If You Ax Me

 

It seems there is a lot of blather on the 'net, over the "best" wilderness cutting tool...  Fueled by an astonishing level of ignorance and vaulting egos, one would expect, from the dialog, to see blood running in the streets.  However, the armchair commandos don't go out into the streets, let alone the wilderness, so said bloodletting isn't about to happen.

 

Too bad, the gene pool could use a bit of chlorine...

 

I make no claim to be a wilderness survival expert, but I do know a few who are.  My limited time spent with them, and out in the wilds, has driven some things home to me.  Unavoidable lessons, you might say.

 

Firstly, the tools you carry must match the way YOU use them, the environment YOU are in, and of course, must be of sufficient quality and fit, to serve YOU in YOUR needs.  Your opinions do not apply to anyone else.  One would think that this would be self evident to all, but apparently not.

Any discussion of knife choice that does not include those criteria is a pretty useless activity.  Just mental masturbation...

 

Tools in general work within a range of uses.  That means, pounding nails is not within the range for a screwdriver.  Some tools' ranges overlap...  Framing hammers and sledgehammers, for instance.  Both can be used to pound nails, but at the far extremes of their ranges, they do not readily replace each other.

 

Knives, pistols and rifles all extend your "reach" and can be used for self defense, but no one would seriously recommend choosing a knife to defend against someone shooting at you, from out at 200 yds...

 

Bicycles will get you there, but no one would recommend traveling from coast to coast riding one.  Most everyone would rather fly.

 

However, with cutting tools, this critical thinking does not seem to apply.  I'm about to try.  I have no idea where the hell I'm going to end up with this, so give me some slack, OK?  ;-)

 

At the far extremes of wood cutting, for instance, you have something like splitting mauls, and pocket knives.  Doesn't seem to be anyone trying to confuse the two.  In the muddled middle, however, things get...  Well, muddled....  That is because they tend to overlap in their range of uses...

 

Lets go from the top down, with some generic examples.  My apologies if your favorite isn't among them.  You will recognize the niche, however...

 

Splitting Maul

Felling Axe

Light Single Bit

Tomahawk

Hatchet

Mini-Hatchet

Large Fixed Blade Knife

Belt Knife

Folding Knife

 

Today, I drug a few of them into my outdoors lab to do some comparisons.  Here is the line up...  From the left:

 

Gransfors-Bruks Hunter's Ax, ( G-B HA)

British Belt Ax from Ragweed Forge, (BA) 

SRT from Rob Simonich,

Green Utility from Bill Siegle,

G-B Mini-Hatchet, (MH)

OSF knife, (blade by Nick Wheeler, handled by Blademan),

Roselli Carpenter from Ragweed Forge,

and the SAK Rucksak.

 

 

The knives...

 

 

The Axes...

 

 

The British Belt Ax (BA) is a tomahawk design, which I think is easier to replace the handle on, should it get broken in the wilds...  Just cut a suitable stick and jam it down into the handle...  Fitting handles onto axes is a much more difficult chore.  To my way of thinking, this lifts the tomahawk above the ax, as a viable wilderness choice.

In addition, notice the hammer poll.  This gives one the additional ability to hammer tent stakes, or hammer out pieces heated in a wilderness forge.

 

 

The weights break down like this.  The BA is almost exactly in the middle....

 

HA =   1 lb, 14.4 oz.

BA =   1 lb, 7.2 oz.

MH =  1 lb, 1.6 oz.

 

One thing that sometimes seems to get short shrift in the "survival tool" discussion is the saw.  Experienced wilderness hands know that sometimes there is just no replacement. 

 

Here is a piece of dead, dried cottonwood, which I liberated from a big stack of driftwood.  It makes a superb hearthboard, using a willow drill.  One of your expected wilderness tasks might be to make a fire by friction set, and I wanted to cut out three boards from this piece.  If I had chopped it into pieces, I would have used a whole lot of more time and energy, and wasted a lot of wood in the process...

 

The saw is a professional folding pruning saw, and it locks in both the open and closed position.  It weighs only 7 oz...  No reason to not have it along.

 

 

I used every ax, and most of the knives, trying to whittle out these hearthboards.  The wood was very hard, and would not split, I had to chop and shave them down to size.  They were not very big, and that factor became important.  Here the MH is working on a knot.  You can see that holding the piece puts the hand close to the tool.  I wore a heavy leather glove...

 

 

The heavier the tool, the easier it was to chip away the wood.  The heavier the tool, the harder it was to control the edge.  The axes were more difficult to control than the big knives.  The heavier the tool, the more fatigue developed, and then the more difficult it was to control the edge.  Probably the best compromise was the BA.

 

The edges of the G-B HA & MH were thinner than the BA, but all were extremely sharp.  It only required a slight change in technique between them.

 

 

 

The small knives would not chop at all.  They had to be used to carve/shave away the wood, and the smaller the handle, the more it hurt the hand.  By far, the best knife for this work was the large handled OSF.  It was vastly superior to the traditionally handled Scandinavian Roselli.  I did not take anything like a K-Bar out with me, but I see nothing there that would recommend it above the OSF.  It would be only a matter of incremental increases, and still would not match up to an ax.

 

Batoning:

 

I know that the advocates of the one, small knife for survival always argue that you can baton with the small blade.  In some cases, this is very true.  Batoning would have been a royal pain in the ass for this work, however.  It would have taken three hands, or a way to lock the piece of wood in place.  If the wood would have split easily, then batoning might have been a viable alternative. 

 

In any event, it would have taken much more time to form the hearthboards, if I was using the baton method.  It is a technique that is very well worth knowing, should one have only a small knife, but it is no reason to reject a bigger knife or an ax.

 

Chopping: 

 

Gathering larger wood for fires might entail chopping, and people consider this a requisite task for their tool to perform.  In the Sierra, where I generally play, it is rarely necessary.  Dead branches are generally available for a person to break off of trees, and larger pieces can be broken across a log, a rock or wedged between two trees and snapped.  Chopping expends a ton of energy.  However, sometimes it needs to be done.

 

It will be no surprise to know that the larger the ax, the easier this task.  The MH was outclassed by the SRT, and hopelessly outclassed by the HA & BA.  When going through the hard, dry wood, the large knives and the MH just kinda "chipped" away at it.

 

 

Splitting smaller branches was relatively easy.  Lay the branch on the log, chop the end, and start a split.  Then sink the ax into the log, and push the split branch into it.  Twist the stick back and forth, and continue the split.  Easier done than typed out...

 

 

BTW, the area was recently exposed to a bad storm.  There has been something like 9 days of sunshine and 60+ degree weather since.  I checked out some dead branches of this size, up to about wrist size...  They are all still damp clear into the core.  Splitting for dry wood would probably have to be done on much larger pieces.  Another point in favor of the axes.

 

I'm pretty impressed with the Belt Ax, and as a compromise, it would probably be the choice if light chopping might be required.  It slips easily behind a belt, or straps on a pack, to carry.  The sheath does not have to attach to a belt.

 

 

Here is a close-up of the sheath I made for it.  It does not come with one...  I found the silver Concho on the Tractor Trip in 2000, and I have been looking for a reason to get it incorporated into my gear ever since, so I can carry it back in the wilderness.  The thong just wraps around the Concho, and ties off.  When removed, it fits easily into a pocket.

 

 

So...  What to make out of all of this? 

 

The general idea is to limit the weight in your kit to a minimum, and get the most use out of every item of your gear.  That means choosing the tool that has the widest range of effective use.  Once again, the middle-of-the-pack choices will depend on where you go, what you do, and how you do it.   You should be able to: cut cordage, make a fishing pole, whittle a spoon or trap trigger, skin a rat, gut a fish, slice up food, whittle fuzz sticks, make a shelter, dig out a splinter, make a fire bow & drill set, bore a hole in something, etc. 

The axiom is that a large knife will do the small stuff, but a small knife will not do the large stuff...

Bottom Line:  For one single knife, as contradictory as it might sound, would probably be the large SAK.  The Rucksack works for me.  Why? A locking blade, saw and awl are the main reasons.  Because I wear glasses, I also have a little screwdriver in the corkscrew.  No large knife or ax will cover the range of the extra tools, and they are essential.  All heavier chores, like procuring firewood, would have to be done in some other, innovative manner.

Better:  To the SAK, add the large knife.  It will cover the range of uses up to doing some chopping and splitting of wood.

Better yet:  SAK, belt knife & ax.  Can you say Nessmuk?

Mo Betta Still:  SAK, belt knife, ax & saw.

Best:  SAK, belt knife, ax, saw and large knife...  Plus all the gear I can pack on a mule, and a Starbucks franchise.  I mean, while we're dreaming, what the hell?

 

For me personally, I will always carry the SAK, a belt knife, and the saw. 

 

Then, add either a large knife, or an ax, probably the BA.  I would carry a large knife if I knew I was only going to have to trim some branches, or cut green growth to clear a campsite.  I would replace it with one of the axes if chopping was required. 

 

I would carry both if weight were not an issue...

 

Yeah, that is 4-5 tools.  One survival knife?  Fuggettaboutit....  

I hope you are now as thoroughly confused on the issue as I am...  :-)

 

As Dude would say, "That's my cactus, and I'm sticking to it".

 

Bill