It’s that time of year again. School's almost out, the summer is just about here, around the country there are going to be countless kids begging to be let out of the way way back of the Griswold mobile, inconsiderate passengers pacing the aisles of airlines and crowded lines at seasonal tourist traps. That’s right, it’s going to be travel season very soon.At the beginning of next month, all sorts of knife enthusiasts will descend upon Atlanta, GA for BLADE Show too. If you’re like me, you don’t travel without a knife. It’s bad enough traveling to places where I can’t carry a handgun, I really don’t want to be without one of my blades. What amazes me is speaking to people, in my travels and around many campfires, who are under the impression you cannot fly with knives or the idea flying with knives is a major inconvenience. For them, I present the following guide to traveling bladed. It’s easier than you think.
Earlier this month, I presented some of the basic features of binoculars and what you should know about the numbers relating to magnification and objective lens size. I hinted at some basic techniques for using binoculars and in this edition of the Fiddleback Forge blog some of the more advance skills will be presented. If you haven’t gone out and purchased a set of binos by now, what are you waiting for? Grab and try these tactics out next time you venture afield. Don’t forget your KE Bushie before you head out the door.
There are a lot of different techniques for starting camp fires in the wilderness, from primitive methods like bow drills and flint and steel to ferro rods with chemical tinder and wind-proof butane torches. My favorite option for quickly making fire are the UCO Stormproof Matches™. These matches are longer than standard matches and have a larger head. They go off somewhat like small road flares, they flare very hot for 8 to 10 seconds, and they will burn for around 10 more seconds afterward if protected from wind.
This fire lay was done on wet ground, the day after an all night rain. There was very little prep work involved. First I made a base for the fire from branches collected off the ground that were roughly one inch in diameter. Then I placed small dry twigs, also collected off the ground, on the base. I started with twigs just a little larger in diameter than tooth picks and match stems, and worked up to ones roughly the diameter of a pencil and a little larger. After that I gathered as much fuel as I could from as far off the ground as I could find it. That was the extent of the prep work.
