Survival knife w/ sheath mod & firesteel

[DaveGwy]

I recently purchased a sturdy utility knife - one which falls under the category of 'survival knife'. Prompted, by you guessed it, our friend Mr Grylls, I wanted a fixed-blade knife that was thick, yet had a sizeable blade length, while staying light and fairly discreet.

After much searching around, I chose the Randall's Adventure and Training / Ontario Knife Company RAT-3. With this I wanted to include a Swedish Firesteel. Lastly, I wanted to horizontally mount it on my belt in the small of the back. This was for several reasons: I like the idea of a knife that is readily accessible. I have in the past, had a folding knife in a pouch on my belt, but these have a tendency to snap at the join/rivet between blade and handle, especially when doing something like chopping through thick branches. I could have the knife hanging vertically off my belt, but as I said, I wanted it more discreet. Now, let me elaborate on my choices of knife & steel.

Knife

Manufacturer: Ontario Knife Company / Randall's Adventure & Training
Style: Full tang, plain edge (no serrations)
Blade Material: 1095 high carbon steel (Softer metal means easier to sharpen & sharper edge)
Handle Material: Micarta slabs (canvas layers laminated together with resin)
Overall length: 19.8 cm
Blade length: 8.4 cm
Blade thickness: 0.3 cm
Blade finish: Phosphate non-reflective finish
Weight: 150g
Sheath: Molded olive-drab plastic allowing variety of mounting options. It was also packaged with a 'Teklok', a black plastic belt attachment 'thingy'.

Firesteel

Material: Ferrocerium rod attached to plastic grip.
Weight: ~40g

When shavings are scraped from the rod by an edge, the heat caused by friction is enough to ignite the shavings. The shavings burn at apparently ~3000C.

Mount

Now, as I said previously, I wanted to mount the knife horizontally on my belt, and include the firesteel somehow in the process. As I said, the sheath that came with the knife has the option for many different mounting choices (vertical, left horizontal, right horizontal, upside down, boot sheath) by having holes around the exterior of the sheath, and 'chicago screws'. This sheath can then screw onto the Teklok, which can be easily clipped onto a belt (or on to the harness of a backpack, etc). So the first part of the process, mounting the knife horizontally, was simple.

The next step was mounting the firesteel onto the sheath. I pondered this for ages, and found lots of nice methods, but most were too complicated - i.e. I would never actually get around to doing it. I bought a hundred metres or so of paracord to play around with, and while making a 'survival bracelet' with it, it occurred to me that it might make a nice firesteel sheath. So, after a bit of lateral thinking I came up with the solution.

I first took half of a McDonalds Straw (it needs to be thicker than a regular straw) and cut it length-ways. This allowed me to slide the firesteel up it. I then wrapped it all in gaffa tape. Since the firesteel was slightly thicker in diameter than the straw, when the steel was slid inside the straw, there was a portion of steel that the tape touched. This was coincidentally a good thing - it added a little bit more friction, to help retain the steel inside the tape-wrapped straw. Now came the tricky bit. I took a length of paracord (about 2m from memory) and folded it in half. Then, placing the straw at the halfway point I wrapped both straw and paracord in more tape. This then allows me to do a cobra stitch with the lengths of paracord taped to the straw.

Now, the cobra stitch is the same as one does for a survival bracelet - it is very easy to do and the stitch lends some rigidity. At the end of the stitch, the whole straw should be covered and there will be two loose ends. These can be used to tie around the sheath, securing it tightly. I hope the photos I have included can help elucidate this.

Knife and sheath FRONT

This is the front view of the setup. You can see the paracord 'stitched' around the firesteel. This is tied onto the front of the sheath.

Knife and sheath and firesteel BACK

The black TekLok folds over a belt or shoulder strap and clicks shut. It can then be locked shut with the small folding 'bit'. The knife and firesteel are shown removed from their sheaths.

Knife on back

The sheath is shown clipped onto my belt, in the small of my back. I have tucked the back of my puffer jacket in, but a t-shirt would easily cover it if left untucked.


In the future, I would like to make (or have made) a leather sheath for the knife and steel. I'm not a huge fan of the plasticy look, but it will do well for the mean time. I should also mention that I wore the sheath on the back of my belt up Cathedral Rock yesterday, and I found it was perfect! It didn't rub at all, and my bag was high enough not to push down on the top of the sheath. I could let my shirt drop over the top of the sheath, and it wasn't visible. At the top, I also found the knife useful for spreading vegemite on crackers.

Feel free to leave comments, adoration, anger, criticism, recommendations, questions, or personal experiences. If you are interested in going for this sort of set up, or who are interested in buying a decent fixed-blade knife, I have a few recommendations:

Choosing a survival knife -
http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/how-to-choose-a-survival-knife/
http://survivalcache.com/survival-knife/

REALLY cool sheaths -
http://martinsheaths.blogspot.com/

I got ALL my stuff online (except the Macca's straw). Firesteel was a knock-off version (but works absolutely identical to an official LMF Swedish Firesteel) from ebay for $8. The knife was from ebay.com, from a store called "ridgeknifeshop-outfitter". It was a second, because it had slight discolouration on the blade, and as a result was $50 cheaper. I ended up getting the knife for $90AUD (including shipping from US), which is FAR cheaper than you could pick one up for here.

If you are looking at picking up a survival knife, there a quite a few good brands. I went for RAT, since they offer a no-questions asked warranty (snap the blade, stick it in a bag and send it back to them, and they'll send you a new one) but mainly cause they are good but cheap (http://www.eseeknives.com/index2.htm RAT knives are now discontinued, but are still available on ebay, etc). If you wanted to spend a lot, you could get a Fallkniven (http://www.fallkniven.com/en), or if you didn't want to spend much, you could pick up a Mora knife very cheaply on ebay. These are swedish style knives with soft metal (to get a sharp edge) but can be found for $20-$30 on ebay.

[cams]

Knife looks interesting. No issues getting through customs?

[DaveGwy]

No issues. I don't think I even got a note saying they searched the package.
It took about 15 days from when it was sent to when it arrived.

[andrewbish]

Hi Dave

Good topic and great knife/sheath combo!

I carry a Gerber Big Rock Camp Knife. A bit like yourself, the purchase was inspired by Bear and I bought it on eBay (though from an Aussie supplier). Also a bit like yourself I bought so it could be used as a survival knife, but it's main duties are a bit more mundane - involve slicing cheese and salami. (That said, I did use it to build a Wikiup shelter when on a survival weekend last year).

Your sheath discussion is particularly interesting to me. The Gerber sheath is a nylon affair that is designed to hang off a belt - ok for day walks, but terrible when carrying a pack with hip belt, which pushes the knife into me. So it ends up being hung off a side strap of the pack - This is Ok - but not very accessible ie. need to remove pack to get to it. I checked out Martin Sheaths but it doesn't look like he designs for Gerber. Damn.

Any suggestions?

[langy]

Gerber is bringing out mid this year a "Bear Grylls survival" range of knifes.
The Quality is very high, right up there with the best of the Gerber range, each fixed blade is supplied with a fire steel, and there is a survival kit in the range.

Interesting the "Scout" folder (name after the Bears, association with scouting as chief scout of UK) will not in all chances make the trip to be a part of the Australian range. Customs have come down hard on the import of all folding knifes with many being branded as flick knifes with a change of thinking of how a folder is tested. In fact Gerber is thinking of withdrawing all folding knifes from the Australian market as getting anything though is getting harder every day.

One of the first Gerber knifes to fall foul of the new customs thinking was the Hinderer rescue, a blunt tip special designed rescue knife, while a 6 in blade infantry fighting knife like the Gerber LMF, design in part to kill, gets though customs with no issues, go figure that one.

[Liamy77]

be careful covering it up or trying to be discrete - it might class it as a concealed weapon and cause legal grief in town.

[Macca81]

be careful covering it up or trying to be discrete - it might class it as a concealed weapon and cause legal grief in town.

that the worlds stupidest law... well, not the stupidest but its up there!
i carry a leatherman on my belt, but because my shirt usually covers it, it is classed technically as a concealed weapon. before i carried a leatherman, i carried a fixed blade knife in the same spot.
now if i want to, i can walk through the middle of the city with one of my katanas or a machete, and as long as im not doing so in a 'threatening' manner, it is all kosher.

now really, what would the average person prefer? the sword wielding fellow, or the bloke who has a knife that they dont even know about?

[Franco]

yes , I carry a concealed weapon too but my wife says that I should not make a big fuss over such a small thing.


as for the fire steel sometime ago I got a couple of sticks from http://goinggear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4 .
I like them better than the Swedish type. Bigger blobs and easier to strike with the spine of the knife.
Franco

[corvus]

This fire steel is good value for the complete deal.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 669wt_1054
corvus

[Marwood]

You can get the Firesteel knife, which is what I carry on bushwalks - along with some Vaseline soaked cotton wool balls for "tinder".

[Liamy77]

i love char cloth most but use cotton wool with olive oil / alcohol gel too.... depends what's around.
and for the record i have carried a knife or leatherman on my belt pretty near all my life too and have never been questioned.... never mugged anyone either mind you..
i have a smaller buck knife with a firesteel in its sheath too - really usefulespecially combined with the army type bottle with fitted metal mug and little solid fuel stove (the $8 folding boxy tablet fuel type) perfect for lunch stops...

[DaveGwy]

It's a good point though Liam, even though it's probably not us the law should be worried about! I don't wear it about town though. I'd only wear it on a walk / in the bush - I don't think the cops would worry then.

@Franco, thanks for the tip. I did see some people using just the blanks - I might try that in the future. Which version form that page do you reckon gives the bigger blobs?

@corvus, that's pretty similar to the one I got, but it was from a Brisbane seller (cost $8 from memory)

@Marwood, neat looking knife - I wanted to go for a fixed blade, but that looks like a pretty cool choice if you were looking for folding. I don't carry tinder though - maybe I should. I figured you could just use bark scrapings?

Also - What do you guys all think of my simple sheath mod? I'm very proud of it

[Franco]

Dave
yes neat set up .
I really only use an 3" Opinel but have a Mora just for fun..

The Firesteel I bought was one recommended by several freaks in a US forum. They worked out that it was a good balance between size,ease of use , performance , price and all of that..
It is 10cm long ,6mm in diameter.
The small striker works a bit better than the knife spine (I filed those down to get the right edge) and works a LOT better than the one from the Light My Fire.
II think that my LMF is the Scout )
Just ha a look at my own link..It is the Hedgehog ($3.49)
The sticks are very cheap but it would pay to get a few mates to buy one or two to save on postage. I get this stuff (scientific research equipment) via Tarptent.
Franco

[DaveGwy]

Nice idea mate. I also saw a similar idea using steel blanks where you get some paracord and pull out the inside fibres, then thread the steel inside the sheath of the paracord. Then you can melt the ends of the paracord and keep it in a wallet, etc.
I have to admit I've had trouble striking the steel with the edge of my knife. It DOES strike, but no where near as much as the little steel striker which came with it. I thought that maybe if I file the knife edge so that is is sharper(?) it might work better, any ideas?

[DaveGwy]

Hi Dave

Good topic and great knife/sheath combo!

I carry a Gerber Big Rock Camp Knife. A bit like yourself, the purchase was inspired by Bear and I bought it on eBay (though from an Aussie supplier). Also a bit like yourself I bought so it could be used as a survival knife, but it's main duties are a bit more mundane - involve slicing cheese and salami. (That said, I did use it to build a Wikiup shelter when on a survival weekend last year).

Your sheath discussion is particularly interesting to me. The Gerber sheath is a nylon affair that is designed to hang off a belt - ok for day walks, but terrible when carrying a pack with hip belt, which pushes the knife into me. So it ends up being hung off a side strap of the pack - This is Ok - but not very accessible ie. need to remove pack to get to it. I checked out Martin Sheaths but it doesn't look like he designs for Gerber. Damn.

Any suggestions?

Hi mate,

I've been thinking about your setup for a few days, and I've got a few suggestions. I guess it also depends how you want to mount it - vertical or horizontal, or maybe incorporate it onto a pouch? See what you think...

1) Pick up a few MOLLE or ICLE clips (http://www.kitbag.com.au/products/Fastex-ICLE-Clip.html). You could put one through the belt loop, then stitch one further down the sheath (perpendicular to the knife). Then, you can mount it horizontally, by clipping it to your belt.

2) Get a leather sheath made. There may be people on this forum who can help!

3) Search around for a replacement sheath. You could try kitbag.com.au (see above) for a bayonet sheath.

4) If you wanted to try some quite different - I picked up a ex-service minimi pouch, put some clips on the back, then made a shoulder strap with some 25mm webbing. You could also add a belt with a clip buckle in it. Then, stitch the pouch onto the side of the minimi pouch.

Perhaps?

idea.JPG (31.25 KiB) Viewed 13300 times

Here's my idea. You then wear it all the time. You can store useful stuff in the pouch - water bottle, emergency blanket, tinder, muesli bars, bandage, panadol, etc. Since it it hangs low around your waist, you should be able to wear it under your backpack, and then if you ditch your backpack to climb to the top of a hill, you will have your essentials on you. If you are interested I'll show you what I've done with mine.

[Lindsay]

Knife looks interesting. No issues getting through customs?

That type of knife is not an issue for Customs. however I think it may be better kept in your pack until you get out in the bush. A work colleague, wearing his Customs uniform, was asked to remove his leatherman from his belt by a NSW Police officer when shopping on his way home from work.

[andrewbish]

Hi Dave

Thanks for the suggestions - will give all some thought!

Keen to hear more about the minimi pouch.

Something else you may be interested in - I have found this little sharpener to be an effective tool for in the field. Cheap and light.

[DaveGwy]

Neat sharpener there - I was considering sticking a little arkansas stone in my pack, something like this: http://www.hallsproedge.com/pocket_stones.htm. But the little one you've got there would be damn easier to use!

I will upload a picture of my minimi pouch. At the moment there is a maglite pouch sewn to the outside - it fits a folding blade knife very well.

[DaveGwy]

Andrew,

Have a look at what I have here - The webbing is threaded through the 'D-loops' on the back of the pouch, and I have some little slider thingies so it's length is adjustable.If you look at the back of one of these pouches, you can attach ICLE/MOLLE clips, which allow you to thread a belt through. Also note I've got a folding knife (Gerber actually.. got it loooong ago) in a little pouch on the side. If you picked one of these pouches up second hand (as this one was), a lot will actually have a similar mod - previous owners seemed to think it was a good idea (I agree!).

I was thinking maybe you could get your knife sheath stitched onto a pouch in a similar way.

Cheers,
Dave

[andrewbish]

Thanks, Dave

Mmmmmm food for thought....will have a closer look at these.

In the meantime, I think I'll just carry my knife like Bear does.

bearandknife.jpg (48.38 KiB) Viewed 13229 times

[DaveGwy]

Hahaha, good idea.

[Liamy77]

at least you can still type when ya carry it like that!