Found In Australia. Part Seven.

 There really should not be a need to spend big money on purchasing period correct knives. Most knives off the shelf are not period correct and custom knives can be costly. But second hand shops often sell good butcher knives that make excellent hunting knives. 20th century knives will require a new handle to be period correct, but 19th and 18th century knives are fine as is.
All these knives were found in either a market or a second hand shop with prices ranging from $2.00 to $18.00.

 A French butcher knife.

 Two very similar English butcher knives. The handles are pinned and not riveted which is period correct.

 This blade probably French, was a lot larger than show here, almost twice the size. I reshaped this blade and made and fitted the handle..

 This one is a 20th century knife and not much good as is. The blade is very worn, and the handle is riveted. But the steel is good, and I was thinking of making a jack knife out of it.

 This jack knife has had new bone slab handles fitted.

 English butcher knife with a pinned handle.

This is a great little knife which I presently use as a legging knife. 

A Woodsrunner's Knives.

The Woodsman’s Knives.



When interpreting a woodsman or woods woman of the 18th century, it is important to think of the uses these knives were put to then, not how you might use a knife now. Three tools are synonymous with the 18th century woodsrunner, the gun, the knife, and the axe or tomahawk. These days these items tend to be classed as weapons, but to me they are working tools just like any other tool, but they did sometimes have to function as a weapon, and it is important to bear that in mind when making your selection.


So what was the woodsrunner’s knives used for? Let’s start with the hunting knife. The hunting or belt knife was used to field dress game, which means gutting, cutting the meat, dismembering, and skinning. Boning out the meat may also be involved. I don’t believe there is an all round knife, you either need more than one knife for butchering game, or you need to find a middle of the road knife that works for you. For me a skinning knife needs to be rounded at the tip, this is especially good for slitting the skin open from crotch to chest. But there are other needs for the hunting knife.


Sometimes an animal does not die instantly, this is not desirable, but it does happen. When this does happen I need a sharp pointed knife. I will not go into detail here, as it may distress some people, but this is one of the responsibilities you take on when you hunt wild animals.


As I said before these tools may also be needed for fighting, so once again, although I would prefer a more rounded tip on the knife, I really do need a good sharp point. I like a big knife, a short bladed knife is good for skinning but for a main knife I need something big. At the same time I do not like a heavy knife, and my preferences seem to have been universal, as the majority of 18th century hunting knives appear to have been butcher knives, sometimes known as scalping knives.

My hunting knife.

Two well used original butcher knives with pinned wooden handles.

The Courier De Bois it is said carried three knives, a hunting knife under the belt, a neck knife, and a legging knife. Rather than carry a neck knife I prefer to carry a clasp knife. The clasp knife I use for camp chores and making traps. This involves a lot of shaving and whittling of wood, some of it very fine intricate work that needs a small knife. You could use a fixed blade utility knife; it is a matter of choice.

This was my Father’s utility knife, and it is typical of this type of 18th century knife.

This is one of my late 18th century clasp knives.

http://coolmaterial.com/roundup/the-history-of-the-pocket-knife/;

A 17th century gully knife.

The legging knife is in my case a back-up knife. It needs to be light and short bladed, but it may be used for field dressing game, or as a quick to hand fighting knife if the main knife is lost. When field dressing game you need to be fast, and at the same time you need to keep a sharp look-out and listen for any sounds out of the ordinary. Sometimes you can strike a bone in this sort of situation which will dull your blade. You do not have time to resharpen your blade unless it is the only knife you have, so this is when you use the back-up knife.

This is my legging knife. Actually I have used this knife quite a lot over the years for various leatherwork, principally for making moccasins.

If you carry a knife, then you need to carry a whet stone. This is the small whet stone I carry in my knapsack.

A Michael Galban neck knife and sheath.

Cathy Sibly sheath with a Bill Reynolds knife.

Woodcraft.

Woodcraft it seems was the old term used, bushcraft is the new one. I have been trying to get a point across about flint & steel fire lighting on an English bushcraft site, but instead of people looking at it with an open mind, they simply take it as a threat and tenaciously defend their own modern methods of making fire. For some the arguement is that if an 18th century woodsman could have used a ferrocium rod to make fire he would have. Probably quite true, at least until the first time he dropped it and it broke! As a matter of fact wilderness dwellers in the 19th century did have the choice of using more modern fire lighting equipment and guns, but they prefered to keep to the flint and steel and flintlock guns because they were more dependable.

These days it is all about travelling light and items that are easy to use, no special skills involved. Where as I go for tried and tested gear that is dependable, even if it does require a little more skill to use and weighs a lot more. The tomahawk is rarely carried these days in preference to using a "bushcraft knife" that can be used for everything. In the 18th and even 19th centuries one had a right tool for each job. The tomahawk or hatchet was for shelter construction, making shelter and trap pegs, used for cutting through bone or joints when field dressing, and any other heavy work. Firewood did not require breaking with a tomahawk, there are other ways to prepare firewood.

The belt knife was/is a hunting knife, it is used to skin and butcher game, for protection, and for eating with. Often a second knife was carried, and sometimes a third, each had a specific use. A second back-up skinning knife might be carried in the top of the legging or under the waist belt or hanging round the neck. A third might be carried for camp chores in the form of a fixed blade or a clasp knife.  The problem with only carrying one knife these days is that if it is lost or damaged, you have nothing else. Nothing to cut with, and nothing to scrape your ferrocium rod with!

I am not sure how other people put their outdoors/camping/trekking/survival gear together, but I always ask myself, "what if".