I'm sure you know this, but that moss all over the tree you cut down makes excellent tinder. In Washington stare, during Air Force survival school, I learned to pull the moss off the tree, and put it in a pocket to dry. Then shred it into a loose bundle about palm sized, then strike sparks into it for fire.
I know this is a VERY old post, I wanted to say Thanks For this tip. My husband and I just purchased 10 acres of undeveloped land and we have had some rain sense moving to the mountains in Arkansas. And wanted to find ways to make a fire after the rain or even during if possible, and I am going to add your tip as well. We have lots off the green moss growing on the trees here. Maybe I will start collecting it dry it out and save in a glass jar. Again thank you
Don't forget ladies and gentlemen, this is a technique that like most requires practice. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't work the first time. Keep at it!
I usually have some birch bark handy, since I live in the northeast. But I will try this next time I am camping. Looks like a good skill to have. Thanks for the video. It is very well done.
You could keep continuously showering it with sparks and that also gets the job done but the shavings makes it faster and helps to keep me from losing any night vision.
Great vid, would never have thought to use shavings from my ferro rod, and I just want to thank you for the future argument I will be having with my wife, because you designed such a great knife with the tahoma, I just have to buy it, despite promising her "no more knives", good work, thanks for giving your time up to make these videos, its greatly appreciated!
I have a Tom brown Tracker knife and that thing is smaller than yours but far less capable at doing that. What knife would you recommend for all around use? What is the knife you are using? Thanks!
Jon P Hi Jon, This is the knife I designed made by TOPS knives called the Tahoma Field Knife, designed for all around use. You can find it at www.inner-bark.com if you want to get it directly from the designer.
(Sets blade above thigh). Ah good point safety first way to illustrate it visually. (Sets blade above dog). Dude not cool you could hurt him/her. :) jk. Good stuff.
Thanks man! Living in WA state I can't stand seeing all these guys on youtube going out in a forest FULL of dry tinder and perfect weather conditions telling me how easy it is to make a fire. We get heavy rainfall 2/3 of the year and starting a fire with just sparks is damn near impossible without methods like this.
How would you be able to tell if the wood were wet in cold conditions? Wouldn't all wood be cold. Or would the wet wood be noticeably colder than the environment around it.
Awesome video! I really enjoy all of your content and like the calm and precise way you describe things. I was able to see a tahoma field knife and hold it in a store near me and I also have to compliment you there! Crazy effective and multi functional design. Hopefully I have the money to buy one soon. Lastly, I dig the tat you have on your forearm! Stay save out there man! Regards, Tim
great teaching, never really needed feather sticks up here in the u.p. lots of birch and cedar. I need to try this, thanks for teaching me this. by the way you forgot to yell timber on the tree you chopped down. lol
We got tons of cedar here too, but during a good misting all the nice dry bark is unusable. If I yell timber my dog might come running towards me n thats a bad thing :)
I don't mean to be rude or anything, but you get what you pay for. There are plenty of good knives out there for 110 or less but if those knives were good enough for me then I wouldn't have developed this one.
So it will be harder to get good curls, and therefore harder to start a fire, if you're not working with softer woods right? I've been able to make some basic curls off some wood I've got in the yard, but it seems like fairly hard wood, since the curls I'm able to make are not very light, airy, wispy, etc, but more short, stiff, and brittle...Any tips for working with the harder woods?
When batoning wood, I noticed you strike the blade close to the handle. Doesnt this create excess shock and create more work for yourself? I find it much easier to strike the tip sticking out the other side of the log. Much less shock on your joints and thr force of your blows are being directed into the log instead of into your wrist and arm. Great info otherwise!
There is the same force applied to the wood no matter what side you hit on. The TFK has a sharpened edge at the spine of the tip, so I baton near the handle. When you hit the tip, shock is generally put through the palms of your hand which has a lot of soft tissue. Batoning on the handle side puts the energy into your fingers which for me is much tougher so I can do it all day without getting sore.
Can you make a video of making a small survival kit that will you carry into the woods ? that will be nice to see i mean every month we update our kits or so and i really like to see what you carry for your woods area :) Cheers and keep it up .
The Tahoma Field Knife, and what I keep in the pocket is at the core of my kit. I have a video I made previously which I think you'd fancy. I will be doing more kit videos in the future though,
ever since I seen the video with the wedge wood method for batoning wood i cringe seeing people abuse their knives when all it takes is another piece of wood
InnerBark Outdoors got to dig the wood out of the more then 3 foot of snow. and my back yard as nothing i can use fo practice. I will have to stach some branch were i can grab them next winter. I am just getting started on the bushcraft per say and need to find a zone where i can get all season. will make for nicer video. Spring should already be showing up but where still getting snow. when snow is melting it will also be quite challenging to find dry tinder. will try it out and show the result on my channel. thanks again for a good tutorial.
I get the wisdom of the advice to look for the driest wood possible, but I laughed when he said it, given the video title... Basically, in my head it turned into "How to make dry tinder in a wet environment? First, start with a pile of dry tinder..." Reminded me of Futurama when Eldar "cooks" down-home, Neptune-style gumbo. "Well, first, you want to bring to boil a pot of down-home, Neptune-style gumbo. Then..."
Got to say you have a good sense of humor with this video. I am working on using a ferro rod, it is not as easy as I thought. I do not want to use man made items like cotton balls. So far I have used pine tree bark with sap and a lot of crushed needles, still made me sweat doing it.
+Jeff Corbin I think i got a video on how I use the ferro rod on my channel. Ferro rods are not easy to use. Slightest amount of moister can really have an adverse effect on your success.
Dano DeMano I laughed pretty hard at that part too. I think this is one of THE best survival/outdoors skills videos I've ever seen. I'm just getting into being an Outdoorsman/EDC Pepper and I've watched countless videos. To the host (still don't know how to tag people in RU-vid comments) your audio quality is excellent! Your insert shots are great and add needed humor. It's a proven education fact that when you enjoy yourself while learning you remember a significantly greater amount of information. Plus, you are just likable and down to earth. Honestly, if you had like a DVD set of videos showing how to do just about everything you would learn as a boy scout (never got the chance, sadly) I would totally buy it.
InnerBark Outdoors Yeah, Justin aka grierwolfe kinda started that challenge in his Wolfe Customs gathering video, where all the bushcrafters had to compete against each other making fire only with one piece of wood and the tool of their choice. Travis aka survivewithout won and suddenly everybody tried it in his videos, lol.
InnerBark Outdoors I just bought the Lanksy Blademedic. My first knife is the Schrade SCHF36. Should I NOT be using it? The Blademedic looked like a pretty good field tool.
One of the best tips for making feather sticks I ever learned/heard was to keep working around the wood piece, cutting the highs. That is, if you cut in one spot you'll gouge it out, but if you consistently go across the wood from say 10 to 2 o'clock, you'll be able to cut on a corner (kinda), giving less resistance to the blade and making those curls really stand up. The other problem I think people have is they wind up chopping previous curls off with follow-on cuts.. partially because their knife isn't sharp enough and they are applying unnecessary pressure, and partially because they are cutting in one spot and not making the feathers around the wood, as mentioned before.
Same way as you would in dry weather only under cover of a tree, rock cropping, or tarp. I might do one later when it shits down rain here in a few days.
