Hi guys, I'm Vinnie and this is my day off.
Thanks very much for joining me, I really
appreciate it.
This is part two in the continuing saga of,
' can you use a folding knife as a survival knife.
I've taken offence to those on the internet
who say you you can't use one of these as
a survival knife because it will fail at the
joint or close on your finger.
Now in part one, I built a sturdy shelter
and I gathered rushes and made thatch for
my shelter.
And it's a nice waterproof shelter . We'll
take you back there shortly.
So I've come down here today to collect material
with my knife to use to make survival weapons.
Now this is a little bit daft in an Irish
context because we have no vast wilderness
that you would be lost in for days at a time.
I'm simply making a point, I'm proving a point
that I believe these can be used successfully
with a small bit of intelligence, and cop on
,or common sense as we say in Ireland.
So come along with me, we'll gather some material
,we'll make our weapons and I'll show you the shelter,
okay?
Okay guys, this is the knife I'm using.
It's a rather small knife , main blade is
one and three quarters inches, cutting edge..
So I've found a hazel pole here; sorry about
the camera angle now, but I'm on a steep slope,
this is the best I can do.
So I'm going to collect this.
Hazel like willow, when you cut it, it just
grows again.
So the secret to cutting a thicker pole like
this is you need to get a bend on the pole.
This strains the fibers and makes them much
easier to cut through.
So I need to bend this, I'm just checking
to see if there is any dead wood that can fall.
 
And it's a little precarious.
My little knife.
No great drama.
Okay so we need to cut this here, and just
like with the willows you make a series of
cuts around your pole.
We'll take this top off of it.
Lovely day here today.
Okay that's our pole.
I'm just trying to decide which piece is best
for our bow.
I think I'll take this top piece.
So , I think I'll cut it around here, so I
need to remove this.
Now I don't want any split travelling up this
so I'll make another series of cuts around.
Lets try that.
I can use this tree here as a fulcrum.
Now we'll just finish it off.
There we go, there is our sapling bow stave.
It's reasonably thick, hopefully it will make
a bow with some power.
Okay, here we have a nice straight stick for
an arrow.
Nice straight piece of hazel, so I'm going
to collect a few more of these and we will
gather our equipment and head back to the
hide out okay?
So guys, welcome to Chez Vinnie.
This is my little shelter.
It's a framework of willow poles and it's
thatched then with rushes.
Okay guys, this doesn't apply in an Irish
context, but if you were lost in a country
where you have dangerous animals, you would
need some form of protection for yourself.
And from watching you tube I've seen that
one very effective weapon is a big stick.
I saw a chap in India kill a leopard with
one
The trouble with a big stick is that it may
be heavy to carry or cumbersome to use, so
I've come up with a compromise, I've got a
smaller stick but I want to attach this stone
to it, to make a reasonably portable weapon
but something that would be heavy and quite
lethal.
So to make this, I've already whittled the
sides of this stick down. and I want to split
it here to so it can accept the stone.
I put a little lashing here to stop the split
travelling all the way down.
can you see that, now, I'm going to try and
put a split here, and I want to, hopefully,
keep it going as straight as I can.
Not too bad.
so that's travelling fairly well.
Now to push it the rest of the way I'm going
to make a wedge from this splinter that I
collected from when we were gathering our
poles.
Now, we'll just let you see that again.
here we have our split
started, so we get our little wedge here.
Oh, not too bad, so we can tap that on wards.
Why beat on your knife when you can beat on
a stick.
Okay, so here's our stone and I want to put
it in this way up.
I'll show you why later.
Okay, that's that much done.
Okay so I need to tie this in as tightly as
possible.
So to give myself some advantage, I've tied
my twine here to a nearby tree, and that will
allow me to put great force on the twine as
I tighten it.
Okay, so that's in there really tightly.
Okay?, so that gives us, as I said, a portable
weapon that's reasonably light,
but the length of the handle gives it great leverage, the
stone makes it very top heavy and deadly.
Gives you fantastic force yet, it's reasonably
quick and nimble to use.
So, if we were lost and in a survival situation
we have our first line of defence there with
our club.
So the next step is to have some hope  or
some means of getting small game.
So we're going to make a throwing stick.
So it's just going to be a miniature of our
club.
Here, I've put a lashing here and whittled
the top of it down, and we're going to try
and get a half way straight split going here
as well.
Right, where's our wedge.
So we get our little wedge into that crack.
I shouldn't even need to beat on this, just
press down on it, one moment now.
Why risk breaking your knife, eh?
Okay, so we just slot our stone in here, into
our split.
And, of course we need to tie it in place,
so once again I've tied my twine to this convenient tree.
So, a simple throwing stick, again the weight
on the end gives it more lethality, and throwing
sticks like these were used in Ireland and
England up to quite recent times.
Often they used a lead weight, kind of like
a hammer head, and they would hunt birds and
game with this.
Okay?
quite powerful.
That brings us to everyone's favourite weapon,
the bow.
I'm going to make a field expedient sapling
bow from this stave.
This will be my hardest job to date, I think.
Obviously an axe or large knife would be much
easier, but, what we're doing is proving if
it's possible, okay?
So lets get to work, I have to fast forward
this guys, this is  going to take a while.
Right, I'm now at the stage where the bow
is starting to bend a bit, and I need to tiller it.
Tillering means, ahmm, as you're working you
need to bend the bow and see which parts need
material taken from it.
If it's bending too much you need to take
material from either side, and you need to
be careful from now on, because if you take
too much material, the bow will fail.
So I have a loose string on it here now, and
I'm going to use my club as a tiller, a tiller
tree, okay?
That's why I left my stone here, protruding
upwards, hopefully, the bow can rest on it,
and I'll be able to bend it and see, see where
I need to work on.
So I can see this side is stiffer and I need
to take some material here.
At this stage it's important not to get carried
away but I need to take some material from it.
Here we have the finished product guys, not
perfect by any means, but a quick field expedient bow, and it's reasonably powerful, and I've
made a quick arrow.
Just a simple point, and for flights I've
simply added some baling twine, lashed it
on and opened it out a bit to act as feathers
or flights, and a quick nock at the back,
okay?
Lets try a little shot.
Lets try a shot here at this tree, Dyson stay,
good boy stay.
Try another little shot.
This bow is more than capable of collecting
small game, and maybe providing you with more
self defence, back Dyson, good boy.stay.
Any way, a quick bow and arrow, and it would
only be a work of minutes to work up a batch of these
Crude but simple, okay?
So guys, that's the end of part two ,ahmm,
we've built a shelter, we've gathered materials,
we've made survival weapons, all without the
knife failing at the joint, or indeed closing
on my fingers.
Can you use a small folding knife as a survival
knife?
Ill let you be the judge of that, but the
proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof.
Thanks very much for watching, guys.
Hope you enjoyed it, bye bye.
