My all time favorite primitive technology books

 I have a sizeable library. Physical books- probably around 500. Digital books and other type documents- probably around 100,000.  I have been interested in nature since I was old enough to walk. So, a vast majority of my books are on nature subjects-  rocks, plants, animals, etc. I have a lot of survival books. I have a lot of gardening and self reliance books. My favorite though, are my primitive technology books. My collection of physical PT books are:

Primitive Technology vol 1 & 2 edited by Wescott

Practicing Primitive by Watts

all 3 Woodsmoke books by the Jameson's

Both volumes of Primitive Wilderness Living by the McPherson's

Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes by Wheat

Wilderness Survival Handbook by Pewtherer

Can you Survive by Pressley

And the one that started it all......Outdoor Survival Skills by Olsen

In 1976 I picked up a copy of Olsen's book at the ARMY PX bookstore when I was stationed in West Berlin, Germany. I thought  "this is it!  When will there be more work on this subject?" It had just come out in paperback. By the way I still have this book. All I did was put a clear plastic jacket on it. It looks to be in pretty good shape for all the field work it saw. I made a carry case out of hard, thick rawhide to protect it on my ventures. West Berlin was around 100 miles behind the "Iron Curtain" in East Germany, the Communist German Democratic Republic, a Soviet ally at the time. What a lot of folks don't know is there are large areas of forested land in Berlin. The one I roamed was the Grunewald which translates to "green forest". There were some pretty secluded areas and the only threat was the huge European wild pigs. Those things looked like small rhinos when you saw them running through the woods! And they could be downright mean! There were red deer too. And of course rabbits and squirrels. Fires were a no-no but if you were smart and built a small smokeless fire all was good. I had many a good time on my days off out in the 'wald.

Notice that some of these books have "survival" in the title. I would say that they are more geared towards primitive skills than modern. The book by Pewtherer covers some modern necessities such as first aid kits (I always carry a small modern geared kit when I go woods running) and some other modern tools like a compass and survival kit. The rest is surviving from a primitive technology view point. Ben Pressleys book is almost all primitive except he shows how to use a fire steel and there are a few photos of him in a 18th century long hunters outfit. This is all just fine with me. I live in both worlds but I prefer primitive tech and skills. Its more a hobby thing. I use modern tools like saws, axe's, steel knives and such for my primitive projects if it requires serious stock removal. I've done many purist stone, bone  antler & wood bow building and other projects but my joints are showing the damage done to them over many years of this type work let alone all the years doing most of my building construction by hand. It gets to ya quick so if there's an easier way I'll go that route. There are days when I can hardly bend my fingers and my wrists pulse with pain but I keep plugging along. Life is too much fun to give in to pain and discomfort. I just cut a little slower now.

I'm always looking for more stuff to write about and if there is something you would like me to research please let me know. I'm in need of resources such as bone, antler, hides and rock so if you have any extra I would be pleased. I have a few things to trade. Until next time, take care and enjoy life. Make as much of it as you can!

The joys of online shopping

 Yeah, right. I live about 20 miles or so from the capital of Florida, Tallahassee. It is a dismal place to shop for anything outdoorsy,survival/preps, etc. There is Dicks sporting goods but I don't do business with the dicks at Dicks because they stopped selling guns to appease the progressive political left. Screw them. There are gun stores here and there and a plethora of pawn shops but prices are higher than retail. Oh, and we have the ubiquitous Wally Werld here and they have goods that range from pure garbage to fairly useful. They keep putting the guns away anytime someone gets into the chicken little routine. For example, election day and swear in day for the idiot Joe B. the pervo. They actually put everything in the back and had the nerve to lie to me and say "the manager who sells guns isn't here today". I will NEVER buy a firearm from Wallys. I've had better luck going to off the wall thrift stores. I've scored some very nice gear. For instance an Outdoors Products 13L small hydration pack brand new never opened for $4. Sweet! A brand new oil lamp for $3. Good deals. Now, as for shopping on the net, I do business with sellers on eBay and Amazon. We own a small business so we get some good deals on supplies and I find some new primitive/survival gear to try out or work with. I do a lot of leather work so most of my new tools are from eBay and I get some real good deals on leather. I recently picked up the Micro Sparkwheel from eBay for cheap and the Condor parang from Amazon on sale. There is a good chance to save a few bucks if you shop wisely. Now there are some real turds doing business on the web and the jerks I bought the Kershaw Camp 12 are a perfect example. I told them the tool was defective, the blade curved to the right, and I wanted my money back. They sent me the return authorization and yesterday I got the refund. Minus $15!!! For a restocking fee!!! They restocked a defective piece of crap to sell to some poor slob!! The blade was visibly bent to the right so this tells me that there is a problem with tempering and/or metal quality. And this is brand new out of the package!!! I've forged enough blades and other tools to know when there's a problem. What a bunch of jerks. When I bought one of the first sheath knives Condor made some time back, I noticed the handle was coming loose and it was a defective pin. I emailed them and they sent me a return label, fixed the handle, apologized and sent me back the knife. That's service. So, keep your eyes open for the good deals and watch who you deal with. Like an idiot, I didn't check out the ratings for the dealer who sold me the Kershaw. I learned the hard way.

Condor Village Parang

I sprang for the parang. Yuck yuck. After the fiasco with the Kershaw useless piece of garbage I bought a real parang-the Condor Tool & Knife Village Parang. I paid $73 plus change at Amazon, free 4 days shipping, and its from the Condor Tool & Knife store so I'm getting the real deal. This is the cheapest I could find it anywhere. The sale price at Amazon was $68.65 so the rest is about $5 in tax's. If you want good gear you have to pay for it. The Village parang is a solid tool weighing in at 1 pound 9 ounces. The blade is 12 inch's long with a 10 inch cutting edge, with 6 inch handle its 18 inch's overall and the blade is 3/16 inch thick.  It is full tang and has a hardwood handle pinned to the blade with heavy brass pins. There is also a brass lined lanyard hole at the back of the handle. It comes in a leather sheath and I remember seeing some You Tube videos about the sheath being shoddy. These were made back around 2013 or so and I hope Condor got the message and remedied the problem. There are a lot of reviews on You Tube but most are pretty boring. I enjoy the videos put out by Paul Coakley as Junglecrafty and a short one by the master of the parang, Ray Mears. All of Pauls videos are well done and you learn a lot. Much better than some young buck wailing on a stump with a plastic handled parang or golok or an 18 inch bladed machete. Of course, I enjoy all of Ray Mears videos and sometimes I catch a few Les Stroud shows. Those are my favorites. As a side note you can get all of Ron Hood and John McPherson's videos on Internet Archive. https://archive.org/search.php?query=woodsmaster&and[]=mediatype%3A%22movies%22 for Ron Hood and https://archive.org/details/primitive_wilderness_skills for John McPherson. John and his wife Geri are the authors of two of the best primitive skills books out there, Naked Into The Wilderness 1 & 2.

I'll be using the parang around the farm and in my travels. I'll be sure to post anything interesting about this quality tool. Here are some images of the CT&K Village Parang.

Downsizing

 Next month I will be 69. When you get as long in the tooth as I am, you start to look at all the stuff you own and say "do I really need all this"? A few years back I had a big clean out and got rid of a lot of knives, hatchets, axes, and camping gear. Now I am down to just a few old reliable knives, 2 hatchets and a 3 pound felling ax that never leaves the farm. I kept my Bahco 7" folding saw and my collapsible buck saw. The military pocket chain saw is in my BOB. I whittled away at all the fire making gizmos and a host of other gear. I figure if its going to weigh me down, I don't need it. Let someone else take care of it. I don't use a tent. I like my nylon tarps. I usually use a bedroll instead of a sleeping bag. My backpack is a medium sized one. As for cooking gear I have a stainless wide mouth thermos of 1 liter capacity and my trusty Zebra kettle. I always traveled light anyway and lighter is better. On my last big adventure I carried my Norlund, my Bahco and my Kukri. I did fine. I see some folks out on the trail with everything but the kitchen sink. All kinds of stuff hanging from their packs and belts. That would take most of the fun of woods running away for me.At one point I owned several very good compass's. Brunton, Silva, you name it. I kept the British Army issue one. A Silva, I believe. I have a little Brunton keychain compass for backup. Thats about all I need. My fire kit contains a big ferro rod I got from Going Gear and a Micro spark wheel from UST. I really like Coughlans emergency fire tinder. It is similar to Spark-lite Tinder Quick and works great. I only need a pea sized piece to get a fire going. I bought about six packages of this stuff 10 years ago and have plenty left. It doesn't get old. I can make fire with a bow drill or hand drill in my sleep and I leave them where I used them. The fire kit is for bad weather or emergencies. I do carry a small flint and steel kit in my back pocket to start fires here on the farm. Its just something I do for fun. The whole outfit weighs maybe 3 ounces. The truth is its easy to accumulate a lot of stuff you think you may need someday. Well, someday is here already for this pilgrim.

The Kershaw Camp 12 Parang

This is something I did a lot of research on so I dropped a grand total of $31.96 to eCop! on Amazon. It arrived in 5 days. Sweet. Now to put it through its paces. I'll use this around the farm here, mostly for brush clearing. I'll give a full report after this thing gets a good workout. I'm looking to buy a similar sized parang for my bush kit and the Condor Village parang looks like it could fill the spot. Here are the specs for this tool:

There is a certain way you cut with these, there are a few good videos on you tube showing this technique, and it can make working with one safe and less tiring.

Gerber Dime

I admit it. I am a gearhead. I love to try out new toys and see if its worth keeping. The Gerber Dime is one of those things that intrigued me from the moment I laid eyes on it. I have my venerable old Gerber pliers from way back in 1992, the black ones, and they have never failed me. I am on the second sheath for those puppies. What I like about the Dime is its size. I wanted a handy little set of pliers for my key chain. These are just right for light weight work and I needed a thin set of pliers for some of my electronic repairs and do-dads. The pliers are only 1/8" thick, perfect for hard to reach places in most modern, cramped, electronics compartments. The Dime answered the requirement. The bonus is all the tools they managed to pack in this 2 3/4" device. If you look at the pictures you will note: long nose pliers with wire cutters, scissors, tweezers, bottle opener, file, Philips screw driver, regular screw driver, knife blade and a package opening blade which works really well for opening those damn plastic packages and some small carving work, too. As you can see, it fits just fine on my key chain. The only thing that I don't need on it is the bottle opener, but I'm sure there can be another use for it down the road. Fit and finish is A+ and all the blades are tight and no play at all. The scissors are kind of a pain to use because the handle that's not attached to the body has to go into the tools slot to close them fully but I just look at them as a bonus. The tweezers are well hidden. If you don't know where to look you won't find them. I've pulled them out in the last photo. One other nice thing about the design is the tools can be used with the pliers closed. The only tools that can be used with the pliers open is the Philips screwdriver/file, the bottle opener and the tweezers. I give it an 8 out of 10 rating because of the lack of printed instructions (which would help to find the darn tweezers!) and the bottle opener. Just my opinion. Still, I feel they are worth the $15 I paid for them.

A perfect addition to my keychain.

The tweezers exposed! Well hidden and not easy to find unless you're lucky.

The Haywire Klamper a cool new tool and walking stick fix

This refers to this post from some time back: walking stick or staff:hiking staff or stick  I did a modification to my walking stick. I had a piece of heavy duty bike tire held onto the bottom with a hose clamp. It looked really ghetto and crappy. I have been eyeing this tool lately: haywire klamper and its worth every penny. Here is a shot of before and after:

Before-the ugly hose clamp

Wired with the Klamper

back side view

I think the wire looks a heck of a lot better. If you are curious about this tool check out the you tube video posted on the sellers site. I was impressed and I can see a lot of uses for this critter. I first saw it on Survivalblog. Good stuff and made in the USA!!! I cleaned up the rubber around the tip so it looks a lot nicer. The rubber adds a good grip and also silences the stick so I don't startle wildlife when I'm out walking. I get some good photos if the animals aren't too upset.

Side hafted microblade

After seeing these on Elfshots blog http://elfshotgallery.blogspot.com/2010/02/palaeoeskimo-side-hafted-microblades.html I decided I had to make one. It was surprisingly easy, kind of like a Hoko knife. With modern tools (my Warren carving knife with a straight blade and a tiny gouge) it went quick, less than an hour. With stone tools and depending on experience it probably took the old ones maybe an hour or less. I used artificial sinew split up into many strands and no glue. The original article doesnt state if glue was found on the preserved artifacts and I really don't think hide glue was all that common on the Arctic and sub Arctic coastal areas. Tim Rast, the owner of Eflshot is a professional archaeologist and maker of things ancient. He has made a bunch of these out of wood, antler, and bone. Please take the time to peruse his site for the many excellent articles on Eskimo and related cultures and their artifacts.

This shows the groove where the blade sets.

Here's a shot of the handle with two notches for the cordage. I used cottonwood for this knife.

This shot shows the brace which is held snug against the blade when tied in place at the two notches on top..

This shows the notch in the brace which sets against the blade.

Here's the blade. I made it from a piece of flint I found in Colorado.

This shows everything set up ready to finish.

This is the completed knife. Overall length is 5 inches.

Closeup of the finished knife. Stone, wood, sinew-a simple but efficient tool.

Paleo stone micro drill

I was showing some antler needles I made on a forum and one guy asked how I drilled the holes. I told him of a quartz micro drill I made. I can't find it for the life of me and the last I saw it was several years ago. The drill was a long, slender sliver that came off a huge crystal I was taking spalls from. I bought the crystal very cheap because it was dropped and the tip pulverized. I mounted the sliver in a piece of bamboo chop stick after flaking a good edge on both sides. I use a deer antler tine for this kind of flaking because I can keep the tip of the antler ground very small to a wedge shape. I retouch the edge as I work to keep a good clean working tip. The quartz drill was just under 1/4" total length and about 3/16" protruded from the end of the chop stick. The short piece of chop stick with stone tip was mounted into a larger diameter handle and twirled like a fire hand drill.

I made the drill in the photos from a piece of  debitage an archaeologist friend had given me. He collected several bags from the surface of an ancient village site that was being built on. I don't know if the archaeologists ever did anything at this site before all the building took place. He was kind enough to give me several bags. This stuff is wonderful to knap and I wouldn't doubt it was heat treated by the ancient artist who made tools from the rock.

I plan to make a bow drill using this set up. I saw one on BushcraftUK a few years back and the maker did a wonderful job. Its the last picture. I did a screen capture from the original article but I can't find it on the site any longer.

Here's the finished drill. Almost 1/4" long OAL.

The shaft after taking out the notch. I used a very thin flake and made two splits and used a pointed end to cut into the base of the notch section to be removed. Then pinched the stick together and used a bit thicker flake to push the notch out of the side till it broke clean. The indents in the sides are for the sinew to get a good hold. The bamboo chop stick is whittled down to about 3/16" diameter.

Here's the drill mounted and waiting for sinew and hide glue. My hide glue is made of an old elk hoof and a few scraps of rawhide chew toy, I use a piece about the size of a nickel and had plenty left over. I use dried flakes and pieces and reconstitute with hot water.

All finished. The sinew is deer leg sinew and the hide glue is smeared over it as well as in the notch. I left this one full length, about 12" and twirl it like a fire drill. It needs to be cut off and mounted in something a little thicker for better control.

Someone at BushcraftUK made this a few years back. Admirable work and I like his set up for doing antler needle eyes. He uses twigs set in the cracks in the log to hold the antler steady. Great idea!

A few more block planes

I got a nice comment from DeanO, it can be read in the comment section at the bottom of the post, about collecting and using old planes. I have several that are considered collectibles and the difference is I bought them for use instead of shelf decorations. Why buy and use old tools? Because they were made very well and most of them are still in top working condition. Plus, the tools you buy today are either junk or very, very expensive. If you shop around you can pick good old tools up fairly cheap. All of my planes combined cost less than $50. total. You can pay a lot more, but careful shopping and patience will reward you.

I use these little planes for making tool handles, bows, arrows, atl atl's, and many other primitive/bushcraft kind of things. Its easy to keep the blades sharp and with patience and practice a person can adjust them to take off paper thin shavings.

This one is a "bull" or "rabbet" plane. It's about 3 1/2" long and has a 1" blade. This one is designed for sash and cabinet making. Its for cutting rabbets and to plane into blind corners. This one is similar to a Stanley #75. Its marked "H. BOKER & CO. GERMANY" in a circle on the iron

This is a cast iron block plane. Its 3 1/2' long and has a 1" blade. These come in a variety of styles and are common. This is a Stanley #101.

This is a combination wood and iron adjustable plane. Its called a "transitional". Its the biggest plane I own and measures 7 1/4" and has a 2" blade. This is for removing a lot of wood at once. I can turn out a good rabbit stick in half an hour with this plane. Manufacturer unknown.

Refurbishing a vintage wood working plane

I own and use a variety of small planes in my carving and primitive woodworking projects. Nothing makes for a nice smooth ax or adze handle than a sharp plane. I use them for a lot of different jobs. I recently bought an X-Acto #29 plane on eBay for a couple bucks. It was in good shape when I received it but there was some surface rust and the blade was badly nicked. Obviously it sat in a dusty corner for many years. These were made in the 1940's up until the 90's. The latest X-Acto plane doesn't look at all like these. I don't know if they switched to plastic in later years, but the old ones like this were made from Bakelite, one of the first plastic materials. These planes came in some of the better kits and in later years I believe they were sold separately.

First off was to take the plane apart and put some 320 grit carbide paper to the sole and get rid of the rust. Fortunately, it is just a mild case of surface rust from setting around neglected for many years. Next I used some lite machine oil on a rag and wiped the surface of the plane body. This brought it back to a nice shine. Other than the Bakelite body, the sole and iron are made of steel. The cap is some kind of nonmagnetic alloy like pot metal and the adjusting screw is brass. I threw the iron away because I managed to pick up a killer deal on about 20 brand new ones quite a while back. They're still in the original wrappers and marked X-Acto #29 Made in U.S.A. That's part of the reason I wanted a #29 plane.

As it came in the mail. 3 3/4" long and the iron or blade is 15/16" wide. Body is 1 1/2" wide.

All the parts. The iron is a new one.

The sole after a good sanding. I haven't done the ends yet.

A nice shiny polish on the sole.

End view.

Mostly finished and put back together.

The more common cast iron mini block plane. These were made by Record, Stanley, and many others and are easy to find. They come in a lot of different shapes and styles. This one has only the marking "BL". 3 5/8" long by 1 1/4" wide. Iron is 1" wide. This one was made by Great Neck Tools.

Oh, and happy Veterans Day everyone!