Naturally Sharp By Jim Dillard

I think that I would be more comfortable traveling nude in an Alaskan blizzard than walking into the woods without my trusty diamond sharpener tucked safely in the side pocket of my pants.  I never thought I would have the occasion to do either until I recently committed myself to a week long trip without taking any manufactured sharpening gear.  My intent was to learn to use only what I found in the wild for my honing needs, and to add another item to my list of bushcraft and survival skills.
     While reading the 1891 journal of famed Alaska explorer Frederick Schwatka, I ran across a passage where his group had shot a moose to supplement their dwindling rations.  Before butchering the moose, his Indian guide spent over an hour looking for a “proper stone” to sharpen his knife.  In another old journal, Eskimo carvers were having a good laugh at white traders who had carried whetstones from New York to western Alaska by train, then steamship, then dory to use as trade items.  The carvers quickly proved that the stones they had found in nature were far superior to the ones offered as trade. This convinced me that staying naturally sharp was a viable idea.  Soon I was off on a foray in the Bush (gulp) with no commercial sharpening gear whatsoever.
     We arrived in camp on the southern tip of Kodiak Island.  As is the usual case, someone borrowed my knife and then someone else, and soon it was time to dress the edge.  As I began my search, it was apparent that natural stones rarely provide a flat surface, and that most are so rough that they just make matters worse.  However, the smooth stones found in riverbeds, on ocean beaches and in glacial till provided a solution.  By holding the blade still and making circular motions with the smooth stones, a decent edge was achieved.  It was a slow process compared with modern diamond sharpeners, but I was pleasantly surprised with the results.  I learned that almost any somewhat smooth stone would in time produce a suitable edge, even on high-tech stainless steels.
     By using a succession of three stones of differing coarseness and my belt for a strop, I was eventually able to shave a patch of hair off of my arm.  The slowness of the process was due in part to the softness of the finish stones, but was also likely due to their rounded shape, which allowed only a small portion of the stone to touch the blade at any one time.  This has a clear parallel in manufactured products, as a flat, diamond bench hone works much faster than a round diamond stick of the same grit.
     The most aggressive stones were made up of different varieties of quartz. Quartz would be somewhere in the 70’s on the Rockwell scale, so it easily cuts blade steel.  The quartz stones glazed over with metal particles in a short while, and no amount of water would slow the glazing, but there were plenty of the rocks available to replace the glazed ones.   The softer shale put on the finest edge, but it was the quickest to glaze over.

  In later travels to the Continental US, I followed the advice of an Oklahoma elder who told me that common sandstone would not glaze over, especially when water is used for a lubricant.  She had sharpened her kitchen knives on her sandstone back steps for over a half century.  I have now sharpened my own kitchen knives on sandstone for the past few months and find that although the process is labor intensive, the edge produced is approximately equivalent to that of a 600 grit diamond hone.  The glazing is avoided because, as with Japanese water stones and soft Arkansas stones, the surface wears down, continually exposing fresh abrasive material.
     To achieve the best possible edge, stropping is a must.  Without the strop an otherwise sharp knife can perform the same as a really dull one.  The purpose of the strop in this case is simply to remove the wire edge that forms while working on the stone.   There are many options that will serve well as a strop.  Of course the back of a leather belt works fine.  Choices also include canvas (I use the leg of my work pants) dry cardboard, boot tops, nylon strapping and so on.  The formal woodcraft schools in Europe have even taught stropping on the palm of the hand to attain the finest edge. (Do not try this at home without adult supervision.)
     A dependable, modern sharpening system should always be a part of every outdoor kit; however, a basic premise of bushcraft is to learn to use what nature provides.  It is good to know that, with practice, there are alternatives to manufactured products.

Carving the Classic Feather Stick by Jim Dillard

Carving the Classic Feather Stick

Among bushcrafters a person’s skill is often judged by their ability to make a quality feather stick. Making a quality stick not only requires top-notch knife skills, it also requires the maker to know a variety of woods and their characteristics.

The feather stick is important for several reasons. The most obvious reason and use of the stick is of course to start a fire. A flame touched to several well-made sticks will start a fire even when the wood is damp. Any camper can find themselves in conditions where the only firewood available is damp, and these are often the times when you need a fir e the most. Where I live in a sub-Arctic rain forest, there is always abundant wood, and it is always wet, so wet-wood fire skills are a must.

Another reason to practice making the sticks is that it quickly improves general knife skills. Every bit of competence you earn with a knife will transfer to other projects and will also make you a safer knife user in the field.

Getting Started – The Wood

To learn which wood in your area makes the best feather stick, you will need to experiment and observe. Part of bushcraft is a continual process of experimentation with the resources around you. What you read in books may not always apply. For instance, I have read that willow is an excellent wood for feather sticks. In some places that may be true, but where I live most of the willows are too small to make feathers, and those pieces that are large enough are too hard to make anything but a poor stick. So – start with the softer woods in your area, and try them all. In my area nearly the entire forest is made up of spruce, and all varieties of northern cedar are found as driftwood on the beaches. All of those woods seem to work equally well.

Learn to read the wood grain – observe and remember. Generally, evergreen woods such as pine and spruce should be carved with the blade at a 90-degree angle to the grain. Deciduous woods such as willow and aspen curl better when cut parallel to the grain. Woods with a tight grain pattern usually carve and curl better than woods with open grain. For instance, spruce wood with 20 annual rings per inch makes a better stick than spruce with only 10 rings per inch. Standing dead wood makes better sticks because standing wood is generally drier than other wood, but other woods will work too if they aren’t too wet. Most of the feather sticks I make are from driftwood found on the beaches near my home. This wood is wet on the outside, but usually dry in the center of the log. If the wood is dry enough to float, the center is likely to be dry enough to make a feather stick. Again, experiment with your local materials.

Using saw or axe, cut the wood into pieces 16 – 20” long, then split into pieces that are roughly one inch square. Save the outside damp wood to burn when the fire is well under way.


The Knife

Any sharp knife with a full Scandinavian bevel will make a good feather stick. The full Scandinavian bevel is necessary because it is the bevel that is used to control the depth of the cut. The curls on a good feather stick will be at most 1/100 of an inch thick, with most of the curls being closer to half that thickness. Holding a convex or hollow ground bevel consistently at that exact thickness as it enters the wood is impossible. With the Scandi bevel, you simply hold the bevel flat against the wood and push in. The bevel and sideways pressure serve as your depth gauge. Since you will be pushing the knife edge straight through the wood without any kind of sawing action, you will need a finely sharpened edge, one sharpened to 4,000 – 6,000 grit and well stropped. This is no place for a “toothy” edge.

The knife I am using in the accompanying photos is a Kellam Wolverine. The Wolverine won’t make a better feather stick than other similar knives, but since it has an edge hardness that is close to the hardness of a file, it will certainly make more of them without resharpening. Since I give boxes of feather sticks away as gifts, and since I have four woodstoves on my place, the ability to make lots of sticks in one setting is an advantage to me.

Cutting Techniques

Start with a stick about one-inch square. It should have a straight grain, not wavy, and should be knot free. With the bevel of your knife flat against the stick, carve five faces or facets the entire length of the stick. These will be 1/4” to 3/8” in width. ALWAYS keep your free hand behind the cutting edge. In photo #1, the facets are colored with a marker for clarity. Three of the facets are visible in the photo, and two more are on the other side of the stick.

By managing the angle of your knife blade, you can control the direction the curl comes off of the stick. I have seen experienced woodsmen giggle as they discover exactly how much control they have by simply changing the angle of the blade just a few degrees. I like to make the curls on the left side of my sticks curl out a bit by cutting with the tip of my blade slightly up. The angle of the blade in photo #1 is about right. To make curls stay parallel to one of the facets, simply cut the wood with the blade a 90-degree angle to the stick as shown on photo #2.

Photo #3 shows both good work and bad work. The curls coming off of the center facet are well made. They all have multiple curls – they will light easily and will make a good contribution to your fire. The two long curls way out to the side of the stick are poorly made. They will quickly burn off and fall away from the rest of the stick. They won’t do much to help you start a fire. The reason the curls stick out too far is that the tip of the knife is held too high – at too much of an angle. Your goal is to make a tight mass of curls. Adjust the angle of your knife accordingly.

To get the wood on the right side of your stick to curl out a bit, hold the tip of your knife down. Be careful to not saw the wood, but keep the same part of your blade on the wood all the way down. This is more difficult than it looks and may take a bit of practice.

With your knife bevel pushed flat against one of the outside facets, carve a curl the length of the stick to about an inch from the end. Then go to the next facet and the next till you have done all five. Then start over again. Carve curls until you feel the stick begin to flex from its thinness. At this point you are finished – or ready for an optional next step.

Photo #5 shows an optional step. After I have finished making all the large curls, I sometimes make a series of tiny ones. The tiny curls are appropriate in two situations. First, if the wood is especially damp, the large curls may be difficult to start with a match. A single match will, however, light the small, thinner curls and if the stick is held upright, those will dry out the neighboring curls enough to get them started. Several years ago I tied up a bundle of spruce kindling and soaked it overnight in the lake near my house. The next morning I carved several feather sticks from the wet wood and finished them with the tiny curls at the base. A single match lit the small curls. Holding the stick upright with the mass of large curls on top, the entire stick was soon in flame even though the wood was fairly damp.

The second reason for the tiny curls is less practical, but is a lot of fun. If they are thin enough, it is possible to light the curls with a firesteel. This isn’t easy. The difficult part is to get enough sparks targeted into the center of the curls. Early last spring I was teaching a bushcraft class to a group of teens. Even though I had started feather sticks with sparks before, that day I failed miserably, and I did so while every student was watching. An hour later a 17-year-old student accomplished what I had failed to do. He lit his feather stick with a firesteel and then lit his fire with that single feather stick. And this was accomplished with a piece of cedar driftwood he found on the beach only a short time before. The result was a renewed enthusiasm in all of the students present. It was a good day.

I have read several bushcraft texts which claim that you must have a half dozen feather sticks to light a fire. If you make a featherstick the quality of the one in photo #6, you need only one. A single stick with this much curl and mass, along with some pencil-size kindling, will do the job every time.

The key is observation, practice and a sharp knife. Be patient and keep trying.

Fine Tune Your Mora Knife - part 1 by Jim Dillard

The Mora knife is without a doubt the best bargain in the field of bushcraft. Bushcraft greats such as Mors Kochanski have developed techniques with the Mora that go far beyond what most of us ever thought could be done with a simple knife – and all with a tool costing only a few dollars. Admittedly, for most buchcrafters there is an attraction to specialized knives costing hundreds of dollars, but the truth is that in skilled hands, and with a little tuning, a Mora can do the work of the most expensive custom knife. There are clearly some benefits to carrying an inexpensive knife in the field. For those who tend to lose things, the replacement of a lost Mora won’t do damage to even the tightest budget. Another advantage is that considering the cost and the light weight of the Mora, most folks can carry two or three of them in different places in their gear, insuring that they will never be without a knife. As a teacher, one of my favorite advantages of carrying a Mora is that when I come across a special student, I can give them my knife as encouragement – a special gift for them, and at very little cost to me.

There are a few simple alterations that can be made to the Mora and sheath to make it more useful to those practicing the art of bushcraft. The first such alteration is to SHARPEN THE SPINE of the knife. This does not mean to create a cutting edge on the back of the knife, but instead means to grind the back of the blade to where it has a sharp 90 degree angle to the side. A word of caution here – this technique is best used on simple carbon steels. Because the sides of the Triflex and laminated blades are soft, a sharpened spine will only last a short time before needing to be redone and therefore would have limited use. The sharp spine would have more use on a stainless blade, but generally stainless blades do not work as well with a firesteel, so the alteration is best with blades made of simple carbon steel..

The first photo shows the spines of two Mora carbon steel blades. The bottom blade is rough and rounded on the edges, just as it comes from the factory. The top blade is one with a sharpened spine, a more useful bushcraft tool.

Sharpening the spine is a simple process, but needs to be done with caution. The blade can be ground on a bench grinder with a fine stone, or can be ground with a belt sander with a fairly fine belt, 220 or finer. When grinding make sure of two things. First, the spine needs to be ground at a 90 degree angle to the side. If you are experienced with such things this can be done by “eyeball.” If your grinder has a guide as many do, set the guide at 90 degrees to the stone. The second caution of course is that the metal should not get too hot. If the blade gets too hot, the temper will be ruined. Make quick passes when grinding and use light pressure. The tip of the blade is most likely to burn, so see to it that the tip spends very little time on the stone or sander and has time to cool between passes. If at any time the blade becomes so hot that it is uncomfortable to touch, you need to make quicker passes or use water for cooling.

Once the spine is ground, it will have to be maintained just as the edge does. Every time you sharpen the edge of your knife, turn the blade over and rub the spine against the sharpening stone. This can be done with the coarsest stone you have. Grind the spine until the corner feels sharp. That’s all there is to it – no finer stone or stropping needed.

Photo #2 shows a spine being sharpened on a diamond stone. Simply place the back of the blade down on the stone and go back and forth – point to handle.

Photo #3 shows one of the uses of a sharpened spine. Several bushcraft projects require that the outer bark be scraped off of green wood. Here the outer bark is removed so that the inner bark can be made into cordage.

Photo #4 shows a technique that is impossible with a blade spine as it comes from the factory. Here the sharp corner is being used to “fuzz” a piece of split wood. If the wood is dry the fuzz can be lit with sparks to start fires.

One of the most dramatic benefits of a sharp spine is with the firesteel. Photo #5 shows a strong effort being made to make a shower of sparks with a factory spine. Even though a great deal of pressure was used only a meager shower of sparks is produced.

Photo #6 shows a massive shower of sparks produced by the corner of a sharpened spine. The difference is obvious.

As your bushcraft skills increase, you will most likely find even more uses for a well-sharpened spine.