An Announcement, A Small Rant & Some Answers | #AskPaulKirtley 79

Description

Welcome to Episode 79 of #AskPaulKirtley, where I answer questions about about axe stones and keeping them in shape, using a parang in the boreal, quilts vs sleeping bags. demographics of bushcraft course participants, when to use the finer side of a sharpening stone, visiting North American bushcraft festivals and shows. At the beginning of the show there is an important announcement and part way through I also have a bit of a rant….

TIMESTAMPS:

20:17 Axe stones and keeping them in shape

25:45 Using a parang in the boreal (and a bit of a rant)

33:35 Quilts vs sleeping bags

40:56 Demographics of bushcraft course participants

48:16 When to use the finer side of a sharpening stone

52:50 Visiting North American bushcraft festivals and shows

LINKS MENTIONED:

http://frontierbushcraft.com/courses/forest-hunter/

http://frontierbushcraft.com/courses/

http://paulkirtley.co.uk/2018/will-lord-prehistoric/

http://paulkirtley.co.uk/podcastsubscribe/

http://paulkirtley.co.uk/2018/kevin-brownlee-indigenous-archaeology/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_4JKywBom0

http://frontierbushcraft.com/courses/woodcrafter-wilderness-axe-skills-woodland-campcraft/

http://paulkirtley.co.uk/2013/how-to-sharpen-bushcraft-knife/

http://bushcraftsymposium.com/

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Tags: bushcraft,survival,wilderness,camping,hiking,outdoors,question and answer,advice,questions,answers,bushcrafting,nature,self reliance,self sufficiency,outdoor skills,outdoor knowledge,Paul Kirtley,askpaulkirtley

Video Transcription

in this episode of a sport curtly we are going to talk about axe tones and keeping them in shape using a parang in the boreal forest quilts versus sleeping bags particularly at this time of year bushcraft courses age and demographics when to use the finer side of a sharpening stone and any visits for me to North America for bushcraft festivals [Music]

welcome welcome to episode 79 of ask Paul curtly and for those of you that are regular listeners or viewers yes it has been a little while since the last episode of a sport currently I'm currently in the northeast of England out just grabbing a bit of fresh air I've stopped off here on my way back from Scotland and I've been working in Scotland for a month all of October I was working in Scotland we had a couple of River Spey canoe trips - two weeks of canoe trips there and then had a bit of a time a few days just doing some walking and mountain biking on my own and then I went over to get ready for the forest hunter course that I've been running with Andy Chadderton of Moray outfitting and those of you that listened to the port cut the podcast will probably remember Andy he's been on a couple of times on the portly podcast and we ran a course together for the first time up in the highlands of Scotland in the last full week of October and that went very well and wasn't quite full nine out of the ten places were taken and but everyone got a lot out of the course and if you're interested in what that course is about all the space rips as well I'll put links in the in the notes below the videos and the podcast and you can check those out if you want no hard sell there it's just that some I do get a lot of questions from people who find my material on YouTube and on podcast and remember this podcast goes out as an audio file all over the web ends up on lots of different podcast apps and so I do get people contacting me saying where can I find out more about your courses and because they know I run courses but there's no direct link from from any of the stuff that they're watching or listening to and so if you just go to frontier bushcraft calm and and then click on the courses tab and or frontier bushcraft come forward slash courses you will find the courses there and also on that website

are the the trips and the expeditions that I do as well so everything is on Frontier bushcraft comm frontier bushcraft comm is my bushcraft and wilderness skills training company so you can find everything there so yeah and we even had a bit of snow at the end of the at the end of the forest Tonto is a bit of a strange week it started off warm and windy and the the tarp teepee that we built just about withstood the gales we had to do a few adjustments and tie it down a bit tighter but it all worked it provided a nice warm space for us very sort of traditional style of camp with a with an open fire inside and we cooked and stayed warm in there a little bit smoky sometimes because of the the pine that we were burning but um yeah it was it was very authentic in terms of that sort of northern forest bushcraft camp and that was great experience for everyone there and yeah the the weather changed right through from sort of warm last couple of days temperature dropped and we got a couple of inches of snow overnight on the last on the last night and into the first into the first day that we were packing up camp so that was quite interesting but it's got mild again today and I'm out for a walk and I'm almost wetting I have to say it's got very mild winds change right around but it is feeling pretty autumnal now it is feeling like the autumn is here so that kind of brings you up to date with what I've been doing and where I am and I'm enjoying being out at this time of year and it certainly feels very different to I got back from Canada in mid-september we did a trip in Canada and I had a sort of a week or so of doing things in around the UK and then I travelled up to do the Spay trips and it felt like the beginning of autumn then it was just on the turn and now it really feels like we're kind of going properly into the winter although it feels warm which is a bit peculiar so I'm hoping for a bit of snow before too long sorry to those people that hate snow but I do like a proper a proper winter and I'm looking forward to a bit of snow in the UK hopefully this this winter people keep saying we're in for a for a cold winter after all the warm weather that we had in the summer but I don't know how certain that is but it'll be interesting to see and those of you that watch this show regularly as a youtube show will remember maybe this bottom I've done shows here particularly in the winter before it's a little bit hard to get in here in the summer it gets very overgrown but I like to come here and the autumn in the winter and I have done at least one of the Paul curtly as Paul Curly's from here surrounded by snow but it's a lot more mild today and I know I'm rambling on a little bit but I'm just thinking about just catching you up on everything that being up to and the other thing the other thing that I should tell you about is I've been thinking long and hard about this over the past month or so that I've not done any a sport Kirklees and those of you that follow the Paul Kelly podcast will have noticed an uptick in activity over at the Paul Kirtley podcast so we've had an interview with wil Lord which was very well received a lot of people found that very interesting and if you've not listened to that interview with will Lord I'd encourage you to go across to the Paul Kelly podcast and listen to that and I'll put links again below the videos and the podcast on my blog if you want to subscribe to the podcast podcast I've set up a link and you can go to Paul Kerr Toledo UK forward slash podcast to subscribe podcast subscribe all one word and there are links there that you can use to subscribe to the podcast and of course you can do that directly off my site via an hour SS feed or you can do on iTunes Apple podcast Apple podcasting app and stitcher player FM and there's a number of others that are it's popping up on as well and I'll keep adding there so basically you can find a podcast app that suits you and and listen that way it is an audio-only podcast and lots of good interviews we had a sort of more magazine issue when I was in Sweden in late August at the bushcraft Festival and so it was the latest bushcraft Festival and the the 3rd bushcraft Festival and the third one that I've been to actually so it's been nice to be involved in that from the start and I caught up with a few people their last faults you ha rang cannon Yanis as and Iulia Celt off as well so sort of little slots with m8 10-minute conversations with them and also I caught up with Rupert Brown briefly there as well and Rupert's been on the podcast before as well so that's interesting lots of interesting stuff going on a bushcraft festival and nice to catch up with the the Swedish contingent there and the Danish of course with with Yona Yona salvers is on my podcast last year so lots to listen to there also by the time this asked Paul curtly is out the podcast 33 and will be out as well just have to keep up with numbers there because I've always got several ahead that haven't been published them always have to remember which one's next so the next one coming out will be an interview with Kevin Brownlee and that will already be out by the time at this poll currently Q&A is on on the interwebs and that is an interview with a very interesting man who is of Cree heritage in northern Manitoba and he is the curator of archaeology at the Manitoba Museum and has been for quite some time a good long number of years and it's quite a fascinating collection they've have there and very representative of First Nations life in that part of the Northern Plains and southern boreal forest and into the boreal proper with the woodland caribou etc there as you head up towards Churchill in northern Manitoba real diversity of habitat there as it transitions from where you had bison right up through to where you've got polar bears effectively within Manitoba

so it is quite a diverse province and they have an absolutely fantastic collection of archaeological items at the Manitoba Museum and so I caught up with Kevin while I was in Canada in September I caught up with Kevin and we had quite a wide-ranging discussion and so those of you that are interested in primitive technology primitive ceramics pottery if you don't know what that means and life in the boreal forest and how first nations lived in that part of the world and also how they still do live in that part the world and how Kevin is bringing the views of the communities the First Nation communities into interpreting what the archaeology is telling them about how people lived in that part of the world going back from now all the way back to the the previous the last ice age so that was a real fascinating conversation and one I think will surprise quite a few of you in how rich that conversation is so please check that out so if you don't subscribe to the pole correctly podcast I would recommend that you do if you have interest in bushcraft skills and wider outdoor skills journeying skills all of that is in that in that show and that is my main podcast and as I say I am ramping that up and I know you want me to get onto the questions but this is important because as I say I've been thinking long and hard I've been ramping the pork Utley podcast up again there's a interview with Lew Rudd coming up and you'll those of you that listens to the polecat Lee podcast will know that Lew was on the podcast a couple years ago talking about his Antarctic expeditions he has since done another Antarctic expedition the spear 17 expedition where he and a team of Army Reserves crossed traversed Antarctica via the South Pole and he is currently as I record this he has just set out undertake a solo unaided unsupported crossing of Antarctica and if he succeeds in that he will be the first human being to ever have done that so good luck to Tolu that is another podcast coming very shortly on the pole Kirtley podcast and as I say if you don't subscribe to Paul Kelly podcast please do subscribe I will put links everywhere YouTube underneath go to Paul Kelly code at UK forward slash podcast subscribe you can subscribe to the podcast and you will get you will get those episodes and I've got more good episode's coming I have got some really good people lined up coming through the winter as well and so the other thing this is the reason why I'm framing all of this because I have that platform and that is by far the more popular audio podcast that is one reason so I've been running these two podcasts audio podcasts in parallel the Paul Kelly podcast and the a sport curtly podcast and what I'm going to do and like a lot of other people who have podcasts do is that I'm going to have a Q&A session as part of my main podcast so effectively I'm going to merge a sport curtly into the poll currently podcast but I don't want it to dominate it so I'm going to have probably about once a month I'm going to have quite a wide-ranging Q&A and you can still use the a sport curtly hashtag a sport curtly hashtag to leave questions you can email me you can leave the speakpipe questions you can use a hashtag a sport currently on Twitter on Instagram and I will still get those in exactly the same way nothing changes in terms of the way that you that you ask the question just the where I answer the question will change slightly so to get the answers to those questions you're going to need to subscribe to the poll currently podcast okay so I'm going to do a sport curtly 79 which is today's podcast and I'm going to do a sport currently 18 and at the end of 80 that will be the close of the a sport curtly so I've done 80 episodes of a sport currently and I have been asked the same questions quite a lot so there is that bank of questions that is there as a sort of reference point that is there but going forwards what I'm going to do is have a Q&A on the pool currently podcast so remind you again on the next one but I would recommend going

just press pause now go across to the poll curtly products don't do it if you're driving but otherwise go across to three Paul Kelly podcast and subscribe because that is where all the good stuff is going to be and the perceptive amongst you will also realize that that means that that will be the end of the video version of the Q & A and I know a lot of you are are very loyal viewers of Paul of as Paul curtly on YouTube and some of you also watch it on my blog not so many on my blog a lot of you watch it on YouTube but YouTube's changed what people want on YouTube has changed and frankly it's not doing my channel a great deal of good a lot of you have said to me Paul why have you only got thirty or thousand viewers and I know that's the subscribers I know that's a lot by some people standards but there are some very big bushcraft channels out there and you know a lot of people are concerned that I'm not getting to the audience that I could be with technical skills so what I'm going to do with my youtube channel I'm still going to do some trip reports and films but I'm going to focus more on skills on my youtube channel because that's a visual thing you know that's a visual thing not to mention the fact that some people who aren't familiar with a sport currently they come onto my YouTube channel and say oh you just sat there talking about stuff you never do anything and I actually to an awful lot of physical skill training with people and one of the things that came out of looking at the work that I did with Mike pullin over at Ta outdoors was that I felt I should be doing more skills based stuff of my own as well and the the engagement with the a sport Kirklees on youtube has been declining unfortunately YouTube seems to be penalizing me for having a lot of that type of content on there and I'm gonna move it over to audio and a lot of you who watch it watch it on YouTube anyway just put the video on and listen to it and go off and do something else you put the video on your phone etc you can do that with the podcast any

and it's actually better for your bandwidth it's better for your data if you've got a data allowance you're not going to use as much streaming all that video that you don't need you just need the audio I'm not doing anything that you need to see largely it's just me talking and answering questions the best place for that is is audio and which kind of brings me full circle because originally I was going to do the a sport curtly just as an audio podcast and then I decided to put it on to YouTube because I like just sitting down like today in the middle of a walk and answering your questions while I have a cup of coffee or what-have-you and then I carry on on my walk but I've had to really think about how I do things and you know I'm spreading myself a little bit thin I'm trying to run to podcasts I'm putting these on my blog and putting these on YouTube I put these as an audio on SoundCloud as well and very few of you I know some of you are really wedded to that but very few of you actually use that as well so I'm gonna rationalize which means I can do more because I'm not spending all my time trying to get all this stuff in multiple different places all over the Internet I'm gonna have one podcast the Paul Kelly podcast where I'm going to do interviews long-form stuff where I might talk about particular subject and also Q&A yeah it's going to maintain the focus on long-form in-depth with experts and people with unique experiences but I will also roll into the into that the a sport currently questions and then my youtube channel is going to focus on more skills and trips and things where the visuals are really essential and that means I can rationalize things that way I'm not trying to promote to podcast within iTunes etc etc I can focus everything there it's got more visibility and hopefully then everything starts to to snowball a little bit more from there

and rather than me spreading things right across different platforms so hopefully that makes sense still subscribe to my youtube channel is going to be a ton of good stuff here that you're going to need to see your going to need to watch if you're watching this on youtube if you're listening to this on an audio podcast you're already familiar with podcasts you're happy with podcasts just make sure you subscribe to the Paul Kelly podcast as well and if you are on my blog at the moment listening to this or watching this

you're still gonna be able to listen to everything via my blog and you're still also gonna get any videos I produce find my blog so you can stay subscribe to my blog that way but please please please two things I could ask you to subscribe to to make sure you subscribe to if you're not subscribed to my youtube channel and you used YouTube at all please subscribe to that for tons of skills etc etc and if you're not subscribed to the poll currently podcast on some sort of audio platform please subscribe iTunes Apple podcasting app stitcher player FM pod bean bad about about there's loads of them and I'll make sure if there's any that you want it to be on that it's not on that you use for all your favorite podcasts please email me yet Paul at Paul curtly co dot uk' tell me which platform you want it to be on and I will do my utmost to get my podcast on that platform for you ok

so long long intro today but there's some big changes afoot and there's lots of good stuff coming there is a lot of good interview material coming on the pour cot currently podcast and I will continue to focus on skills on my youtube channel which is what a lot of people have been asking for do more stuff and I'm gonna do that okay so you're still going to get all of the information that you're getting already it's just going to be slightly slightly differently oriented and actually optimized is that's the way to think about it it's going to be optimized for the format's yeah I'm not going to be just sitting here talking on YouTube YouTube doesn't like that a lot of YouTube viewers don't like that it's all going to go on to audio podcast which are growing considerably and we're going to focus on the visuals on the visual media which makes sense doesn't it anyway questions questions questions questions let's have a look because I got I got lots of good questions axe tones and keeping them in a shape so this is from wells B roots who's asked questions before hi Dave how you doing good to hear from your mates and wells B roots asks em hey Paul a subject of caring for your axe stones came up as a result of a conversation in regards to axe care what axe stones would you recommend

our grants fors our grants for the best option and how does want care for them one person mentioned using sandpaper or a flattening stone to keep them in good shape I didn't really understand the concept best regards thanks and best regards and Dave yeah well I personally use the grants fors ax stones and my personal one is one of the old ones which is a natural stone grants will stop producing those and they produce a synthetic stone version now as well or instead of and actually that's just as good in my experience I have probably half a dozen of those stones in my equipment box at frontier bushcraft that we use on courses and we have students used for sharpening axes on our wood craft of course for example and they work very well and you just need to you've got a choice you can soak them in water and dry them out as you as someone you use them like a water stone or you can start using oil with them in which case once they've got oil impregnated them you can't then start using water because they're the oil repels the water it doesn't only work so you've got that choice to start off with but either way they work they work well and the way that you sharpen an axe and again this is one of the videos I'm going to do on my youtube channel the way that you show up in an axe axe is have a convex bevel typically even quite a fine general-purpose axe say like a grams pours small forest axe or a hultafors hunter's axe or whatever they've all got these they don't have big splitting wedge heads they have quite fine heads and then they come round to the cutting edge but that bit that comes round to the cutting edge is convex and so if you put a flat stone on that it's only touching tangentially it doesn't cover the whole bevel so to take metal off the whole bevel you need to change very the angle of the stone which is why you want a stone that's not too long because if it is too long that if you're using a bench stone for example you're going to work that those different angles and eventually the stone is going to come down and touch the cheek of the axe and you can't get the back of the bevel so you end up just using one end of the of the bench stone anyway so you might as well just use something that's maybe half that length so one option would be to get a Japanese water stone for example and saw it in half yeah good quality hacksaw blade or an angle grinder or something you could saw one of those in half and that's something that is a relatively an expensive ax stone that you can carry on your own but if you want to buy a specific ax stone the grounds fors ones are very good and so you work you're working on the on the on the edge and back from the edge around the bevel and your reason you want to take metal off the whole bevel is because otherwise you end up putting the secondary bevel on it and you want to maintain that same angle so you've got to take metal even though you want to sharpen the edge you've got to take metal off the whole bevel so that you maintain the same shape and as you do that with the with the Grantsville stone or with the say like half of water stone you are going to inevitably end up with a little bit of a curve or you know non flat surface over time more so with something which is rectangular than something which is round if you're using that pucked style stone it doesn't happen as quickly but you can end up with a bit of a divot in the middle but it doesn't happen as readily or as quickly with a rectangular stone that you're always using the same orientation you tend to end up with a shallow crescent shape and like any sharpening stone where you end up with something where it's not flat you can put it onto a flat surface and work it backwards and forwards or round around ever you want to do it so that you remove the high spots and you bring it back to a flat surface so one way of doing that is using some wet and dry paper like sandpaper wet and dry tends to be a bit better I've known of people use certain ceramic tiles the back of them where they're not glazed because that has the right sort of surface it's not too harsh but it is abrasive some people have used the back of paving slabs and you just need a flat surface that is somewhat abrasive to remove the the high points and that's what your friend or person who made the comment about that is talking about I don't find I need to do it with the pucks very often they're quite hard they don't lose a lot of material very quickly and because they're round you never quite using them in exactly the same orientation because they're they've got a lot of rip they've got that rotational symmetry whereas with a rectangular stone you tend to just hold it in the same way each time and you end up with that bowing but that's that's what we're talking about so in terms of looking after them yet if you do end up with something that's not so flat maybe flatten it off that's one thing to do if you're using water then just dry them off before putting them away do be careful about allowing them to freeze if they have water soaked into them so if you use them in cold environments make sure that you bring them into the warmth to dry them out or just or use one with oil in cold environments if you're consistently in a cold environment where you're going to be in sub-zero and temperatures and you can't keep it from freezing if it's got water in it those are the main things you need to do that they're not they're pretty low-maintenance otherwise using a piranha boreal question from Fred Ernst via twitter using the hashtag ask for curtly and he says he asks do you ever use a piranha in the boreal if so for what tasks well the simple answer Fred is no I don't use a prang in boreal to me and I know this goes against what I've seen some guys on Instagram doing for example for me a piranhas a tropical tool comes into its own Raven comes into its own in tropical environments whether it's for cut cutting the honors cutting you know doing various things with bamboo opening coconuts etc etc really really useful in that environment for those sorts of jobs equally quite dangerous got a lot of a lot of potential harm if you bring into contact with your with your legs for example so you do need to be very careful with them and like any larger cutting tool personally in the boreal forest I prefer using an appropriately sized axe it has the weight and the leverage that I need for cutting dense tightly grained and knotty wood which you are going to need in

in the boreal particularly for processing wood for a wood-burning stove and a hot tent for example or even if you're making a lean-to shelter and a long knock fire for example you need a good axe for that and that is a much better tool in my experience than the Napa rang there's a reason why the axe is the king of the boreal forest tools is because it works does that mean that if you took up around it wouldn't be useful no not at all I'm not saying that and you'd have to do more battening for splitting wood and there's a lot more splitting techniques with axes that you can do freehand as it where meringues are not as good for that I know you can split things and but you're gonna have to batten stuff more and in terms of felling larger dead standing Scots pine trees and things for example for processing in northern Scandinavia and same with jack pine although they never go quite as big as the scots pines and in in in North America and you know spruce etc perón's yeah they could be useful for taking lots of spruce boughs off of you know green boughs for putting down but frankly that's and I'm not doing that a lot that's quite destructive and in parks you won't be allowed to do that you're not supposed to cut green material even in the winter so cutting boughs is frowned upon in a lot of places these days and you know a lot of what you're doing is going to be fire word processing and the best job the best tool for that job in the boreal is an axe that's that's the long and the short of it but if I'm going to the tropics and if I'm going to northern Australia if I'm going to Southeast Asia that sort of part of the world or Central America my choice would be a prone machete that style of a cutting tool I wouldn't be looking to take an axe but that said if I had an axe in that vironment would that be the end of the world could I do nothing with it no but you've got a horses for courses yeah and one of the things I get a little bit frustrated with in modern bushcraft as it where is a lot of people who are promoting what they do in their environment

aren't really looking to what the tradition is in that environment there's a massive tradition of frontiersman ship in North America and there's a massive tradition of northern forest skills in Eurasia from the people in the north of Norway Sweden Finland and into Russia and across Siberia you know there are established ways of doing things and that's not to say you shouldn't challenge the status quo and look at modern materials and look at things but first of all study what people are found to work already I find there's a lot of reinventing the wheel this is not this is not aimed at you Fred it's a perfectly valid question and there's a lot of in reinventing the wheel that seems to be going on and before people have become fully immersed in the existing skill set have some respect for the existing skill set I find it odd that on the way on the one hand some people want to kind of pay homage to the tradition and traditional living skills they they're going back to canvas and leather and they want to have that you know that feel of the the old ways and yet they're not really studying the old ways and so I'd encourage everyone to just really look at what people have done and the nuances of it and why it works and get some experience in those places before you start changing things it's what I say to any student of mine you know by all means develop stuff yep but but try it the way that we're showing you first try it the way that it's worked for many other people first have a go at that and then see see where it takes you not the other way around just because something doesn't quite work for you you're finding something difficult isn't a reason to then try and change it and a lot of things like riding a bicycle yep you don't most people don't manage it the first time they get on a bicycle it takes them falling off and wobbling around and people holding you and you know yeah maybe you start with stabilizers and then you take your stabilizers off and you fall in a bush and you know you go down the driveway and into a you know into a somebody's you know garden you know you you have these episodes when you're a child learning things and for some reason people forget that it's like you don't immediately know how to do everything even if in theory you know how to do it and don't be dissuaded by things that are established ways of doing things

maybe being beyond your ability to start off with don't let that persuade dissuade you from persisting with those things until you've got a handle on them and then okay you think well okay well I can do this now and often they'll be in our Harmon tin and you can you go okay yeah right I used to find this hard and now it's not so bad and then if you think of some better ways of refining that that's an improvement that's an improvement yeah we you got to stand on the shoulders of what you know you know this this the phrase of standing on the shoulders of giants yeah you don't stand on the shoulders of giants by standing next to them you got to stand up above them and you got to climb up there and you've got to get to that point first and one of the benefits that we have now is that we have all this material online you can find out a lot more about what works in different places than you ever could before you know twenty years ago it was very difficult

other than digging some books out to find things but the downside of that is there's so much noise now as well you've got people just making up and and it's not and some people have already hundred years ago 200 years ago a thousand years ago found a better way of doing it and there are people just making stuff up based on theory and and I find it quite regressive in some way so I'm kind of heading into a bit of a rant today but we are on the penultimate a sport currently and we haven't had a rant for a while but you know so that is not aimed at you Fred it's a perfectly valid question

do I use a prank on the boreal no I don't there are reasons why it's because I prefer an axe and that is my chosen tool and you know would I carry an axe on a prank no yeah that axe is the most important tool and then some sort of life to go along without for making further sticks etc etc yeah that you know and anything any other smaller jobs quilts versus sleeping bags via twitter using the hashtag a sport curtly from a perry now the weather is turning colder what are your thoughts on using a synthetic quilt on top of a down bag to move the dew point to the inside of the synthetic rather than the down layer and what's your opinion of quilts versus sleeping bags in general well the quilt was just a just a different type of blanket really and we've talked about blankets in the past we talked about wool blankets in the past I think there is some benefit of putting a cover over your sleeping bag to maybe make sure that condensation is on the outside we've talked about using bivy bags with sleeping bags before and and personally if I'm bidding in sub-zero temperatures I will use a bivy bag rather than just have my sleeping bag out in the open and I find that useful it helps keep the bag clean it helps keep moisture off helps trap another layer of air between the bivi bag and the sleeping bag all of those things but yeah if you were in a tent it might be a little bit more pleasant you've got a bit you don't want to be using a bivy bag inside a tent but generally it wouldn't be my first choice there are some circumstances in which that you might need to do that if the inside of your tent was sudden for example from dunking in a river you know while canoeing or whatnot and you might need to just keep your sleeping bag from coming into contact with wet material but generally if you're choosing to use you know if you're choosing how you sleep in a tent I wouldn't be choosing to use a bivy bag but yeah you could use a quilt would work quite nicely inside a tent and because you've still got the freedom to move around and Neath it inside your sleeping bag and you've got this nice warm layer over the top and I've used something called a fuel duke and I talked about that very early on in the US it's funny how these things come full circle feel Dukan which is Norwegian for mountain blanket the the yeven brand which is the the Wolverine brand if you like

I talked about those was it a sport Kelly episode 1 or 2 very early on talked about Field Duke ins mountain blanket is what that means and yeah I've used those in conjunction with sleeping bags sometimes either just a bit underneath you know sleeping bag on top rolled over a bit like you would a wool blanket but with a sleeping bag in that's quite nice I've used them when it's warm just on their own and as a sleeping almost like a poncho liner that kind of thing and there's lots of combinations yeah there's lots of combinations the thing that I would ask you though is that if you're using you know whether you're using a synthetic sleeping bag a down sleeping bag a synthetic duvet a combination of some sleeping bag and a quilt or duvet and you're saying well that you know the moisture is going to go into that rather than this you've still got to deal with the moisture in that and if you're out for any length of time you don't really want moisture getting into your sleeping kit if you can't air it out warm it up an air out because it will if it stays frozen into that even that even the quilt it will stay frozen into that and it will it will reduce in efficiency over time as well as increasing in weight and it won't be as useful and that the at least the benefit of using something like a bivy bag is that if you get frost on the outside or even the inside of a baby bag you can turn it whichever way around you know outside in or inside out or the right way around and you can get rid of most of the frost off that and shake it off and if there's moisture on the inside you can hang it out in the frost and you can shake it shake it off because there's nothing really for the moisture much to soak into compared to say synthetic quilt or a synthetic bag or a down bag so III personally

wonder if there's a huge amount of benefit in terms of avoiding the degradation of insulative properties of anything even when you're combining them I think it's better to try and get the jus on the outside of something where you can easily get it off but is there some advantage to having a nice comfy space say there's two of you sharing a two-person tent having a quilt that could go over both of you while you're both in your individual sleeping bags that would might be quite as well so there's lots of different combos but in terms of sheer performance I'll just make sure I had a decent sleeping bag and I'd be using a bivy bag in sub-zero temperatures what you can do then is just chuck your jacket over the top as well that keeps that keeps things a little bit further so like a shell layer jacket over the top to keep things off and that's another option I have though and I'm sort of slightly contradicting myself here myself here what I have done as well as I've used a synthetic m-19 Swedish duvet jacket it's like a synthetic duvet jacket the closest thing you might think of to a quilt really that you might wear and I've used that over the top of a bivy bag and sleeping bag combo while sleeping out in about minus 30 Celsius but that's just that that's an occasional thing and yes okay the paps might have been some moisture introduced to that which can be hard to get rid of but at least I'm wearing that from time to time and my body warmth is maybe potentially going to get rid of some of that but equally it's subject to the same issues that you might have using a quilt and the other thing I will go right back to as well is are you static camping are you moving around are you gonna have to carry this stuff with you think about weight versus performance you've always got to think about weight versus performance you know if you're if you're ski touring with a backpack I'd be just trying to use and really high performance down sleeping bag combined with a bivy bag and a sleeping mat if you if you're on a snow machine or a dog sled then you've got a bit more leeway for example if you if you hauling stuff on a toboggan with snowshoes and you've got a little bit more leeway again still but equally then bulk is an issue as well you don't want tons and tons of bulky stuff and quilts and duvets tend to be quite bulky so it's really you know looking at the different parameters that you're working with in performance what the absolute temperatures can you get things warm and dry are you going to be in a heated tent occasionally are you going to be in a heated cabin occasionally or just out in the cold the whole time can you get things aired out do you have to carry thing your back is weighted absolute premium is bulk going to be an issue and then you've just got to sort of stepwise optimize what you're going to do within those within those parameters and find the best solution question from Sally Harvey coming by email and Sally's done a few courses with me hi Paul a question for ask a PK as a female in my late 60's attending two of your courses I have been surprised to find that I am not always the oldest person on the course and certainly not the only female I've always been involved with outdoor activities but came to bushcraft later in life this has its advantages in that I have the time to attend courses no longer constrained by a work timetable I'm just generally interested in the demographic of folks that attend your courses and really encouraged by the inclusiveness of the bushcraft community like to get your broader perspective on this regards Sal oh that's a nice question Sally and yeah one of the things that I find really quite gratifying about teaching bushcraft to whether it's on physical courses or whether it's online it's the range of different people that it attracts and the range of different people who feel like they can gain something from it you know whether that's youngsters you know in this you know youngsters get a lot of bad press these days are young people they're always on their phones and they're always you know they stay in their bedrooms and they're on Playstations and I'm sure there are kids like that but there were kids like that when I was a kid who didn't really go out very much you know who played with their trainsets or made Airfix models or just read books and there's always people there's going to be people who like being outside more and there's going to be people who like being inside more and maybe what they do when they're there changes over time but that's just that's just people and and I do think people sort of denigrate young people I you know I find young people really

engage with a lot of what we do in bushcraft whether it's fire lighting building shelters a little bit of tracking which is kind of like hide-and-seek and whether it's going and finding tasty fruits in the you know in the autumn and you know all of those things kids like they do enjoy that they enjoy going out and foraging fungi with their parents you know there's lots of stuff that kids enjoy doing they like poking around in standing in streams and splashing around and just being out and about so you know young people absolutely

you know people give Millennials a hard time these days as well but there's plenty of people in their 20s who come on courses and get a lot out of it as well right through to you know people who were in the scouts when they were younger and then they got a career and they haven't done a lot of people have done a lot of stuff we get a lot of people like that who did things in the outdoors when they were younger and then they then university and jobs and families and things happen to them and you know that makes it sound you know untoward but you know life happens all of a sudden they discover oh I'm going outside of my kids again for example and I haven't really done much outside for years I'd like to learn a little bit more about to brush up on my skills so we have quite a few people like that who come on courses and you know we have people who have you know like yourself who've done quite a lot of other outdoor activities over the years who come to want to learn and about what bushcraft can offer them as well and what can they learn more about the natural environment rather than just using their skills to pass through the environment how can they interact more with the environment what can they learn about you know direction and animal tracks and sign and foraging and all these different aspects not to mention you know the survival basics of shelters and fires and using tools and all of those sorts of things and that everyone's interested in so you get people wanting to sort of round out their outdoor skills as well and you're a great example of that and that's something with a lot of what we do that you can do it pretty much any age you know I've had people in their 70s on on courses so you know it's it's it's a real broad church both in term you know so you know in terms of age and I would say most of the people who come and do my courses are you know if you look at the distribution most of the people are in there say I would say early to mid-20s is that kind of end of the distribution for you know the sort of fattest bit of the distribution the middle you know you get a lot of people thirties 30s 40s and 50s definitely a lot of people come in to do courses and then okay not so many in 60s and 70s but still some and you know what's nice is that everyone you know around the campfire gets on you know you can have a group of people on a course as you saw on say the wood crafter last year and on the on the Windermere course that you've done with me you know you've got young through to older and everyone just gets on and gets stuck in and what was great about you coming on I particularly remember on there on the Windermere core cell that you know you got stuck in as hard as anybody if not harder on the you know the wood collection and the wood splitting and all that kind of stuff and so you know I don't like to make any sort of presupposition about people and everyone's got something to offer and often one of the things that older people have got and it's just life experience is people older people you know from middle age onwards often have a strong work ethic they get stuff done and partly because that served them well through their lives to have learned that that's how you have to orient yourself and get on with things and also maybe they're thinking right I'm not so young and you know and there's lots of things I want to learn I just want to get on with this so I think it's great having a real range of people around you know there's lots of role models there as well for for different age groups and then of course you know if you've got a sort of culturally diverse you know socio-economic you know diversity cultural diversity there as well and I there isn't as much cultural diversity in terms of people come in to do bushcraft courses as I would like but I think that's not specific to bushcraft I think it it's it's a cross outdoor leisure activities in the UK in general I think we I think it would be good to see more but equally you know you shouldn't try and force things on people I think people come to things when it's when it's the right time for them and it's an interesting question why is it why is bushcraft or any other outdoor activity why is it the right time for us to be doing this for me to be doing this I think that's always a good question to ask yourself of what is it that you know what's drawing me to this and that can help guide you in how you approach it as well but but certainly you know it's it's it's a broad church it's not an exclusive activity in any way sense of theirs in any sense of the word and I would always I would always welcome anybody as long as they're willing to learn and then I'm happy to have them on on the courses and so somewhat anecdotal and specific to to my experience but those my thoughts Ellie when to use the finer side of a sharpening stone hello Paul my name is John Cutco and I just recently subscribed thank you for the video is very much appreciated look forward to learning more with your help ok my question is on the sharpening of your knife you are using a two sided stone course on one side finer on the other I'm assuming when would you use the fine side is the fine side for certain types of blades or for all blades is there a process of starting on the course then to the fine yes I definitely will go back and watch the video again so I think the video you're talking about John is the one where I'm talking about getting the bevel angle correctly and the focus of that video is not about the whole sharpening process it's about one specific thing which a lot of people struggle with at least initially is with a flat beveled knife or a Scandi grind knife is making sure they don't round that flat bevel and that is really down to getting the angle correct and maintaining that angle as you go through your sharpening process and that's what that video is about which is why you've probably got these other questions around the broader process and he goes on saying might I might have missed it and you already covered it my apologies if so I don't mean to take up too much of your time and I hope I didn't ask a stupid question Lowell I'm kind of slow at times well thanks again sincerely John oh well you're not being slow John as I say that was about a specific element really of the sharpen sharpen process and one that people find a little bit tricky at times and there is a photo tutorial on my blog about sharpening knives and that goes through the whole process from start to finish and I will link to that from this from this session and there's a lot of good quality photographs on there which talk you through the process and also talks you through but in a nutshell and what you want to do is when you've got a blunt knife you want to those bevels you want to bring together so you've got a fine edge so you've either got some sort of flattening on the edge or you've got some chips or Dinks or you're the tops rounded or whatever so basically what you need to do is take metal equally off both bevels and bring it back to relatively fine edge compared to where you start but what you're going to have is two things one is you want to put it onto a relatively abrasive stone to start off with that so you're going to get the metal off quickly and you know that they're all day so you've got two things one one is that the edge of that if you looked at it under a microscope is quite Jaggi it's like a it's like a sore edge and also you're going to end up with where those two edges come together you learn it with a very fine foil of metal which if you're not careful when you go back to using the knife you can you can break it off and then you're back to where you started with a flat edge so what you want to do is once you feel like you've got a fine foil you've got a little burr because you're sharpening on one side it'll bend over you can feel it once you've got that fine foil you definitely know you brought the edges you the two bevels together into one edge you've got that foil forming and go over to the fine side at that stage and then you repeat the process and as I say the process is in that in that article you repeat the process at that stage you do your multiple strokes on one side your multiple strokes on the other side and what you're doing then is taking the the Raggedy edge and making a little finer also you're probably going to wear off some of that foil a little bit although not entirely and you're making a finer edge effectively so you're making it bring it to a finer finish and people that use a series of increasingly fine stones are taking that to a further degree but if you've just got a stone with two different grades start on the coarse side multiple strokes and then go to single strokes you'll make sure that that foil is flapping from one side to the other you can feel the Bur one you've done that once once you've done that change over to the fine side repeat that process and you have to go for a bit longer because it's not as abrasive and you're gonna get to a point where you've done a lot of repeated strokes it's quite a nice fine edge you've got this you've got this foil there that's still there potentially but you've got a finer edge what you're then going to do is take it onto your strop and you're going to strop it and partly to remove that burr and to bring everything into alignment and then you're good to go that is in a nutshell the basic process and it's explained in detail in that article which if you haven't found it already is linked from this episode link up there YouTube people and link underneath and link underneath the audio on my blog at Paul petticoat at UK just find a sport curtly episode 79 next question visit USA for bushcraft festivals is the title of this and this is from Adrienne Hester via Twitter again using the hashtag a sport curtly and he says a sport currently was wondering if you ever come over to the u.s. for bushcraft festival or preferably a festive Ireland's festivals festivals even and yes I probably need some food so I have never been over to the US for a bushcraft festival and the only bushcraft festival that I am aware of excuse my ignorance if there are many but the only one I'm aware of is the New England bushcraft show which I have been invited to and I was invited to for the 2019 New England bushcraft show but unfortunately my diary my schedule as you can imagine particularly with running courses and trips and expeditions as well well as other commitments of my time my schedule tends to get blocked out quite a long way in advance and so I was already committed to running courses right through May 2019 when the guys at the New England bushcraft show asked if I could go over for that so I couldn't go over for that I hope at some point in the future I might be able to get over for that but next year I won't be able to and and that's the only one that I'm aware of in terms of coming over to the to North America in general I am coming to the global bushcraft symposium and if you're not aware of the global bushcraft symposium and it's going to be quite an event by the looks of things the way it's shaping up and just Google global bushcraft symposium I'll also put a link in the usual places for this episode and I am presenting there I'll be one of the keynote speakers there and I'll also be running some workshops exactly what we're still in whether it's still in discussions about this you know it's a bit of a moveable feast because there's going to be a lot of high quality people there and the organizers are looking to get a really good suite of talks and workshops and various other things going on there so that's in Alberta in Canada next June 10 to the 14th of June if I remember correctly off the top of my head apologies if that's not right I will link through to global bushcraft symposium from here as well so you can just double check that but definitely check it out there's going to be more Skowronski there cody lundin and tons of other really good quality people and as myself and Lisa Fenton will be there from the UK and there will be a whole host of people from Canada and the states and various other places around the world as well I'm sure by the time the lineups finished so that's going to be a really good event and so I will be over for that next year in 2019 and also there might be a little bit more about that on my podcast the Paul Kelly podcast before too long nothing recorded yet but things are in the works to maybe record a little bit to talk about what's going to be happening and what to expect from the global bushcraft symposium and also what I'm hoping to do is when I'm there is catch up with some of the other instructors and work shoppers and presenters there and record some interviews in the same way as I've done at the bushcraft Festival on for the past couple of years it's it's a nice way of bringing a group of people together in a more magazine format but I might also do some longer form interviews if I have time no promises yet so again just to re-emphasize what I said at the beginning if you are not subscribed if there's going to be one hard sell in this episode if you are not subscribed to the Paul Kirtley podcast already subscribe please oh you owe it to yourself and that is going to be a focus that's going to be my main focus of audio-only content high-quality spoken word content on all the major podcast platforms that is going to be a major thing that I'm going to be doing I'd be I've had my podcast for a number of years and I've sporadically put out episodes

they're all good quality episodes but I really want to up the tempo of that now because having spent a lot of time talking to people over particularly over this year on my courses and on trips and meeting people at places like the bushcraft show and yes the a sport Kirklees are really important to a lot of you and it's the answering of questions that's important to you and that is going to continue on the portico podcast but also the thing that's really come to the fore is how useful important and informative the paul kelly podcast has become to a lot of people in terms of me bringing p people into their into their ears as it were and while they're on their commute while they're on the bus while they're on the train while they're driving to work or to and from work or whether taking the kids to sports practice on the weekend or whatever it is one guy came up to me at the bushcraft show and said that I'd made he's ironing very much more enjoyable because of the because of the podcasts that's one of the great things about audio you can be doing other things at the same time while getting all that useful information an opinion and thought into your brain at the same time and and I think that's why the Paul Kelly podcast is really working and I know the audio side of the a sport currently works really well as well which is why I'm going to integrate a QA a regular like I say the original plan is to do a monthly QA on the paul kelly podcast so that all the a sport currently questions that you send in with the hashtag x' in the usual way will be we selected that way and what I might do occasionally as well this is another idea that people have had is have a themed episode so say next month I'm going to be asking questions answering questions about clothing for cold environments or next month I'm going to be answering questions about water purification or whatever it is so we can have these themed sessions where I have a range of different questions and also I can add some more technical info as well which would make a nice mixture of stuff so that's something that I'm going to look to do as well as just answering whatever questions you've got for me and then YouTube if you're not subscribed to my youtube channel for whatever reason don't know why you wouldn't be only if you never go on YouTube I can imagine is the only reason you wouldn't be please subscribe to my channel go down and you know oh my my a good friend of mine his 11 year 11 year old daughter said that the phraseology that I should use is go down and smash that subscribe button if you want to see more quality videos so I am going to be producing some really high quality videos and more skills based more overnighters more trip based stuff so you get the benefit of being a sort of fly on the wall if you like with me in the woods on the trail on canoe trips etc it's set that is going to be the focus in my youtube channel and please subscribe there and that brings me to the end of this episode of ask Paul curtly so keep the questions coming in hashtag a sport curtly I will see you on episode 80 or you'll hear me on episode 80 which will be the last asked Paul curtly in this format in this stream as I said if it's not clear to you already a sport currently is moving to the Paul Kirtley podcast as an audio audio only QA please make sure you don't miss out but I will see you on the final 80th episode of a sport curtly before too long take care and enjoy the outdoors [Music]

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