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Re: [at-l] Fire

At 06:52 AM 3/10/98 PST, Block Dog wrote:
>
>>They had not brought an axe. They had not brought a saw. They had no way to
>>get to the dry wood inside of standing dead trees. They had never been
>trained
>>in where to find dry wood in any conditions.
>
>Ok, I give up, where DO you find dry wood in any conditions ?

By the way, lots of people misuse hatchets.  I was taught the following:

(1) the saw is for CUTTING wood, the hatchet is for SPLITTING wood.
Cutting wood with a hatchet is a good way to hurt yourself.

(2) Cut larger pieces down to a reasonable size using the saw.

(3) Find a nice solid piece of wood to use as a mallet.

(4) Turn your soon to be firewood on its end and, using the mallet, drive the
    hatchet into the end of the wood.  By continuing this technique, you can
    split the wood down into quite small (finger width) pieces.  The pieces
    cut from the inside of the wood will be quite dry, even if everything
    else is soaked.

(5) Use a knife to whittle fine pieces of dry wood to use as kindling.

In warmer weather, of course, most people don't bother with the saw and
hatchet.  In an emergency, you could probably still cut the wet bark off
of standing deadwood to get at the dry inners (this is speculation though).
 Of course with a standard thru-hiker knife (e.g. Swiss army "classic") one
won't be doing much whittling of any sort.

Fire starting is probably the only good reason to carry a two or three inch
knife.

-- Jim
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