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- Dec 11, 2006
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A friend of mine got back a couple weeks ago from Taking a 7 or 8 day course with Mors Kochanski, through Karamat.
One of the things that was taught to practice knife skills was called the “Try” stick. I have the pamphlet on it that describes it in detail. But, basically it is one stick that you practice with carving about 14 different things all at the same time. So, you are not really “making” anything, but it is meant to practice and demonstrate skills. One of the things that the pamphlet says is “Some of the carving operations may be of very practical application, others are meant to tax the skill of the carver and some may be used for decorative purposes.”
There are also some things that are in the pamphlet that are not in the “try” stick.
I practiced this yesterday and figured I would share it, in case anyone else is interested. I think it could be a good drill for younger folks learning knife skills too.
1) Cutting through a stick. Basically beaver chewing all the way around the stick, until you can break it off, and then trimming off the fracture neatly.
2) Diameter reduction. Used for toggles, packframe construction.
3) Pot Hook. Pretty self explanatory. Besides hanging a pot, I regularly make a “pot stick” using this notch to pull pots out of the fire. The method shown here is making two notches at angles on the wood, and having them overlap. I have been making this style notch differently for years by batoning an X in the wood, and then carving out 3 of the 4 pieces of the X. I am much faster at my method, but that is because I have done it more. Both seem to work, although this was my first try at this exact way of doing it.
4) The round notch. Used for building a Roycraft pack frame. A simple and common notch in log buildings
5) The dovetail notch. Packframe, cooking crane.
6) 90 degree latch. Deadfall trigger.
7) Planes, 90 degrees to each other. Deadfall trigger.
8) Split, with piece of wood/bark inserted.
9) Notch for spear point. This can also be used for arro nocks, a netting needle, and I have also used it for cooking cranes when forked sticks were not available. This is where I screwed up Mor’s stick, because I was supposed to keep the other half of the joint to join the sticks together, but I trimmed it off before I realized that because I usually use it for 90 degree type applications. A knife edge or similar joint works well for sticking into these, because it wedges into them. This is probably one of the more difficult ones to make, and is actually detailed in the “Bushcraft” book, which I know most people have.
10) Notch for bow string. Similar to the pot hook, just shallower.
11) Hole through stick. He mentions using this for the bow drill (but that seems like a lot of work to me), also used in an ojibway bird snare. Again, this one is detailed in Bushcraft.
12) The root stripper. Basically a taper down end with a v-notch. Then, there is a split beyond the notch on purpose. Supposedly useful for stripping bark from spruce roots, although I have never used it for that.
The completed stick, assuming that notch 10 should be put together with the rest of the stick : )
All was done with a thin bladed, oval handled scandi, which is a carving machine for this sort of thing.
One other final note is the pamphlet emphasizes that all of this should be able to be done quickly, efficiently and neatly.
I hope you find it useful.
B
One of the things that was taught to practice knife skills was called the “Try” stick. I have the pamphlet on it that describes it in detail. But, basically it is one stick that you practice with carving about 14 different things all at the same time. So, you are not really “making” anything, but it is meant to practice and demonstrate skills. One of the things that the pamphlet says is “Some of the carving operations may be of very practical application, others are meant to tax the skill of the carver and some may be used for decorative purposes.”
There are also some things that are in the pamphlet that are not in the “try” stick.
I practiced this yesterday and figured I would share it, in case anyone else is interested. I think it could be a good drill for younger folks learning knife skills too.
1) Cutting through a stick. Basically beaver chewing all the way around the stick, until you can break it off, and then trimming off the fracture neatly.
2) Diameter reduction. Used for toggles, packframe construction.
3) Pot Hook. Pretty self explanatory. Besides hanging a pot, I regularly make a “pot stick” using this notch to pull pots out of the fire. The method shown here is making two notches at angles on the wood, and having them overlap. I have been making this style notch differently for years by batoning an X in the wood, and then carving out 3 of the 4 pieces of the X. I am much faster at my method, but that is because I have done it more. Both seem to work, although this was my first try at this exact way of doing it.
4) The round notch. Used for building a Roycraft pack frame. A simple and common notch in log buildings
5) The dovetail notch. Packframe, cooking crane.
6) 90 degree latch. Deadfall trigger.
7) Planes, 90 degrees to each other. Deadfall trigger.
8) Split, with piece of wood/bark inserted.
9) Notch for spear point. This can also be used for arro nocks, a netting needle, and I have also used it for cooking cranes when forked sticks were not available. This is where I screwed up Mor’s stick, because I was supposed to keep the other half of the joint to join the sticks together, but I trimmed it off before I realized that because I usually use it for 90 degree type applications. A knife edge or similar joint works well for sticking into these, because it wedges into them. This is probably one of the more difficult ones to make, and is actually detailed in the “Bushcraft” book, which I know most people have.
10) Notch for bow string. Similar to the pot hook, just shallower.
11) Hole through stick. He mentions using this for the bow drill (but that seems like a lot of work to me), also used in an ojibway bird snare. Again, this one is detailed in Bushcraft.
12) The root stripper. Basically a taper down end with a v-notch. Then, there is a split beyond the notch on purpose. Supposedly useful for stripping bark from spruce roots, although I have never used it for that.
The completed stick, assuming that notch 10 should be put together with the rest of the stick : )
All was done with a thin bladed, oval handled scandi, which is a carving machine for this sort of thing.
One other final note is the pamphlet emphasizes that all of this should be able to be done quickly, efficiently and neatly.
I hope you find it useful.
B
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