Otzi s Knife Sheath

Description

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Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

morning folks I'm Dave Canterbury with the Pathfinder school I'd like to discuss a weaving project with you today but I'd like to step back in time for a minute have a little bit of discussion about weaving in general I noticed that these videos aren't getting the views that my more testosterone based videos like knives and axes and things like that get but that's okay I think it's important so for those that want to learn they'll tune in and watch these videos weaving is a very very important skill for self-reliance and if you go back thousands of years weaving was used to make not only articles of clothing but also for making things like pacts making things like straps making things like bags and sheaths and going back and looking at Otzi the Iceman and that's what we're going to talk about today Otzi the Iceman had a sheath for his knife and his knife was very similar to the stone knife that I have here it has a stone blade this one has an antler handle his was made of wood it's lashed on with animal sinew and sealed with pitch and this one has a deer leg and sheath with a deer neck strap Otzi sheath was woven very similar to this from natural material a little bit different than this not quite as sophisticated I want to talk about that today and this is a project that I did posted pictures online this is my opinel knife in here and I just love this around a forum object and this base of weaving like this can be transferred to the woods to a 4-inch sized sapling and things like splits or vines or cattails could be woven around that in fashion just like this to make an arrow quiver so once you learn the concepts of the weaving the projects are really only left to your imagination and Otzi carried several woven objects it was believed that he had a net that went around his pack frame he also had a woven grass mat that was believed to have been his outer garment he had a woven

knife sheath which we're going to talk about today so we're going to take some natural material we're going to hand weave a knife sheath for this knife in Otzi the Iceman fashion stay with me okay so let's discuss real quick material obviously Otzi used natural material off the landscape to make his things within winter time is not the best time to harvest those type materials vines

barks all of those things are best harvested in the springtime when they're nice and supple or when the SAP is running you can't get things like spruce roots and things even in the winter but even they are more brittle in the winter than they are in the spring and summer of the year so what we're going to use to replicate those natural materials is a natural material that's pre-made we're going to use some lengths of hemp rope and this is just stuff that I've cut off from other projects and then we're going to use some hemp cordage so we're using natural material and hemp to replicate oats ease knife sheath today so I'm going to get the camera reposition and I'll start showing you how this was done stay with me okay so I'm going to kind of try to shoot this over the shoulder fashion for you I've got a pretty good length shouldn't say pretty good three or four feet of hemp here we're going to start with on the short small diameter stuff and now I've got several just pieces replicating cut pieces of natural material to begin with here and the bigger stuff so what we're going to do is we're just going to start piecing these together and I'm kind of grabbing similar sizes here and what we're going to do is we want to take this first piece and we're going to divide it in half just like this and that is going to be the beginning here we're going to leave ourself a little bit of tail sticking up here so that we can fold this over on the second pass and all we're going to do is we're going to take that loop and we're going to twist it just like that tight against that rope and then we're going to hold it and place another strand in at the same length just like that at the top not worried about my bottom length right now I can trim that later and then I'm going to twist it again and I'm twisting it the same way every time right now which is away from me and I'm putting in successive pieces as I go pulling it together push it in there tight twisting it away then holding on to it putting another piece in snugging it up tight twisting it away and I'm going to continue to do that until I get enough length that I can turn this basically in half and make the circle for my knife sheath then I'm going to make that circle and go around the other way and we'll talk about that in a minute okay so you can see what we're starting to get here we've got an inner woven series of these strands and we've got to keep going with this until we get enough that we can fold this in half and get our knife down inside so we're going to need a couple more of these fibers on the outside here like this and again we just continue to put those in twist away put one in twist away just like this every once in a while just checking for size I think we're getting pretty close to what we want now okay now what we're going to do is we're going to turn this thing in half like this and we're going to go back right over the top just like this we're going to feed that one in and again we're going to twist away just like that

then we're going to find the next one we're going to put that in between pull it up tight just like that we're going to twist away just like this so now we're doubling this up on the top we put another fiber in okay so on to the point now where I went all the way around I've just tied it off here at this end with two rows here just so you can see where I'm at now I suspect from looking at the drawings that when are looking at the photographs that when Otzi did this he started with a long enough piece of fiber that he could fold this in half right off the bat and he probably started in the middle and then folded the whole thing in half so he was weaving two fibers at a time I didn't have long enough fiber to do that with so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take now and I'm going to fold this next when I start to go back the other around this other side I'm going to fold this in half like this and go around it and that's going to finish that upper edge just like this so every one that I do from here on out will be folded in half like this on my upper edge we'll have a knot there where it's folded over on itself so that's going to give me something looks like this the top I'll have a couple arches at the top of mine where out sees probably didn't have that according to the pictures it looks to me like he just folded his in half mine will kind of look like that one it's done although it won't be exactly like that

you

well guys I apologize that the sound went south in this video somewhere I lost my external mic batteries and didn't realize it I'll put music to it if I have to but again you know our OT knife sheath turned out very very good weaving by hand weaving on a loom all of those things are thousands of years old they're timeless skills and they're skills that we should practice to become more wilderness suffer lion I thank you for joining me for this video I thank you for everything you do for our school for our family for our business for all of our sponsors instructors affiliates and Friends and I'll be back to another video soon as I can thanks guy

About the Author

wildernessoutfitters

wildernessoutfitters

From the lore of bushcraft to all things related to self-sustainability, the Pathfinder vision is to pass on the knowledge of outdoor self-reliance. Providing basic to advanced self-reliance training and survival gear, our goal is to offer both practical knowledge and survival gear that will stand the test of time. From emergency preparedness to sustainability, the Pathfinder way is to share and educate.

Here you can explore the world of survival knives, survival kits and simple tips on outdoor self-reliance. We are always learning and enjoy passing on the knowledge we acquire.

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