Due to my affinity for a nice fire and the ability to build some simple camp furniture, I had been looking for a lightweight camp saw that folds down or disassembles into a small package for backpacking and woodcraft. A saw is far more practical for processing smaller firewood and back cutting a tree when felling.
I found that the market was pretty small for such items. Many are of poor quality or too heavy for practical use. After quite a bit of youtube watching and some blade research, I found that the Bob Dustrude Quick Buck Saw carried at Duluth Pack (https://www.duluthpack.com/other/camp-hike/knives-saws-axes/bob-dustrude-quick-buck-saw.html) seemed to be the best bet for my purposes. It's not cheap, but it's compact and well reviewed. It's only drawback that was apparent was the fact that it required some serious tools to repair if damaged.
I have used the saw many times now and its construction is very simple. 3 Channels of aluminum bracing are cut with the 2 outside "legs" being slightly larger channel to allow them to slide over the top of the center channel. 4 Zinc rivets are used to connect the 3 pieces together and allow them to fold. Each leg has a 1" slit cut in it to hold the blade. The blade is installed by sliding the blade into the channel slit and seating the installed stopper bolt inside the channel while camming the waxed wooden handle into place, tensioning the blade. It's pretty easy to figure out, and the directions are written on the wooden handle. It's also bi-directional so it's impossible to install it backwards. The handle can be installed on either side.
It's pretty easy to use for wood processing and such, but it's a but difficult to make precision cuts. For some reason it likes to drift, no matter who is using it or the grip they use. I believe this has to do with the channel slit not being perfectly tight and causing the blade to twist slightly.
The other drawback is that it's rather loud for a buck saw. Not painfully so, but much louder than any pruning saw or buck saw I've used. These are both minor concerns when you consider it's intended use, but for some, it's a deal breaker. The only other issue I have is the fact that it doesn't have a sheath for it. They are available, but not in any way can you consider them cheap.
The positives far outweigh the issues in this case. This 24" saw weighs 15.9 ounces, which is paltry compared to it's usefulness. It's cutting ability is very good with some practice. The lighter weight takes some getting used to, but with a few minutes of cutting, you forget about it. It uses a standard Bahco blade for wet wood, which is a pruning blade with cutters and rakers. You can buy standard 24" blades from various manufacturers and only need a screwdriver and pair of pliers to change the blade.
The good: Light weight, durable, easy to use.
The bad: loud, cuts drift, no sheath, cannot be fixed in the field
The ugly: none
Overall, this has been a decent purchase for the 70 dollar entry fee. It's perfect for use on extended campouts and for rough cutting when out in the woods. It's not meant for use in heavy or commercial style cutting. It's meant to be used as a backpacking saw for serious adventurers. With it, you can cut down trees with a 15" width without an issue. They also come in a 30" model, but it won't fit on my pack properly. In conjunction with a proper camp axe, you can pretty much build a log cabin or serious shelter without an issue.
I've been using an old family axes for years now. They are all well worn and pretty beat up due to the use of 3 generations of users. I can remember chopping up kindling as a kid with my Grandfather's roofing hatchet. He was a thrifty man, so when it broke he paid a neighbor to weld it back up for a 6 pack of beer. Cheap beer.
The axes were all in pretty poor shape, and the smaller Shapleigh axe was tucked in my dad's tool box when I inherited it. I cracked the larger axe handle years ago and just taped it up years ago as well. With my new skills research, I've learned how to re-haft or re-handle an axe of any type, including mauls. These are a few axes from the scout troop I volunteer with. I bought quality handles and spent several hours per unit learning how to do it right. Cleaning them up takes time as well.
These are 2 high quality, low cost scout axes that have been in use by the scouts for a few decades. You can see the years of abuse they endured. It took a lot of work to get them back in shape.
After installing new Seymour Hickory handles. The top Axe is my turn of the century Shapleigh axe. It's in great shape now. It's a good size for smaller tasks and light chopping, but too heavy to strap to your backpack and slog to the field. Thus begins my quest to acquire a more suitable axe for backpacking and bushcraft. After much research and some budget constraints, I knew I wanted a Swedish steel axe similar to a small forest axe. Many European military units use similar axes so I knew they are very reliable. It had to have a Hickory handle as well.
There were many contenders out there but the best value seemed to the the Husqvarna. You needed to do a little rework to the edge, and the cover isn't the best, but it's made by one of the oldest axe makers in Sweden, Hults Bruks.
Upon arrival, I spent some time putting a shaving sharp edge on the axe. I re linseed oiled it up a few times and set it aside for an upcoming scout camp out. I was able to use it to split some smaller logs and make some feather sticks for practice. It was just what I wanted. Lightweight, perfect length for my arms and well built.
Fast forward a month and my son and I are in the woods during the winter and we are relying on our kit to keep us warm and fed. I'm really glad I had the right tools to split the gnarly muscle wood and cedar for the cold, rainy weather. You do have to be careful though, the small head allows the wood to split unevenly and you can hang the handle in the split regularly. It's caused some damage on my handle. Not enough to worry about, but enough that it's showing some splinters at the neck.
The profile is very sharp, which keeps the weight down, but makes the head stick pretty often in stringy or soft wood. It's aces at splitting dry hard woods.
Pictured after felling and splitting a couple dead white pine trees.
It's now my favorite axe. I use it on every non scouting camp out and for clearing brush or working wood when I need to take off more than a knife will allow. It keeps a shaving sharp edge onger than my knife does. Even after chopping down 2 15" x 40' white pines and limbing them. All it required for bringing the edge back to shaving was 10-15 strokes on the leather strop with yellow compound.
With 6 months of good use behind me, I can say that this has been one of my better investments. The head is still 100% solid on the haft, the edge is still perfect, and the finish is still rough. Can't ask for anything more in a medium cost backpacking/general purpose axe.
The boys and myself went for a very difficult hike this week. The elevation changes were brutal, some requiring you to scramble up hill sides too steep to skirt or walk a diagonal approach. I didn't get too many pictures of the hard areas, I was too busy sucking wind and keeping 50# of gear from making me fall over. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous without the leaves obscuring the view.
My 78 pound 11yo son packed 38 lbs of gear 4.12 miles with 1400f of elevation changes both up and down the same 836 to 433 feet above sea level. The 14yo is in track for distance running, he flat trounced the youngest and I with his 43 pound back.
Once we made it to the camp site, we sat back and relaxed prior to setting up camp. There was a beach not too far away, but the easy access to boaters had it trashed beyond belief.
There was debris, beer bottles, a broken tent, cooler styrofoam, dirty diapers, etc. there for the enjoyment of all. I was pretty upset at how people treat public lands. If I had my way, the perpetrators would be on a chain gang cleaning up the entire park for a month.
We set up a nice little camp a hundred yards away from the beach and had a nice rocke overhang to fish off. We made a log seat and the youngest decided to not bring a tent and instead make a super shelter of his own design.
We decided to end the trip 12 hours early due to a large storm moving in and high winds that were deconstructing the shelter. We no more made it to the access road than the heavens unleashed a torrent of heavy rain and endless lightning and thunder. The trip back to the truck was arduous to say the least. The near vertical climb in some places at the beginning of the hike really takes it out of you. The topographical map looks solid red with contour lines in some places we traveled.
I did catch a nice little flathead catfish the first night, but the water was way up and muddy from the spring rains, so I expected very little luck catching fish. The boys didn't even get a bite.
A new skill I tried out was the long fire to keep the youngest son's shelter warm.
A traditional long fire is built a little differently, but due to the fact that I had 3 different types of wood, I could choose how the fire burnt by using different wood to speed or slow the burn. I'd stagger hard wood, then white pine for fast heat, then a wet beech to slow it again. My first time was a success. I got up at 1:30am and 4:30am to add wood and keep him warm, but that was just my light sleeping getting the better of me. The carp jumping and geese fighting in the night kept me awake most of the night. I had to sneak in a noon siesta to stay viable while the boys processed firewood and completed their assigned duties.
Another great trip in the books, and I plan to get those reviews done this time. One is long over due and I put it up immediately this morning. I'm going to let this one auto post in a few days and work on some more reviews.
Ah yes, it's that brilliant time of year when business slows down and I can get some free time to get away with my boys. Unfortunately one of my boys is injured and couldn't make our last outing. He had an interesting interlude with an elliptical machine on New Years eve and is recuperating on crutches. The oldest man child is feeling just fine, so he and I decided to take a trip to our favorite patch of woods and scout some new camp areas and test some new equipment. The weather forecast was less than inviting with constant rain and cooling temps, but Momma wanted us out of the house for the weekend so we acquiesced.
Friday Morning I was perusing the weather forecast and seeing that if we left early on Sunday, we would be fine to miss the most inclement weather front of the year so far. A big Alberta Clipper is heading straight towards us. It looks like we were going to wake up to light wind and some flurries as the temperature dropped all day. Not a huge issue, but something to be aware of. We packed accordingly and layered in proper fashion for the temps and rain. We both chose to forego a rifle for hunting and instead packed a pistol in case a ferocious tree rat attacked or we tripped on a rabbit.
For shelter, he chose my old el cheapo backpacking tent and a jungle bag with and added fleece liner. I went with my standard Grand Trunk Skeeter Beeter hammock and Browning 20 degree sleeping bag. I also brought two SilNylon tarps. A large 14 x 12 for shelter in the rain and a 10 x 7 lightweight model for my Hammock cover. My son decided to upgrade his ground pad for the colder weather so he dropped his lightweight summer closed cell pad for an inflatable 1" thick pad. I used the Klymit Static V Lightweight inflatable pad that has been nothing short of brilliant for insulating the bottom of my hammock from the elements.
The trip consisted of a 1.5 hour commute that turned into 3 hours with construction, followed by a 3.5 mile backpack slog in the muddy terrain. We arrived at a camp we've been to before but never used. Being that the season is over we expected to be alone at the furthest marked camp from the entrance. Someone had done some upgrades to the seating and fire ring so we decided that this was the place to be. Our regular location was another 1.5 miles but the dark and wet muck made us decide to change venues.
We set up camp, got a great fire going and started processing wood with our new tools. My son struggles with making a fire so I helped him process and baton enough wood for a decent start. Everything was soaked so I started splitting a chunk of cedar I found for some decent fire starter. He started the fire all by himself and did a great job.This is the first outing for my new Husqvarna small forest sized axe and folding buck saw so we quickly made use of them for the task at hand. My son's headlamp went dead twice during this procedure and he was quickly out of batteries. It seems he forgot to charge them after his last outing. This brings us to our first issue of the trip. I offered him my last set of batteries and had one extra set for myself. We ate a small meal and turned in. Winter brings early bed and late mornings.
We both got up at dawn and immediately got the fire going again. Our processed wood from the night before was soaked from condensation and hanging fog. We split some new wood and processed it out to tinder and kindling so we could get breakfast going. What a glorious breakfast it was!
See that cedar on the bottom left? Cedar smoked applewood maple bacon. The 13 year old ate his weight in bacon and even downed a pop tart as well, I stuck with just bacon and English breakfast tea.
After breakfast, we went on a great 3 mile hike to see some new camping spots I'd heard of but had never seen. They were breathtaking. Huge ridges overlooking the river and a few lakes. One in particular was very inviting with a single narrow entry point and sheer vertical drop offs on all other sides with the river directly below.
We returned to camp in the early afternoon and gathered wood for our evening meal and the expected rain and chill. We had barely began when the rain started. It was light at first but soon transformed into a monsoon like deluge. At the first sign of rain I set up the large tarp for shelter at the edge of the fire ring and covered the wood processing area as well. The large tarp was almost too large and was difficult to get set up right in close quarters where the seating was. The fog rolled in and made for a interesting accommodations.
My son begged me to let him sit in my hammock for a while to relax and I heard snoring shortly after dark, which is near 6 this time of year. I processed wood most of the night and found a rather large white pine that was perfectly seasoned and barely large enough for me to carry to the camp site. It had a lot of resin in it and kept me warm until 11pm when I kicked my son out of my hammock. I threw on a bunch of wood and watched the fire from inside my hammock. I set up my son's jackets to dry in the heat of the fire. At about 11:30 the wind shifted and sent our jackets into a large puddle near the tarp shelter. This was bad. Issue #2. We now had soaked jackets. Mine is a synthetic Carhartt, so not a big deal for me, but he had a cotton hoodie and a rain jacket. I had sent him to bed with my under armor cold gear base layer to keep him warm so that was the only up side.
Foggy and dark campsite. Our jackets are hanging on a stick under the tarp.
Fast forward to 3:30am. My feet are FREEZING! What the heck is on my feet? I kick up and feel the tarp has water or something in it and has stretched down into my hammock. Kick again and hear an odd sound. That's not water! It's SNOW! I look out of my shelter to see 3 inches of white stuff covering everything. Evidently, the weather forecast changed and my wife had sent me an update, but there is little to no service in the area I'm in. It's 20 degrees out and falling fast. All my equipment is soaked and frozen solid. My son's jackets are frozen solid. This is bad.
I kick his tent and wake him up. He's cold. He left his headlamp on and it's dead. I'm on my last set of batteries as well. The snow is blowing sideways. I start striking camp immediately. He's getting his things together in the tent and I tell him not to come out until he's all packed up in there. Everything is swelled up with ice and snow. My tarps don't fit back in their containers, my paracord knots are frozen solid and won't come undone so I start cutting them free. My knit hat is soaked but I keep a spare in my sleeping bag. I put it and a wide brimmed waterproof hat on and hand the Carhartt jacket and gloves to my son. His gloves were also soaked and frozen in his tent. I have my synthetic fleece base layer as a jacket. We get everything packed and head to the truck at 4am as the temperature steadily drops and the wind howls. This was the best decision I made the entire trip.
The wind, snow, water and ice has conspired to drop numerous trees onto the trail and fire road to further impede our progress in the 3" and counting snowfall. I kept a blistering pace to keep us both warm. My son is in an after school running club so he's having no issue keeping up. I'm carrying a pack that weighs close to 60 pounds due to the added weight of snow, water and ice covered gear. There is also flooding from the torrential rain the prior night. My son used my Phone to light his way and we made it easily but my hands were pretty cold from the wind with no gloves. We stripped off our wet tops and climbed into the truck. The 10 mile trip to the highway was the most eventful drive of my life. Trees were down in the road and we had to drive around and over them multiple times. My Phone was pretty spent, so no pictures of the snow or travel home.
Here's what the storm looked like after it passed my area. Joe lives north of me in the great white north, but the storm tracked right to his area.
When Murphy shows up, you better have a plan, because I know many people who would have hunkered down and gotten themselves in trouble in the same situation. It was 16 degrees when we returned to the truck and in the single digits that night with a -15 windchill. The only reason we didn't get in trouble was because we sped up when we were cold and slowed when we started sweating. This was the perfect situation to show that training and knowledge can be the difference between discomfort and disaster when things go wrong.
What went wrong?
Weather changed drastically.
Why did that impact us?
- Didn't take proper care of our equipment. Frozen jackets, hats and gloves.
-Not enough batteries.
-Marginal sleeping gear
Consider a time when weather forecasting was non existent. People prepared for the worst all the times. We no longer think in those terms. The "known" trumps the unknown. Sometimes it can bite us. In 2 weeks I'll be camping near the same area and I plan to make some adjustments to my kit.
