Not to long ago I purchased a crook knife and was trying to find a sheath to put on it. @Bear was nice enough to make a prototype out of a kydex sheath which worked really good. In thanks to him I made this small video, with a short little review of it. This is a extremely functional and well made sheath. It doesn't slip off while its in your bag and it can easily be removed with a little bit of pressure on the back to pop it off. -Phorisc Live The Adventure
That's awesome @phorisc ... Thanks for doing a review and testing it out... glad it's working out well for you! Take Care and God Bless, Bear
Neighbor builds birch bark canoes etc and 30 years ago gave me a crooked knife blade that the Hudson Bay people used to sell up north. No handle just the blade and I made a handle for it and have used it for about 30 years now and it is just getting broken in. Henri builds bark canoes from scratch with nothing but a crooked knife, axe and an awl. Everything but the tar comes from the woods, he does the same with tobogens and with added caribiu hide, makes snowshoes, shirts and pants, rope, baskets, fish lines, bow strings, shoes and I don't know what all else. I know he could live in the woods and thrive with an axe, crooked knife, fish hooks and a little snare wire and in a short while could create the rest of what he needed from the materials found in the woods with those tools. With a crooked knife, you can build canoes, snow shoes, wooden bowels, wooden spoons, furniture, and I don't know what else. He uses the axe to cut down a small tree, the crooked knife to debark it, uses the bark for cordage, makes wooden wedges to split the tree into wooden strips, the crooked knife to trim and shape the strips into the needed canoe ribs and bends them into the desired shape green or if needed heats them a little and then bends them and then uses the cordage made from the bark to hold them in the required shape until they dry. After they dry, he makes two long pieces, cut down with his axe, trimmed with his crooked knife, to make the top edge of the canoe. He then takes bitch bark, cut loose with axe and peeled and trimmed to shape with his crooked knife and uses the awl to poke holes in the bark and lace it to the sides with roots. The roots were dug with a stick cut down and into shape with the axe,and are cut to length and smoothed with the crooked knife. The ribs were forced down under the sides and give the canoe its shape and strength. They are tied to the sides. He uses the axe, wooden wedges and the crooked knife to make the cross pieces, paddle, and the canoe is complete, if you have a couple months time and the knowledge to use the tools and access to the woods. He can water proof the seams with pine pitch and bear fat, but roofing tar works so much better, that he uses it. He took raw hide from a caribiu hide, cut into strips with his crooked knife and laced the strips onto a frame for snow shoes. The frames were cut down with the axe, split with the wooden wedges, and trimmed to shape with a crooked knife and holes bored with the awl. He bent the wood green, tied it into shape with cordage made from the bark and let it dry. Sometimes he water proofed it with fat, sometimes he didn't. I was working as a machinist about 40 years ago and hurt my hand and was on workmans comp and watched him work on canoes, snow shoes, tobogons and such for a couple months. If you have the knowledge, it takes a very few tools to survive in the woods and the northern Canadian natives had it down to about a fine of art as ever existed. Knife, axe, needles, awl, fish hooks, snare wire, and knowledge let them survive and prosper. I guess it is mostly gone now.
It was a great experience and a humbling experience in what we have lost in our specialization and the knowledge that was developed over many generations on surviving with what nature provided. Most of it has disappeared in the last 50 years. Bear could possible make an estimate as to how long it would take a man without a teacher, to learn how to temper a knife blade with a charcoal fire and using only the running of the colors. Just to make it interesting, let there be no control over the quality of the steel he is tempering. In the 1800's it was a fine art, but it took many hundreds of years years of trail and error and much thought to develop the skills needed, and if not passed on, they disappear. Being able to use the modern machines and measuring devices, does not mean being able to do it the old ways. Nature provides the brains to tan the leather and the bark to tie the wood into shape, but does not provide a cheat sheet on u tube telling you how to do it. What else is provided for our use that we have lost?
That would be something worth doing a documentary... kinda like this video. -Phorisc Live The Adventure
I don't know what he has done lately, a man named Mcphee wrote a book on him and the Canadian government back in the 1970's was getting him to document things up in Mastoppee or something spelling. Look him up under Henri Vaillancourt canoes. If you have any interest in classic American crafts, surviving in the wild, or what can be done with hand tools and knowledge, be sure you have a couple of hours to spend as you might get sucked into some deep thinking and looking.
