How do you sharpen your knife in survival situation?

[deovolens]

I am a simpte man, just my Ezelap

 

[scdub]

I’d say what you need is to start trying it out.

Finding rocks is easier than learning to freehand sharpen, and once you get to the point where you can easily hold a good angle, you’ll find that you can sharpen a knife on a round rock (it won’t be pretty, but it can be done).

I’ve done a deep dive in this regard and have flattened dozens of natural stones to use as sharpeners over the last 5 years or so.

In a survival situation you won’t want to spend much time/energy flattening, so find the flattest rock you can and rub it on your blade. If it scratches the metal, it should scratch it off the edge as well…

 

[scdub]

survival situation srsly

you mean you're in the Rocky Mountains, got your gear stolen incl. your portable sharpening stone RRS, found a dull knife in a lodge, and need to sharpen it to save your ***?

i'd go to the creek and fetch a smooth stone and a fresh mackerel. like they did in yellow stone.

Yeah - srsly.

Maybe not necessary to worry about if you live in the Netherlands, don’t plan to travel, and can’t get lost because there’s so little forrest left, but in the US where I live, there are TONS of places you can get lost and TONS of places where you could slide your car off a cliff and not be found for a week. (You keep a carbon steel fixed blade in your car I hope?)

Maybe not the most likely skill to need, but nothing to scoff at.

 

[a_dub]

Imagine you are a soldier, you throw your backpack somewhere because enemy fires at you, you survive the situation but backpack is nowhere to be found. I agree that it really depends on situation, but if you are staying in the woods for more than one night and no contact with outer world, it's little worse.

If that first thing happens, one way or another you're not going to be running around long enough for your knife to get dull. Likewise if you take your car off a cliff and can't hike back up to the road to get help, finding a river rock to sharpen your knife is not on your list of concerns.

If you went out with a decent knife in good shape no emergency situation is going to last long enough for your knife's edge to ever become a problem and in an emergency spending time and energy looking for a suitable stone to rub it on is a mistake. If you've cut so much wood and rope that your knife has stopped working completely and you aren't safe yet, say your prayers and write a goodbye note.

 

[Natlek]

Yeah - srsly.

Maybe not necessary to worry about if you live in the Netherlands, don’t plan to travel, and can’t get lost because there’s so little forrest left, but in the US where I live, there are TONS of places you can get lost and TONS of places where you could slide your car off a cliff and not be found for a week. (You keep a carbon steel fixed blade in your car I hope?)

Maybe not the most likely skill to need, but nothing to scoff at.

Assuming you survive a fall off a cliff , what you intend to do with knife in that week before they found you so the knife get dull ? And what is dull knife , what do you think ?

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

First things first is be extra mindful not to needlessly damage your edge so you don't have to touch it up in the first place. But as already mentioned, if you intend on possibly being in a setting where improvised sharpening might need to be done, make sure the knife you carry is one in simple low-carbide steel in a softer heat treatment so it's able to be suitably abraded by quartz grains.

One method of doing light maintenance touchups is by carving a flat on a piece of wood, pricking it with the point of the knife to create a series of small "wells" and then find some find siliceous sand and rub it on the surface, preferably with some sort of grease, pitch, or other substance to help the grains cling. You can then use it like a strop.

It doesn't work great compared to a proper stone, but it's better than nothing by quite a stretch!

Finding suitable stone really depends heavily on your locale. Good sharpening stones with different performance qualities were a precious resource and were traded far and wide since antiquity because of how unsuitable most stone is for such an application. But if you ARE lucky enough to find some stone in your area that works well (keep an eye out for sedimentary rock, specifically) take two pieces that are as flat as you can lay hands on and rub the faces together in circular/figure eight patterns to lap them against one another. There's some very fine black siltstone in my area that works great as a finishing stone, and happens to like to fracture in roughly trapezoidal patterns that means many of the found pieces are already fairly flat, with some being flat enough to use as-is so long as you go edge-trailing. Rubbing them against one another with a bit of water on them to keep them clean and abrading at each other produces a fine slurry that easily wipes away. But it's a lot of work even with an ultra-coarse diamond plate or loose silicon carbide grit and a lapping plate, let along the self-lapping method, so it's something best done only if truly necessary.

 

[dano]

Don't use it....At least as sparingly as possible.

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

Whenever I think of survival situations I basically think about the power cutting off indefinitely. Anything short of that I'm going to have a sharpening stone on me.

And if the power does go off forever.. I'm probably just going to clip myself rather than watch everyone around me starve to death.

That or I'm going cannibal.

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

First things first is be extra mindful not to needlessly damage your edge so you don't have to touch it up in the first place. But as already mentioned, if you intend on possibly being in a setting where improvised sharpening might need to be done, make sure the knife you carry is one in simple low-carbide steel in a softer heat treatment so it's able to be suitably abraded by quartz grains.

One method of doing light maintenance touchups is by carving a flat on a piece of wood, pricking it with the point of the knife to create a series of small "wells" and then find some find siliceous sand and rub it on the surface, preferably with some sort of grease, pitch, or other substance to help the grains cling. You can then use it like a strop.

It doesn't work great compared to a proper stone, but it's better than nothing by quite a stretch!

Finding suitable stone really depends heavily on your locale. Good sharpening stones with different performance qualities were a precious resource and were traded far and wide since antiquity because of how unsuitable most stone is for such an application. But if you ARE lucky enough to find some stone in your area that works well (keep an eye out for sedimentary rock, specifically) take two pieces that are as flat as you can lay hands on and rub the faces together in circular/figure eight patterns to lap them against one another. There's some very fine black siltstone in my area that works great as a finishing stone, and happens to like to fracture in roughly trapezoidal patterns that means many of the found pieces are already fairly flat, with some being flat enough to use as-is so long as you go edge-trailing. Rubbing them against one another with a bit of water on them to keep them clean and abrading at each other produces a fine slurry that easily wipes away. But it's a lot of work even with an ultra-coarse diamond plate or loose silicon carbide grit and a lapping plate, let along the self-lapping method, so it's something best done only if truly necessary.

That strickle idea is ingenius.

 

[Danke42]

You had a knife? Luxury.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

That strickle idea is ingenius.

I've especially used the method when sharpening things like gut hooks for people when I was away from my full range of sharpening supplies. Use the dulled gut hook to carve a stick to a precise fit for the slot, then apply the sand/fine dust to the wood and strop. Like I said, it's not the BEST method around, but it's one of the most field-expedient and works well enough for touchups, especially if your knife or other cutting tool is a basic carbon steel that sharpens on just about anything.

 

[scdub]

Assuming you survive a fall off a cliff , what you intend to do with knife in that week before they found you so the knife get dull ? And what is dull knife , what do you think ?

Maybe chop some wood (hopefully there’s wood) maybe dig a hole, maybe baton through some of the sheet metal of my car to make another tool.

My point is I don’t know exactly. But I do know that people HAVE been in “long-term” survival situations and I recon have dulled a knife or two in the process.

I like to be informed about and practice certain skills that I’m extremely unlikely to need, but could be extremely nice to have in a crazy situation. I probably won’t ever need my training/practice in combative firearms, knife/tomahawk throwing, emergency shelter building, or sword fighting either, but I don’t regret having gained these skills/experiences, and I get a little short sometimes with folks that make fun of others that are trying to improve themselves.

Sharp is just the ability to separate material in this context imo. A dull knife can’t cut well. I’m not concerned about keeping my beard trimmed for the week I’m waiting for rescue, but an edge might be nice, and I can get a low-grit working edge out of almost any steel (even high rc/carbide stuff) with many rocks that I have found, even without much if any flattening.

 

[Danke42]

One time I had to survive for months till I saw a new knife I wanted to buy.

 

[scdub]

If that first thing happens, one way or another you're not going to be running around long enough for your knife to get dull. Likewise if you take your car off a cliff and can't hike back up to the road to get help, finding a river rock to sharpen your knife is not on your list of concerns.

If you went out with a decent knife in good shape no emergency situation is going to last long enough for your knife's edge to ever become a problem and in an emergency spending time and energy looking for a suitable stone to rub it on is a mistake. If you've cut so much wood and rope that your knife has stopped working completely and you aren't safe yet, say your prayers and write a goodbye note.

Most situations, that’s probably correct, and there are lots of things that PROBABLY won’t happen in a generalized survival situation, but to state these likelihoods as facts is a little overboard.

I live in CA around lots of cliffs and I have read about and personally searched for people lost in the woods for multiple days.

Your post implies that because you think it’s an unlikely skill for someone to need, it’s a silly thing for others to learn…

 

[Danke42]

Most situations, that’s probably correct, and there are lots of things that PROBABLY won’t happen in a generalized survival situation, but to state these likelihoods as facts is a little overboard.

I live in CA around lots of cliffs and I have read about and personally searched for people lost in the woods for multiple days.

Your post implies that because you think it’s an unlikely skill for someone to need, it’s a silly thing for others to learn…

The best thing for that is some extra pounds around the waist for those long cold nights in the bush.

 

[a_dub]

Most situations, that’s probably correct, and there are lots of things that PROBABLY won’t happen in a generalized survival situation, but to state these likelihoods as facts is a little overboard.

I live in CA around lots of cliffs and I have read about and personally searched for people lost in the woods for multiple days.

Your post implies that because you think it’s an unlikely skill for someone to need, it’s a silly thing for others to learn…

I'm really saying that of all the skills you would need to have being unexpectedly in the wild in bad conditions without any equipment other than a knife, sharpening that knife on a found stone is not anywhere near the top of the list. If you want to pick up natural whetstone manufacture for fun that's awesome but let's not do the naked and afraid except for a knife fantasy.

Yes, people can be lost in the woods for multiple days - if you have a decent knife on you it will last long enough to get rescued or find your way home. Having lost your kit and being in the wilderness in bad conditions, you don't have a lot of options. This is how it goes:

1. Can you hike out? Get walking. If you ended up somewhere more than a couple days walk from human habitation, in dangerous weather, with no equipment... you are going to die because people with skills make sure their gear is with them when they are in places like that.
2. If you can't hike out you are hoping someone comes to find you. Make a debris pile shelter to get out of the wind.
3. If you have means or skill to make a fire with only a knife then do that, make it smoky so people looking for you can see it. You're not going to be splitting wood and stuff because you don't have a saw or an axe so this is going to be stuff you gather. Break longer sticks off using a fork in a tree. It doesn't need to be pretty or nice. You can drag a fallen log over and just feed it bit by bit into the fire once you get it going.
4. Think about water. This is going to suck because you didn't have any gear, but good luck. If you get the runs your time is short.
5. Say your prayers and wait for someone to find you.

None of this is really dependent or particularly wearing on your knife. If you really are worried about this scenario go out in bad weather to a known safe spot and see how long you can get by with only a knife and a sharpening stone, because that's what learning to sharpen a knife in the wild will get you to. Very few people are going to last very long like this. If you can't live in those conditions for a month WITH a sharp knife then you don't need to worry about emergency knife sharpening.

Almost all the stuff we bring and do when we're camping and hiking is for fun and comfort, not strictly for staying alive. If the conditions are hospitable you can hang out without doing much else but stoking your fire and improving your shelter for a couple weeks if you have water. If you don't have water or the weather is very cold you can last maybe 4 or 5 days at the outside. Finding a river rock and rubbing your knife on it isn't going to save you. You aren't whittling your way out of a situation like this and if the thing that is going to limit you under these circumstances is your knife getting dull then you should be sharing your extensive survival skills with the world.

 

[scdub]

1. Can you hike out? Get walking. If you ended up somewhere more than a couple days walk from human habitation, in dangerous weather, with no equipment... you are going to die because people with skills make sure their gear is with them when they are in places like that.

They do? Always? Sounds like an opinion stayed as a fact.

Have you ever been backpacking (or read about it)? It’s one of my favorite things to do (e.g. put myself away from human habitation while relying on the gear I bring along).

If so you’ve probably heard these bits of advice:

1) Wear your knife, fire starting equipment, and ideally first-aid items secured ON YOUR PERSON.

2) When crossing a creek, etc. (which happens frequently if you like to backpack in pleasant areas) you should always undo your sternum/belt straps so your backpack doesn’t drown you if you go in. The idea is you get out of your backpack, lose your gear, but don’t drown.

Now, if we put #1 and #2 together, you’ll see that we have a situation where someone with “skills” can end up with just a knife and fire making equipment a few days from home.

Now let’s add in a broken ankle for fun, so no walking out. (Again, I’m not saying this will happen to me -really hope it doesn’t in fact - but I can use my IMAGINATION and put myself in that scenario easily).

I’ve also been temporarily lost in the woods (for about an hour until I figured out my mistake). Not a fun experience, but an experience that I KNOW can happen.

Do you know why they say to keep your knife and fire on your body? Because those tools are the most likely to help you survive.

Do you think it’s silly to bring a sharpening device on a backpacking trip?

There’s a guy in a post above that EDCs a sharpener. Anything wrong with that? If not, then what could possibly be wrong with learning a skill that allows one to leave an additional item of gear at home?

Leaving things at home through skill development is one of the goals in backpacking FYI…

 

[Danke42]

One serious note here.

The acronym STOP (stop, think, observe, plan, then act) highlights the importance of a survival attitude that involves carefully planned actions rather than irrational behavior based on fear.

Stay where you are: It's important to recognize that your body only has so much stored energy and that it is essential to spend that energy efficiently.

People who carry on after they become lost usually get further from the trail and from people who are looking for them. Going downhill often leads to natural drainage gullies, which typically have very thick bush, expansive cliffs and waterfalls, making travel and searching more difficult. Staying put reduces the potential search area for SAR, because you will have left a trip plan with a friend, and they will know where to start looking.

 

[Lesknife]

If I can carry a pocket knife or fixed blade, I can carry a pocket sharpener preferably a diamond type. I usually have one along when I’m out and about. I can and have used rocks but only when I was a young adventurous lad when I didn’t really use my head properly.

Also when I’m in a tight spot and lack some of the items I could use I don’t take chances with my knife or tools in a thoughtless manner. There’s always a way to make do without having everything you need. Mostly just using a sound mind is the best tool we have available.

 

[Zulus]

But what type of stone is best? Where will you find stones that are best suited for sharpening?

Any stone you can find near your wild path is the best !
Try find flat one.
Do not try fresh lava flow !!