Featherstick technique

[brucemacdonald]

I have a load of pine sticks which I am trying to make feathersticks from but with limited success.

Could anyone give some hints on the correct technique to make feathersticks? I guess that the knife has to be at a very shallow angle to the wood. I am using a Mora knife, and I have tried using my Gerber axe as well.

Thanks

Bruce

 

[tomtom]

use your knife.. as sharp as you can get it with your weight directly above the bit of wood hold the knife at 90degrees to the wood and the blade flat against it.. cut downward shaving off the ridges of the wood.. each time you make a shaving it should creat two more ridges continue with these.

not very clear is it.... uum.. alternativly you can wait for someone better at explaining than me!

 

[Adi007]

Making feathersticks is more like planing the wood than cutting it. If you think of a wood plane one thing you'll notice is that the block is designed to hold the blade robustly and steady - this is one of the main things you have to do when making fuzzsticks.

You want to hold the wood upright and the knife so that the blade is at quite a shallow angle to the wood. Now the trick I find then is to keep the whole arm and wrist straight and work using the shoulder - bending the arm at the wrist and elbow means that you can't hold the blade steady.

Blade needs to be sharp and preferably scandi grind. I can make feathersticks with an axe but it needs to be sharp.

 

[nipper]

Hi Bruce

I tend to put the end of the stick on the ground and to one side of my body, (avoiding any main arteries). Then I use a straight arm technique to push down, with a firm grip on the knife and using my bodyweight things seem to happen slowly with more control.

Also you may care to try a different kind of knife?.

I also own a Mora as well as a WS/RM Micarta, Fallkniven F1 and a Northstar, and in my opinion I have much more control over the cutting depth using the two convex grinds on wood than the Scandi's, (I hope that hasn't opened a can of worms!), but I do find that the scandi's somtimes cut a little deeper than I intended. However this could be also be down to my own bad technique with a scandi as am only speaking from my limited personal experience.

Hope this helps but I am sure there will be better qualified members on the forum to advise you than me.

Nick

PS: If you get a convex grind knife I'm sure Jake may tell you about a very special piece of leather he uses to sharpen his!!!!

 

[TheViking]

PS: If you get a convex grind knife I'm sure Jake may tell you about a very special piece of leather he uses to sharpen his!!!!

Shh! Don't mention the name. It is the evil itself....... :shock:

:rolmao:

 

[Ed]

A quick tip for you ;-)..... try and use the curved bit of the blade (towards the tip) and not the straight edge to make the cut.... you feathers will curl alot more.


Ed

 

[Gary]

Bruce easier shown that written - bring some next meet up and I'll show you.

 

[Kim]

What are feathersticks and what do you use them for???

 

[Dave Farrant]

A feather stick is a piece of wood which you "shave" to acheive a feathered effect which is then easier to light (fire making).

 

[Hoodoo]

Kim,
In places where you can't find dry tinder lying around, sometimes you need to make your own and one of the best ways to do this is find some dry wood and shave it nice and thin so that it burns easily.

 

[Moine]

Hi

I personally don't like feathersticks to start fires. I prefer splitting the wood into very thin kindling, lighting the thinnest ones first. But that's just me

Something nobody mentions about feathersticks is that you need some fairly straight grained wood, otherwise it's extremely hard to do. The trick is to cut between the fibers, and never across them (totherwise you've just created a chip...).

In my experience, it's easier and faster to split your wood than to make feathersticks. It's also easier to start a fire with tiny splits than with feathersticks, unless you create a lot... I mean a LOT of feathers.

Cheers,

David

 

[Kim]

Of course, I remember what they are now...must have wiped that one from my memory because I got really angry on my woodlore course because I kept slicing the feathers off!!!! I was ready to light a fire with my temper.

 

[Gary]

Of course, I remember what they are now...must have wiped that one from my memory because I got really angry on my woodlore course because I kept slicing the feathers off!!!! I was ready to light a fire with my temper.

Kim in the colder places where wood is at a premium that is the favoured technique! Making long feather sticks with the pretense of being able to move them has little practical use - using one 'stick' to make a big bundle of feathers makes more sense.

Theres also another technique called afuzz stick which takes no skill with a knife - you can even use a stone - to produce and these work well too - ask me to show you sometime.

 

[Kim]

Theres also another technique called afuzz stick which takes no skill with a knife - you can even use a stone - to produce and these work well too - ask me to show you sometime.

Thanks Gary :biggthump

 

[Hoodoo]

These feathersticks light really well.

 

[Paganwolf]

:rolmao: :super: Hoodoo you are the picture daddy !!!! :You_Rock_

 

[Dave Farrant]

Are these "Feathersticks" avaliable in the shops???
:?: :rolmao:

 

[Mike Harlos]

... cut downward shaving off the ridges of the wood.. each time you make a shaving it should create two more ridges continue with these.

I'm glad this thread has come up... I was going to post a question about this specific point.

In Kochanski's book "Bushcraft", there's a diagram describing featherstick making in which he writes that "shavings must be in one plane" (I'm sure no pun intended with the plane/shavings association)

I took this to mean that the shavings should be taken from one side of the stick rather than from the entire circumference. I think I took this too literally, and kept shaving from the exact spot, which became very difficult after a few feathers as I was tring to shave a curl off a broad surface.

Last night (I practice when I make fires for our woodburning stove) I realized exactly what tomtom describes here, that with every shaving you create two small corners or ridges at the boundaries of the shaved site. The next feather is shaved from one of those, and so forth. You can still remain on one side of the stick, just turning a few degrees either way after each shaving.

This isn't described in any of the multiple books that I have on outdoors/bushcraft. Perhaps it is intuitive for others.

Is this how others do it?

Mike

 

[TheViking]

Hoodoo: you have to reveal your secret... How on earth do you take that good pics? :?:

 

[TheViking]

Last night (I practice when I make fires for our woodburning stove) I realized exactly what tomtom describes here, that with every shaving you create two small corners or ridges at the boundaries of the shaved site. The next feather is shaved from one of those, and so forth. You can still remain on one side of the stick, just turning a few degrees either way after each shaving.

This isn't described in any of the multiple books that I have on outdoors/bushcraft. Perhaps it is intuitive for others.

Is this how others do it?

Yes. When I make them i shave in 3 'paths'. Turning the stick a little bit after each shaving, but not all the way around! Only on one side of the stick.