How to Use a Bushcraft Knife

How to Use a Bushcraft Knife One of the Bushcraft workshop’s I teach is called edge tools and in this workshop I show people how to use the knife, the axe and the saw effectively and safely. In this video I’d like to cover the knife and show you some of the most common techniques as well as some of the most common errors that are made when learning them. One of the most basic Bushcraft chores done with the knife is the making of feather sticks for your fire and when done correctly this takes minimal effort and it’s very, very safe to do. It all starts with the proper grip. Hold the knife like, choke up on a bit and hold it as you would a baseball bat, not like this. Avoid putting your thumb on the spine of the knife almost sideways and never say never but I’ll say almost never do you want to put your thumb on the back of the spine like that. It’s a weak grip for almost every use you will ever come across. The most common problem after the weak grip is using the wrong body mechanics to get the job done. This is the most common thing I see is that people try to use their arm to make the feather sticks. Instead of using your arm and your bicep try to use your bending at the waist and using your body weight behind the knot like so. This is an effortless way to do this job and you could see the knife is just cutting and I'm putting really no effort at all behind this. You can turn the knife in different directions as you like. If you tilt it up it will go away from the knife like that. If you tilt it down it will go towards the hand like so, so you can create more dense feather stick than if you just cut straight down like this all the time. And again using the weight of my body it’s a very, very safe way to do this. There is your feather stick. The next thing I would like to talk about is the chest lever or side grip. This is a very common woodcarver’s grip but a lot of people have a hard time with this and the same things occur, the wrong grip, the wrong body mechanics. Start by holding the knife in this configuration. The thumb is flat on top of the blade. That is why I have this thumb scallop out of the knives that I designed because I used this grip so often that this really helps to lock it down and have a lot more comfort. If you don’t have my knife you can take yours and drum all tool or sand paper and you could make a dive it like that for yourself if this is underneath you want to do. So that’s the first thing. What I see a lot is that people try to do this. Again, that thumb will creep over the spine of the knife like so and they’ll turn their hand like this. That’s not the same thing. This is the chest lever grip or the side grip. Now the reason that we want to do this is because it’s a very, very strong grip. It’s a very, very powerful cutting action and a very safe cutting action. I'm going to do it for you and again the same things happen and that people will use too much arm. If you slow it down this hand won’t do anything and this hand would do all the work like this and they will try to cut and slice like that. That’s not the same thing. The proper way to do it is to use your back muscles. These are your wing muscles here in your latch and what is you’re going to do is hold like so and pulling both arms like this. That is the side grip. Let’s stay in the side grip for a minute and talk about push cuts and stop cuts. I’ll put a stop cut right here and I'm going to use a push cut to dovetail this stick and a push cut is called just that because you used the thumb of your hand that isn’t holding the knife to push the blade and initiate the cut like so. That is where the power comes from. It comes from your thumb I’d say 70% is from this hand. Now the problem that I find most often is that people will use this hand again to try to use the force from the right hand and this thumb would just kind of hang out and that really do very much effect. It comes off the blade a lot like that. If you have that problem you can try this. You can hold the knife like so that you really can't get any power this way without the knife turning, just be careful to hold on to it but if you hold the knife like so it will force you to use that thumb because you won’t have much choice if you want to cut the wood. Now once that feels comfortable and you get the hang of that then you could go ahead and grab it like so like you were before. That is a great effective way to carve. It is safe, it’s close to your eyes. You can see and you if you use the right technique with your thumb you have tons of control. This next point may seem obvious but I see it so often. I think it’s worth pointing out. If you’re ever cutting a depression in something don’t cut into your hand like this. Put it against the tree or something in case that board breaks it is not going to hurt you. One good knife point just in general I think is to always think where is the blade is going to go if it slips, where is the edge going to go if it cuts through wherever it is cutting now. It’s similar to gun safety, where is the bullet going to go if it misses with your aiming at or if it’s going to go through what you’re aiming at. Now it’s the same thing so if the board should break, no problem. If the board should break here that’s a big problem. One thing I can't over emphasize enough is how effective it is to use a baton. It’s a very, very safe way to get some heavy work done. You want to limb a tree like this no better way than dig knife like so. A well constructed knife can handle it. This video is not meant to take the place of personal instruction as there are so much more to learn than what I could show you in this video. If you're ever in the Pacific Northwest I’d love to see you at the workshop. In the meantime, take care. Keep those knives sharp.