've noticed.
Yes, but who cares?
Who's cutting vegetables?
Who's worried about the vegetables?
So on the side of this
knife, on this leather sheath,
I have a sharpening stone
and it's duct taped to it.
That way I always have a
way to sharpen my knife
when I'm out in the field,
because you're gonna need a
way to sharpen your knife,
no matter where you're at.
And at times you're gonna
need to sharpen a knife.
And hopefully I'll remember
to come back to that point
because I don't have it
in my bullet points here
to talk a lot.
But I have found that
there are other ways
to sharpen your knife
and the most unique way,
let's go ahead and talk about it now.
The most unique way I've ever seen
anybody sharpen a knife
was Zach Fowler on a lawn.
He would take a log
that he cut with his saw
and he would take that
log and fill it with sand
on top of that log.
And then he would just
rake his knife back and forth
on there, kind of
like it was stropping it
and it would sharpen his blade.
And that's how he kept his blade sharp
the whole time he was on a lawn.
And he ended up going and
winning that episode of a lawn.
So that right there is
one of the most unique ways
to sharpen a knife in the field.
It could be done a
piece of glass on your car.
You can sharpen the edge on it.
You can get a stone.
There's tons of different ways.
You use the leather
belt and you can stroke it,
strop it whichever way you wanna call it.
And it would actually keep
the edge a little longer.
And it's not gonna actually sharpen it,
but it will straighten the burrs out
and make it seem like
it's sharper for longer.
And moving on to the
next knife that I found
is this one right here.
This is the BPS Bushcraft II.
It is substantially, the
blade is a little bit smaller.
It is the same thickness,
but the blade width is,
yeah, the width is
smaller by a little bit.
And I could pull the other one back up
and we can compare the
two right here right now.
And so you can see that it's not even,
it's maybe, I don't know, not
even a 16th of an inch smaller,
but this knife right here,
I'm gonna tell you about the BPS knife.
And I've mentioned
this several times already
that the BPS knife is amazing
when you're skinning game animals.
This knife, I skin a hog.
And I've mentioned
this a couple of times.
I think I mentioned it last week
or a couple of weeks ago on the podcast,
but it retained an edge the entire time.
And a hog is hard to clean.
The skin is pretty thick.
And the wild boards down here
are extremely thick skinned.
And I'm assuming that's everywhere,
but it did not get dull.
And usually we use
like those edge knives,
the razor blade
knives and stuff like that,
cleaning deer and such.
But this did not dull at all.
And it was an amazing knife to use
to skin my game for the day.
So there's another one
right here, the Morin knife.
This is not the
Garberg, this is the companion.
This was $20.
The BPS is $35, I believe.
And the Morin knife Garberg is like $69.
So these prices are subject to change.
But I don't notice I'm
not like the price police
or anything like that.
But this one right here
is not a full-tamed knife.
The Morin knife companion HD, it is a
partial tamed knife,
but it is a great knife
for a backup if you need one.
And it's always good to
have more than one knife
because I have had a
knife break on me before.
And the only other thing I
had left was a pocket knife
and doing things with a
pocket knife was difficult,
but it managed, I even, I batoned wood
with a pocket knife.
It's not that difficult
to do stuff like that.
But today, and silly me, I
didn't even bring it down here
to camp what the heck with me today,
but I now have the
Bobcat by Dirtbound Survival
or for Tony Powers.
And that knife is amazing.
It is in my other gear
sitting at the house.
And that knife is amazing.
Did I say it was amazing?
Yes, it is.
But it was a great knife.
So I use it to, you can
run it through anything.
The blade's a little
thicker than the Garber.
The grind is more of a flat type grind,
but it cuts straight and it is everything
that I've needed it to be.
The spine is extremely sharp.
It will, it'll burn
through some fat wood.
This knife is, dude, if
you're gonna get a knife,
spend 120 bucks and buy
one of these from Tony.
And he's a member of the Primitive Camp
in the Bushcraft Group
right here on Facebook.
And you can get you a good knife,
a very good handmade,
custom made knife for $120.
I mean, that's what I got it for.
This dude did a great job on this knife.
And like I said, prices
are subject to change.
So that's what I got for it.
I don't know how much
it'll charge for everybody else
or whatever, but contact Tony Powers.
If you're interested in an amazing knife,
this thing, the blade is sharp.
It holds its edge, it stays sharp.
The handle fits in my hand perfectly.
And it is easy to sharpen
and it holds the edge for a long time.
What else could you ask for
when it comes to a kniffy?
Nothing, that's it.
That's all the check boxes.
That's all the qualifications.
That meets, that's a
tough resume right there.
So I have one trip where it ran for six days straight
and everything was soaked.
Everything was soaked.
And I think I've
talked about this before,
but this was just, it
was one of those trips
that it was impossible
to get a fire started.
It rained all day, every
day for six straight days,
like South Mississippi downpouring rain.
Not no drizzle, not no flying humidity or anything like that.
It was just a downpour of steady rain.
And I found some fatwood.
I used the spine of my knife to shave it
into some fine powdery shavings.
And then I turned it into some curls.
I did some feather sticking with it.
And I turned it into some sand.
And I can remember throwing a spark in it
with a ferro rod and
it just went, it lit up.
And I was like so excited
because for the first day or two
we didn't have a fire there.
And we had to burn fatwood for the
majority of the time.
We didn't cook over it.
So don't be freaking out over that,
but we burned fatwood as our fire.
We kept finding log after log of fatwood.
And we used that to keep
the fire going in the rain.
And I'm telling you right
now, if it was not for that,
we would not have had a fire
and it was in the middle of January.
And so it was nice and cold.
And it was just a
very wet, very long trip,
but it was one of
those that teach you a lot.
You have those trips all the time
that learned you
something, that teach you something.
So the fatwood kept the fire
going in the middle of the rain.
And if it wasn't for a
sharp spine on that knife,
I wouldn't have never
got those little shavings.
And if you've seen any of my videos,
you know what I'm talking about
when I talk about fatwood shavings.
There was another time,
I just talked about this a while ago
about the like cleaning the hog.
I went hunting and I
took a very large hog.
Had it been almost 200 pounds.
And this BPS knife
right here, I'm telling you,
it skint that hog perfectly.
And I've never skinned a
hog with any kind of knife
and it hold its edge the entire time.
Because hogs, they're skinned,
like I was mentioning a while ago,
just completely dull these blades.
But for a $35 knife,
this edge stayed very sharp.
And I got to butcher that
thing down and get it ready.
But that's gonna lead me into another
little side note here
that not every knife
story is gonna be smooth.
That while skinning a hog one time,
I was using a lesser branded knife.
I was up in the Delta
and my son and I had shot
a couple smaller hogs, which was great.
Loved those things for the barbecue.
I'd rather hog than a
deer to be honest with you.
And some people would be
like, what did you just say?
I'm gonna quit following you.
(laughing)
I think three hogs at a
time, we got three little hogs
and they were about
40, 50 pounds a piece.
And it's still a decent size hog, but
perfect for the grill,
perfect for barbecuing or hole roasting.
And I was skinning this dude and the
knife was getting dull
and I was holding the
skin and that knife slipped.
And when it did, it hit
me in this little area
right in between my
thumb and my index finger
on my left hand.
And so I had a big cut
right here all the way through
and I was like, oh my God, I am just,
I am, I'm an hour and a
half away from the hospital.
I need stitches.
I just sliced my
tendons and stuff like that.
And I was just, the main
concern I had was that hogs
have many diseases
that transfer to humans.
That was the biggest concern on my mind.
I recall that I had
my little first aid kit
in my truck.
And so I walked over
there and I got it out.
I had some alcohol, I had
a little bit of peroxide
as an iodine.
And I know you weren't
supposed to pour the iodine
directly into a wound, but I was like,
I wasn't taking the chance and I did.
And boy did it sting.
And I cleaned it out with
some alcohol and boy did it even
hurt even worse and I
finished it up with some peroxide.
And it stung a little bit, but
it bubbled out all the nasty.
It cleaned that thing up real good.
And then I had a single use super glue.
And I just super
glued that puppy right up.
And from here to here, it
was about an inch long gap.
And looking at the scar now, maybe it
looks like a half an
inch over time, they heal up.
But it was right up against the bone,
but right in between the index finger.
And I was lucky that I didn't cut a
tendon or any of that
sort of stuff.
But so I super glued that thing up
and went right back skinning it whole.
That day reminded me that
a knife demands respect.
That a knife can save your
life or it can also take it.
A knife can be used to clean out game,
prepare your food, cut
anything that you need cut.
But you have to be able to use it safely.
A knife is more than
just something you carry.
A knife is a tool that you
have to learn how to use.
And this is going to sound
silly and some people may leave
comments on it or whatever, but a knife,
each knife is different.
You have to learn how it works.
I know that sounds stupid, but it's true.
Each knife is different.
You have to learn its little aspects.
You have to learn how to use your tool.
Learning how to use your
knife, how to carry your knife,
how to actually handle your
knife is the foundation of all
your outdoor skills.
You have to know how to use your knife.
You have to know how to
use the tools that you use
in the great outdoors.
So for fire prep,
you're going to learn how
to do feather sticks.
Now look, you're going to be,
when it comes to
feather sticks, practice,
I still don't make a,
take a 14 inch stick
and make 14 inch curls
that curl all the way down.
And I've been doing this for years.
I don't have the patience for that.
People say it's all about surface area,
but I just saw a post on
Facebook where somebody
was showing a feather
stick that they carve.
But if you look at it very closely,
it was two or three put
together to make it look
like it was one big bush.
Be very careful whenever
you're like judging yourself
against others
because they don't do that.
Don't do that.
Just take the time to practice.
Get out there and
practice with feather sticks.
Get out there, split up some fat wood,
make a feather stick with the fat wood.
It'll do the same
thing as you get practice.
You can curl that thing all the way down,
make little curls and
make it pretty and ferro rod.
Just touch it with a
ferro rod and it'll light up
and make you some nice
little tinder bundles.
Knives are perfect for
all your camp chores.
Carving out your tent
stakes, cutting all your cordish,
preparing your food.
We talked about that just a minute ago.
Knives are instrumental in
everything that you need.
They're the most handy of the tools.
They're the one that you're gonna go to,
the one that you're gonna use the most.
If you had to think,
even if you weren't carrying
a sheath knife or belt
knife, what is one of your EDCs
that's everyday carry for all the folks
that are not up to date with the lingo?
And I shouldn't have said up to date,
that was more harsh.
If you don't know what
EDC or you heard it before,
but forgot what it was,
we'll put it to you that way.
Everyday carry,
that's what EDC stands for.
If you had an EDC, which one would it be?
More than likely gonna be a knife.
I know I have one.
Let's see if I got one.
Yes, I got my pocket knife right here.
This little Gerber folding
pocket knife has been with me
thick and thin through many adventures.
I have used it in ways that was not
designed to be used.
I have chopped firewood with it.
(laughs) I've used this little thing so much
that this little thing sticks
sometimes and don't want to.
It's a great, it is a great little EDC.
I use it all the time.
You're gonna use your
knife for emergencies.
Your knife is gonna be
used to make splints.
It's gonna be used to make field repairs.
It's gonna be used to start your fire.
That's what I was
sitting here trying to think
was like fires, I put
Ferro-Ras down here.
But fires, it's gonna be
used to make your fires.
So that would be an emergency sometimes.
You have to emergencyly,
emergently use the Ferro-Ras
to get your fire going.
A good knife is gonna
make hard jobs easier.
A dull or weak knife
makes jobs dangerous.
Even easy jobs can be dangerous.
I always never understood how a dull
knife was dangerous.
A sharp knife was safe.
Because a sharp knife is
gonna cut through the object
you're trying to cut.
A dull knife, you have to use more force
and then you can be more apt to slip
and make cuts that you
really didn't intend,
like in your flesh.
And that's not what we're looking for.
(soft music)
Now it comes down to my knife,
can iffy maintenance.
Sharpen your knives with a stone.
But I've demonstrated
several times with a leather belt
or other things.
I even used a fingernail file one time
and most recently got a comment on that.
Somebody was like,
oh, so now we're taking
fingernail files in the woods.
I was like, no, I was just
demonstrating a different way
for you to sharpen a knife,
to keep an edge on a knife.
A sharp knife is safer than a dull one
because it cuts where you intend.
A dull knife makes you force it.
And that's when all
the accidents happened
like I was just saying a while ago.
Take your knife, take
care of it, keep it sharp,
keep it clean, keep it in
its sheath and respect it.
Simple.
Don't leave it out laying on the ground.
Somebody else could
step on it, cut themselves
or stick through
shoes or there's all kinds
of little things, don't run with it.
It's not a toy, but
these are basic things
that you learned in Boy Scouts.
So we're gonna flip over to Hebrews chapter four, verse 12.
And we're gonna do a
little devotional on how,
let me just read it.
For the word of God
is living and powerful
and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the
division of soul and spirit
and the joints of marrow
and then is a discerner
of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
So the word of God is a two-edged sword.
So that verse really isn't
just about a sword, all right?
And I know our topic
today is about our knife.
It's about the
sharpest edge in existence,
which is this here, God's word.
My knife can split firewood and I'm gonna do it.
My knife can split firewood.
It can carve feather sticks
and I could dress all
the game in the world,
but only scripture can
cut through my excuses,
cut through my pride
and even cut through sin.
But here's the truth about that.
A dull knife is
dangerous because you force it
and that's when accidents happen.
A dull faith is the same way.
When I let myself drift from God's word,
every trial takes more
out of me than it should.
Kind of like when
you're using your knife.
Every time you use it,
it's gonna make that edge a little duller
and it takes more out
of it than it should.
So I start forcing things.
I start leaning in on my own strength
and my own understanding and
that's when I start to stumble.
But I found that
whenever I stay in His word,
when I stay in this Bible right here,
flipping the pages of this here Bible,
is when I keep it, I keep myself sharp,
I keep myself alive,
keep the word alive in me
and I'm ready for whatever comes my way.
Just like I respect my knife,
enough to keep it sharp and clean and
keep it in the sheath,
I need to respect God's
word enough to keep it close
and let it shape my daily life.
So I'm gonna leave you
with this here today.
What knife do you carry every single day?
Do you trust it?
How do you care for it?
Look at this edge.
If you're watching the video, look here.
This knife has been through
it, now wipe it and clean it,
but it's still the blade.
Looks like it needs some work.
Do you care for your knife?
Do you care for it?
Now ask yourself, what about your faith?
Do you sharpen it as much
as you sharpen your blade
on your knife?
Hebrews 4 and 12 reminds
us that the word of God
is alive and active,
it's sharper than any sword,
double edged sword.
So this week, sharpen both.
That's gonna be our action of the week.
Spend some time putting a
fresh edge on your knifee,
on your knife, on your
blade, no matter which one,
pocket knife, it could
be your EDC pocket knife,
it could be your trusted belt knife.
Make it sharp, and then spend some time
sharpening your spirit.
Thanks for joining me today,
down here underneath the tarp
of Camp What the Heck, on
this 98 degree August day.
(laughs)
Hey, by the time y'all get to
hear this, it'll be September.
So until then, until
next time, stay sharp,
keep your skills up to
date, and stay in your Bible.
And remember, in all
your ways, acknowledge Him.
I'll see you next time, God bless ya.
Thanks for sitting
around the fire with me today.
If this episode gave you
something to think about,
if it helped you feel a
little bit more prepared,
or it even stirred your faith a tiny bit,
go ahead and share it with someone else
who might need it as well.
We don't go camping
to run away from life.
We come out here to
slow down and recharge.
So grab another log,
throw it on the fire,
and remember this, in all
your ways, acknowledge Him,
and He will direct your path.
I'll see you next time, God bless ya.