In this episode of the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Podcast, Chris Speir delves into the essentials of selecting the perfect knife for outdoor adventures, discussing the types of steel, knife tangs, grinds, and sharpening techniques, ensuring you're well-equipped for any bushcraft task.
Introduction:
Key Points Discussed:
Types of Knives:
Personal Favorites:
Types of Steel:
Knife Tangs:
Grinds:
Spine of the Knife:
Sharpening Techniques:
Knife Length:
Personal Techniques:
Conclusion:
(upbeat music)
- Welcome back to the Primitive Camping
at Bushcraft Podcast.
My name is Chris Speir,
and I'm gonna be your guide
to enjoying the great outdoors.
Today is all about knives.
Everybody loves a good pocket knife.
Everybody loves a good folding knife,
or a belt knife, a sheath knife,
or whatever everybody likes, knives.
And I get it because
knives are the number one tool
next to a metal pot that you'll take
and would you into the woods.
I have my Morinive
Garbird and my BPS Bushcraft II,
and I use those two
knives interchangeably,
and they are great at
doing specific tasks
that I need them to do,
like cutting down trees,
cutting down
saplings, splitting firewood,
carving, cleaning game, cutting up fish,
stuff like that.
These knives work great
at doing the task at hand
that I need them to do.
But the single most important tool
you could take with you into the woods,
aside from a metal container,
is a good quality sheath or belt knife.
And perhaps the
second most important tool
that you can pack is a backup knife.
It's happened to me before,
now using a stainless steel knife,
and I was trying to split a sapling,
cut a sapling, I was cutting a sapling,
and I was, I set the knife up there, and I was using a baton, and I was trying to be but this happened to me.
And that's what got me looking into
the different variations of steel,
the different variations of knives.
So the types of steel
that you got to choose from,
now there's others, but
for the sake of simplicity,
whenever I was researching the book
and doing everything for this book,
that I narrowed it
down to stainless steel
and high carbon steel.
And so without turning
it into a chemistry class,
all steel has some degree
of carbon in the makeup,
and what that does is it
just makes the steel stronger.
But the main
difference is stainless steel
is more malleable and less
brittle than carbon steel.
Stainless steel has a metallic element
added to it called chromium,
and it gives it its anti-corrosive
and tarnish resistant finish,
and that results in a
highly polished shine.
Now high carbon steel
knives are more rigid and robust,
but more brittle and prone
to chipping and cracking,
especially in cold weather.
And they're also more
robust, are more rust prone,
and do not hold an edge as long as
stainless steel knives.
And so this is true.
I've had people that argue with me,
and they keep saying that,
no, you're backwards,
dude, you're backwards.
Like the stainless
steel will chip and crack,
and the high carbon steel will warp.
And I'm like, I've never had that.
I've never had that happen to me.
I've had the
stainless steel warp and bend,
but I've had the carbon
steel chip crack and break,
and especially whenever you're prying
and you're using it to pry.
So those two, there's differences there,
especially if you're using a ferro rod,
and I don't know why,
but a ferro rod with a
high carbon steel knife
is going to throw
massive sparks off there.
Now you'll get sparks
with a stainless steel knife,
but it just won't be as
abundant as the carbon steel.
But high carbon steel is superior
to starting fires with a ferro rod
and is less prone to blade warping.
And high carbon steel, it's true,
it will rust a lot easier than your
stainless steel knives,
but there's some kind of trade off there.
Some people love their
stainless, some people don't.
Some people love the high
carbon, some people don't.
So let's move on now.
We're gonna go to the tang of a knife.
What is a tang?
You know, so your knife
will go through tons of abuse
while you're out camping,
while you're out in the woods,
you're practicing your bushcraft,
you're practicing
survival skills, you know,
primitive camping.
So when making a selection,
you wanna consider
the tang of your knife.
The tang is the part of the knife blade
that extends into the handle.
So you've seen it, you've
seen where you look down
to spine of your knife and
you can see that knife blade
going all the way in
through the end of the handle
and the knife.
And it's the same width or thickness
as the rest of the knife blade.
And that is a full tang knife.
Now your partial tangs have the handles
that are made around it.
A good example of this would be
the Morinive Companion HD.
Those are, the companions
are partial tang knives.
They don't go, the tang
doesn't go all the way through.
Now the Garberg is a full tang knife.
It goes all the way through the handle.
So the tang is the
part of the knife blade
that extends into the handle.
There's wide varieties of knife tangs,
but we're gonna concentrate on just two
of the most common types.
And that's the full
tang and the partial tang.
Now a partial tang
does not run all the way
through the handle, which makes the knife
comparatively weaker to the full tang.
And it's more, it's subject to breakage.
It's more subject to being able to break,
especially when you're
using a knife to split firewood
or other demanded tasks like
prying and stuff like that.
But they tend to be less
expensive than full tang knives.
So I use the Morinive
Garberg and the Morinive Companion.
And I'll use the
Garberg as my main knife.
The Companion is my backup knife.
And that way I have two.
Now I'll also, I'll use
one for splitting wood.
I'll use one for cutting fish or game.
The Companion is the
blade's a little thinner
and so therefore it
cleans fish a lot easier than,
let's say the Garberg does.
The Garberg has a real thick blade
and it's better at splitting firewood
or cutting out
saplings and stuff like that.
Now, another aspect to do, to consider
is gonna be the grind of your knife.
This is one aspect where
you've got so many different
grinds for a knife, it's crazy that
some people will argue all
day what grind is more superior.
And so we're gonna keep it very simple.
So the grind is another
important consideration
when choosing your knife.
It is the type of grind
refers to how the knives blade
edge is ground down to make a
razor sharp edge for cutting.
Now that, I'm reading word
for word out of this book.
And so many people tend
to only consider the tang
and overlook the grind.
So whenever people
selecting their knives,
they don't even consider
whether it's carbon steel
or stainless steel,
but then they look into
the kind of materials it
is, but then they look into
the full tang or partial tang
and then they just select their knife.
But each grind has a
specific task that is done.
So we're gonna look at
four grinds most often used
with primitive camping and bushcraft.
The Scandinavian or
Scandi grind, the flat grind,
and those are the two most
common grinds that are used
for bushcraft and in primitive camping.
A hollow grind offers
a sharp and precise cut
ideal for delicate tasks
such as like skinning animals
or like cleaning fish
and stuff like that.
But it's real easily susceptible to
damage with heavy use.
And let's see, conversely
with this outwardly curved
blade edge formed by continuous tapering,
a convex grind provides a robust and
durable edge suitable
for demanding tasks.
So still it may light
the precision and sharpness
of other grinds.
Now the hollow grind and the
convex grind can be challenging
to sharpen in the field
and they require more skill
to maintain the correct
angle during your sharpening.
So, but the Scandinavian
grind and the flat grind are,
you know, like I said,
they're the most common grinds
that you're gonna find on a knife.
And these things right
here are the easiest way
to sharpen in the field.
And the Scandi grind, the
flat grind are the easiest
to sharpen a hollow grind.
A lot of times, you
know, with the hollow grind
and the convex grind,
they're a lot more difficult
to sharpen.
So now we're gonna move on to the spine.
Another aspect of your
knife selection is to ensure
that your knife has a
sharp 90 degree spine.
A lot of the knives, many
of these flashy knives there
are survival knives or
bushcraft knives or whatever are,
you know, they have all these ridges now
and then they're coated in
this powder and, you know,
powder coated and stuff like that.
And, you know, it is
designed to prevent rusting.
And if you took care of your knife,
your knife's not gonna rust anyway.
And number two, if you
need to start a fire,
it's gonna make it harder to
start a fire with your knife
and your ferro rod, all
these coatings and stuff.
Now these little stylistic
ridges that they got on the top
are like for thumbs and
you can hold your thumb grip
and stuff like that, but it
prevents you from starting
a fire with your knife or the ferro rod.
Now, many high carbon
steel knives now come
with a powder coating to prevent rusting,
but you do not need a
powder coating on your knife.
All you need is just
simply clean it, wipe it,
and if you have to add a
little bit of oil to the knife,
even when you're out in the woods,
you can add a little bit of
oil to your knife, you know,
some grease or something like that.
And maintaining your
knife in the field is easy,
just to keep it from rusting.
Just keep it dry and
apply a small amount of oil.
That's it, that's all
you gotta do, daily use.
And I don't understand
why people have to have
these powder coatings
other than it looks cool
and makes the whole knife
like one solid color like black.
And I've seen them now where
they're like all powder blue
or red or, you know,
green or, you know, whatever.
I just like a regular knife, a regular
knife blade, you know.
Now, sharpening your knife is,
when it comes to knife sharpening,
there are so many different
options, including stones,
diamond plates, ceramic
sharpeners, leather belts.
So people argue with me about that.
You know, a strop or a leather belt
is technically not sharpening your knife.
I get it, I understand that.
But what it does is
it realizes it's burrs
and it makes your knife seem sharper.
And so when you're
actually out in the field,
if you have a leather belt on,
every time you use your knife,
if you stroke it on the leather,
it will stay sharper longer.
And that's just a proven
fact and it works for me.
But people, I've posted a video
on all my social media platforms.
You know, it got
hundreds of thousands of views
and people argue with me that,
oh, that's not what it's doing.
That's, you know, I'm like, come on, man.
It's whatever it is what it is.
But stroking a knife
involves running a blade
along a leather strap, you
know, a belt or, you know,
some kind or it's a
reverse cutting motion, you know,
backwards.
And this process polishes the edges
and it removes the burrs
and refines the sharpness
resulting in a
smoother, more efficient cut
and prolonged sharpness.
So a sharp stone from
a creek or a stream,
I mean, a smooth stone, not sharp,
a smooth stone from a creek
or stream can, sure enough,
sharpen a knife.
And, you know, one of
the most recent things
I've seen is somebody, I
think it was Zach Fowler,
on Fowler's "Makery and Mischief"
where he demonstrated
how he kept his knife sharp
on the alone show.
He cut a log and he stood that log up
and then he wiped clay or
sand on top of that log.
And he used that to go back and forth
to keep his knife
razor sharp the whole time.
And I have since seen
several people do that.
I don't know if
they're copying him or what,
but I'd never seen that method before.
Alan Kay, he used the stone.
He used the stone out of
the creek and he did his.
He was the season one winner of the log.
But, you know, there's
a million different ways
to sharpen your knife while
you're out into the woods.
So, now, length of your knife,
the ideal length of your
knife depends on your intended use
and it intends on you.
It depends on you.
It depends on what you
want, what you need it for,
how you're going to use it.
A knife is going to be,
it's best if it's between
the blade, not the handle,
but the blade is
between four and five inches.
So, that's gonna make your
knife nine to 10 inches long,
depending on your handle size.
You know, a four to five
inch knife is the perfect length
for a primitive
camping or bushcraft knife.
And it allows you to process firewood
and it allows you to chop down saplings.
It allows you to do carving.
It allows you to process your game.
It allows you to do, you know,
clean fish, stuff like that.
And your blade should be relatively thick
and a lot of them now,
I've seen them all the
way up to a quarter an inch,
three eighths of an inch thick.
And I'm like, dude, that's overkill.
(laughing) But, you know, three 30
seconds and three sixteenths
of an inch, that is usually pretty good,
perfect thick blades for a knife.
Now, the thicker the blade,
the more abuse it will
be able to withstand,
especially when you're splitting firewood
or you're cutting out
saplings, you know, stuff like that.
Some bushcrafters and
survivalists will frown upon
using your knife to split firewood.
But, you know, if you're in a situation,
it's gonna be the best and only option
that you have and it depends on the
situation that you're in.
If you're going out
there for a couple of days,
split your firewood.
I typically do not split a lot of
firewood when I'm camping.
I don't think a lot of it's necessary.
And I mean, I do, to start it off,
I'll split small amounts,
but once it starts,
the fire gets big enough
and has enough coals and is hot enough,
I'll just throw whole
logs and limbs on there.
I typically don't cut them down.
I conserve my energy.
I will take a long, a very long limb
and I'll throw it on the
fire and burn it in half.
And then I'll throw it on the fire again,
burn those in half and
then throw it on fire.
And save my energy there.
A lot of people are
like, "Oh, you're just lazy."
No, I'm not lazy.
I'm just, I'm not gonna
sit there and waste my time
and wear myself out, splitting a log
with a saw or cutting a
log with an ax or whatever.
So I carry my primary
knife everywhere I go,
which is my Garberg and
my Morin knife Garberg.
And then sometimes I use my BPS Bushcraft
and I have a backup knife,
which is my Morin knife companion HD.
Now these knives are great,
but the Garberg and the
Bushcraft are the ones
that I use the most to split firewood.
They got the thickest blade.
And their blades are also,
they're perfect for splitting logs
and they're perfect for
go ahead and batoning stuff
or carving things or whatever.
I mean, it's perfect for what I do
whenever I'm in woods.
So, all right, well,
that was a real quick down
and dirty episode on selecting a knife.
And if you got any questions,
go ahead and shoot me questions.
This video is, this podcast
is actually gonna be a video
on YouTube.
You go over to YouTube,
throw it in the comments
if you got any questions and go ahead
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listening to this on,
just go ahead and hit that
like button, that follow button
and let me know what
you think, leave a review.
Let me know what you think
about the way it's going.
This is all new to me
and I'm making it up as I go, I guess.
So, I need your help
and deciding the future of this program.
So, I hope you enjoyed this today.
Real quick down and
dirty how to select a knife
and don't forget,
everything that we discuss here
is gonna be included in the book,
Primitive Camping in Bushcraft,
which that is what this
entire podcast is based off of
is this book,
Primitive Camping in Bushcraft.
And I'll see you next time
in the next video podcast.
God bless you.
(upbeat music)