Bushcraft Hints, Tricks, and Skills (Short You Tube Videos)

Starting a fire in the rain.

https://youtube.com/shorts/cYvqvqx8zhA?si=avzSbclp-CAqFSnC

 

Survival pencil sharpener: Making tinder, sharpening sticks as tools and weapons, traps,etc.

Pencil sharpeners made of magnesium can be scraped for magnesium dust and ignited with a fero rod and striker.

https://youtube.com/shorts/wy5cHl9J2oU?si=LzTxGg1dk1ci_5qn

 

Man, ain't no body got a knife? Or know how to use it? Crap.

 

Wooden rocket stove and spit roasted potato.

https://youtube.com/shorts/mU1R_36YLXQ?si=833PmsDQ1sl_Nyhu

 

There you go Jerry, a knife hack just for you.

https://youtube.com/shorts/rZOdNQ57l2M?si=_A-wfJJLeN-Hso6h

 

Modified Dakota fire hole.

https://youtube.com/shorts/KttaI6xclFo?si=kA-ZumCgfCdzMgeu

 

I guess to a master knife artisan, a knife is a preferred first choice solution to every problem. It's not that nobody has a knife, nor know how to use one if they had one; sometimes, having a second or third option can be a lifesaving opportunity when first options fail, or are lost.

A pencil sharpener is an effective, efficient method quickly and safely of producing tinder from twigs, and crafting other pointy objects that can be made with a pencil sharpener: such as weaving and knitting needles, pegs, animal traps, toggles, arrows and darts etc etc etc.

Benefits of a survival pencil sharpener.

• Can be safely used by even children;etc) and people with dexterity challenges (Parkinsons, DTs, etc) without needing much skill or dexterity.
• It Is a redundancy item in producing tinder (on the basis that one is none, two is one and three is better) giving depth to one's survival EDC kit, in the same sense of having alternative means of fire starting in the same kit.
• A prisoner is like to have a knife confiscated from them, an innocuous pencil sharpener may possibly evade notice or concern.
• A pencil sharpener only weighs a few grams, and occupies little space in an EDC kit.
• If the pencil sharpener is made of Magnesium, the sharpener itself can be scraped for dust as an incendiary accelerant.
• A pencil sharpener usually has one or two short blades held in place with small screws. The blades can be demounted to be used as improvised cutting tools for skinning / gutting small game.
• If the blades are magnetised, they can be used to magnetise small sewing needles to produce an improvised compass
• A pencil sharpener can be used to make improvised knitting needles or loom weaving pegs to craft bags, clothing, nets, and other useful objects.
• The novelty of using a pencil sharpener to make tinder instead of a knife, machete, tomahawk, kukri etc may encourage others (particularly children) to think outside of the square, and engender an adaptive approach to problem solving rather than simply relying on standard solutions.
• A carpenter's pencil sharpener can accommodate larger twigs for tinder making etc.

https://www.instructables.com/3-Things-You-Can-Make-From-Pencil-Sharpeners-Pegs/

Workshop tip: Adapt a pencil sharpener to make small pins - FineWoodworking

 

And you can use a fish to drive a nail.
A sharpened instrument is man kinds either first or second tool. There was stick and rock. They probably hit two rocks together and made them sharp, knifemaking was born. Pencil sharpeners came later.
If a person cannot use a knife in or out of the box they will not survive.
Yes, I can skin an animial with the blade on a pencil sharpeners, but also I have with a broken coke bottle. It requires more than skinning to feed yourself.
I started cutting competitions the public can come watch many years ago. They are now held worldwide so people can see what you can do with one.

 

A frozen hammerhead shark?

That is so very true, but firearms also came later...should we eschew firearms in favour of bone knives simply because the knife was developed before firearms? You have made a fallacious argument, suggesting that just because a particular tool was developed before another tool, that the earlier invention is inherently better?
Appeal to antiquity or tradition

Plenty of people have survived who had no knife skills, or lacked a knife altogether. They adapted, improvised and overcame. And belted in nails with a fish....or maybe a fossilised fish.

That is admirable. Promoting the versatility of broken glass bottle fragments is fine as far as it goes, but a pencil sharpener in my EDC kit, is a bird in the hand, as opposed to relying on luck and good fortune of finding a broken bottle in the bush, at the time and place one wants to do a bit of skinning or gutting.

I didn't suggest otherwise, however being able to skin what one kills makes the processing and preparing the kill for cooking so much easier.

Yes, I understand that your knife performances are undoubtedly show stoppers, and that all will marvel at your virtuosity, but I am not making the argument that the newfangled modern technology of pencil sharpeners is a total replacement for knives....carrying and using a pencil sharpener is not an either / or option....it is possible to have both, and use that which is most convenient, or which tickles one's fancy at the time a task needs to be performed.



Special Forces combat pencil sharpeners rock!
https://youtube.com/shorts/0f65IVzK_yY?si=31GeDsN9_x5eEG-m

 

Fire starting wicks.

 

A 'tea ball' liquid fuel heat source. Note that denatured alcohol is recommended as the fuel.

 

Coconut rocket stove, for when marooned on a tropical Island.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ZfwgvhKbkhs?si=PVePQf_j3PUjewKR

 

A suggested bushcraft tool roll.

 

Making bushcraft toggles. I like the dual purpose concept of making the toggles using fatwood.

 

Fire steel skills.

 

Kettle crane.

https://youtube.com/shorts/8LRMfGPUQA8?si=lj3tra89p7epXdkT

 

Spring loaded snare...just have to find a carrot to entice bugs Bunny.

https://youtube.com/shorts/DMd8FV1AOx4?si=FdKqsOwVoLQeiINx

 

Pot lid / billy handle lifter crafted from a stick.

https://youtube.com/shorts/sHwfIIvXvgI?si=bQhyP3x8IgfHQAKp

 

Free a stuck bush saw with a wedge.

https://youtube.com/shorts/EIYMBB3Cnt8?si=tQRiAIhSzTafjS_O

 

Bic lighter tinder hack

https://youtube.com/shorts/nNmNm2oK8WA?si=RGGhVzeZ9B7QE-v6

Fire from a broken / fuel-less Bic lighter.

https://youtube.com/shorts/3OzWkwibML0?si=SGpPV1Q8i_EElIYi