My daily bushcraft

[FishyFolk]

Wrapped my Mora 711 and my Mora 120 knives in vinegar soaked cloth to force a patina on them. Hopefully that will give them a tad more rust protection as they live in my shed, and humidity is not excactly low now during the snow melt....just have to remeber to go out there and take that off before putting my head down tonite...

[CanadianMike]

Better tip, warm up vinegar to almost a simmer, pour into a glass and set your knife in there point down, you'll get a patina in a fraction of the time, and a harder set one, since the heat causes the steel to expand slightly, letting the patina set in deeper. Plus, you can control the patina just by watching it.

Should say, I did a couple Opinel carbon knives this way, they turned really black in about two mins. Most I do, such as O-1 steel knives I make, takes 10 mins to get a dull gray colour.

Experiment, and have fun!

[FishyFolk]

Better tip, warm up vinegar to almost a simmer, pour into a glass and set your knife in there point down, you'll get a patina in a fraction of the time, and a harder set one, since the heat causes the steel to expand slightly, letting the patina set in deeper. Plus, you can control the patina just by watching it.

Should say, I did a couple Opinel carbon knives this way, they turned really black in about two mins. Most I do, such as O-1 steel knives I make, takes 10 mins to get a dull gray colour.

Experiment, and have fun!

I may try that, but it requires more vinegar than I had in the house. The knives turned out okay though. Also did the axe I polished off the paint on a couple of weeks back. That turned out great!
But will try your tip later. But something tells me that this is for the shed...the smell must be horendous....lol

[GwersyllaCnau]

Non stop rain here, so yesterday my 10 year old son had ago at making nettle soup, on our Swedish army cooker..

I've never tried Nettle soup, tried worms, woodlice, crickets, etc but never nettle, will have to give it a go... where's my thick leather gloves .

Found this
http://www.liveandfeel.com/medicinalplants/nettle.html

[El]

Gwersyllacnau,
The nettles are quite nice..
we used gloves to pick the nettles and put them in a plastic carry bag...On the way out of the woods we spotted some wild chives..I picked em and put them in the bag..but this time no gloves on..result..stung my hand to bits on the nettles in the bag lol

[GwersyllaCnau]

Gwersyllacnau,
The nettles are quite nice..
we used gloves to pick the nettles and put them in a plastic carry bag...On the way out of the woods we spotted some wild chives..I picked em and put them in the bag..but this time no gloves on..result..stung my hand to bits on the nettles in the bag lol

Sorry had to laugh at that

[El]

Gwersyllacnau, that is a cool link thank you,it has a good list of other medicinal plants below the nettle thread I will be checking them out
http://www.liveandfeel.com/medicinalplants/nettle.html

(There is prob some moral to my nettle picking story lol)

[CanadianMike]

I may try that, but it requires more vinegar than I had in the house. The knives turned out okay though. Also did the axe I polished off the paint on a couple of weeks back. That turned out great!
But will try your tip later. But something tells me that this is for the shed...the smell must be horendous....lol

Only if you get it past the simmer point! Lol

[Basha72]

Made up some new base boards for bow drill set, couple of ivy and a couple of hazel just letting them dry out some more

Now off to work !

Dave

[FishyFolk]

Took the todler todlin about in the woods as we've had a tremendous snow melt the last few days. And with the runt todling about, we did just go a few meters in, but found this :-)



Now all I have to do is make birch lye, and cook it in it...what a mess. Anyway, what part of the fungus is it that I actually use?
In the picture is a couple of quartz rocks I also found...in my driveway.