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Lightweight Cutting Tools
Submitted by An Outdoor Idiots Team Member.
Introduction
If you read some old books on the art of camping, it quickly becomes apparent just how things have changed over the years. A lot of old texts seem to take it for granted that you will turn up at a friendly farmer's campsite armed with little more than a pair of shorts, a leaking canvas tent and, most essentially, an axe. The camping experience would, by its very nature, involve cooking over a real fire, making random camp gadgets out of trees and unwittingly feeding the local ticks.These days things are quite different. Campsites that allow fires are sadly becoming a thing of the past. And campsites surrounded by trees, where the owner is happy for you to collect fallen branches and carve them into pointless ornaments or gadgets, are rare treasures. The ticks are one thing that seem to have stood the test of time, but even that joy is all too often thwarted by modern tents.
If you yearn for the old days, you can probably take some solace in a hobby that has emerged since then, and has been given the name "bushcraft". According to popular bushcraft propagandist Ray Mears, bushcraft covers all sorts of things. One thing it certainly covers is the art of burning or shaping trees, and that, and the tools that are used to do that, are music to the ears of Outdoor Idiots.com.
We want to put a modern slant on the subject however, and merge the idea bushcraft with another modern hobby: lightweight backpacking. In terms of the gear used, there is quite a difference. The hobby of bushcraft seems, quite often, to involve walking to a specific area, then spending a few days there getting cosy with, and using, the environment. If that means carrying heavy gear in to the site, such as axes, billy cans, shovels and the like, then so be it. By contrast, lightweight backpacking involves spending most of the day on the move, and carrying a minimum of equipment. Most of the gear carried is purely to enable a good night's sleep. So can these two worlds collide? Well, why not? We like backpacking, and we like spending time in forests, and it's very easy to arrange an outing that involves both.
If you are doing a lot of walking, however, and the odd stop in a wooded area is only a possibility rather than the main event, it can be a bit of a chore to carry around the typical set of bushcraft cutting tools, such as those pictured below:
All the tools pictured there are very popular with bushcrafters, and there's no doubt about it, they enable you to do a terrible mischief to trees with the greatest of ease, and they are a joy to use. We won't cover them in detail here, because there are plenty of other sources on the Internet that have done a great job of that already. Instead we will just mention the names: The Gransfors Bruks Small Forest Axe; The Gransfors Bruks Axe Stone (for sharpening the axe, as you can probably imagine); The Bahco Laplander Folding Saw; The Fallkniven F1 Knife; The Fallkniven DC4 Knife Sharpening Stone.
The problem with that lot is that the total weight comes to 1.8 kilograms (or 63 ounces, or 4 pounds). That kind of weight is certainly worth carrying if you are planning to live in a forest for a while. The extent to which those tools can be pushed it quite surprising. You can fell a substantial tree with that axe (although that is not what it is designed for), and you can cut through very thick logs with that saw. If you were really determined, and surrounded by tall thin trees such as certain varieties of pine, you could probably build a serviceable log cabin with those tools. But 1.8kg is a lot of weight if you are accustomed to modern lightweight backpacking. A tent, sleeping bag and sleeping mat combined can weigh less that that these days. And in reality, you are unlikely to need to build a log cabin.
Happily there are lighter alternatives available, and while they may in some ways be inferior to the tools listed above, surprisingly, they also have some distinct advantages in addition to their lightness. One answer to keeping it light is the idea that all you really "need" in order to get by in the woods is a good knife. But really that idea is more of a theoretical answer to the question "if you could take one tool to survive in the woods, what would you take?". That question isn't what this article is about, though. To make things comfortable we will stick with the idea of the three common types of cutting tool: A knife, saw and axe. Each tool can do certain things so well that it really is worth carrying one of each if you want to be able to manipulate wood with ease.
We've had a play with various tools, including some that are even lighter than the ones we are about to recommend, however, we feel that the following offer a really good balance of light weight with great utility:
The tools pictured there are: The Wilkinson Sword "Handy Axe"; The Wilkinson Sword Retractable Saw; The Frosts Clipper Knife; The Fallkniven DC4 Knife Sharpening Stone (again).
The total weight of those tools is 850 grams (or 30 ounces). That's less than half the weight, which is the kind of weight saving figure that makes lightweight backpackers go funny at the knees. Also note that only one sharpener is required here - the same sharpener works very well with both the knife and the axe, as will be covered later. The idea of using one item of equipment for more than one purpose is also something that makes lightweight backpackers go funny at the knees. [The Editor speaks: "Nonsense. If so many things make these people go funny at the knees, they'd never get any walking done. Now stop being so stupid and get on with it!"]
The weight saving is all very exciting on paper, and the idea of a full set of cutting tools weighing only 850 grams is quite remarkable. However, none of this is any use unless the tools can pull their weight. We'll now cover each of the lightweight tools and mention some pros and cons when compared with their popular and heavier counterparts...
Page 1 of 5 Next [Top of Page]
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Frosts Clipper Knife
Page 3: Wilkinson Sword Retractable Saw
Page 4: Fiskars / Wilkinson Sword Handy Axe
Page 5: Lightweight Cutting Tools: Bench Test
Page 2: Frosts Clipper Knife
Page 3: Wilkinson Sword Retractable Saw
Page 4: Fiskars / Wilkinson Sword Handy Axe
Page 5: Lightweight Cutting Tools: Bench Test
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