Transcript
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Luke arrives back at his shelter in Alaska, digs out snow, and gets a fire going to dry things out. He explains his plan to make charcoal and prepare for forging a knife.
Luke here with the arter boys YouTube channel and I'm making a knife in the middle of Alaska's Wilderness I'm going to be sleeping in my own shelter building a forge out in the woods making my own charcoal killand forging a knife from scratch
it's been a couple weeks since I've been here at the
shelter we got quite a bit of ice and snow since I was here last and sealed up the shelter really well well I think I better bust out my shovel and start digging things out
all right that looks pretty good I think it's time to go find some kindling though I'll tell you one nice thing about this cold weather it made the snow so hard you don't need snowshoes
well I want to get a roaring fire in here pretty quick cuz I want to figure out how much of this snow is going to melt and I don't want to be underneath here when that happens so whatever'sgoing to melt I want it to melt before it gets dark tonight so that I can have a nice dry bed to sleep
on oh my fire wood is so wet it rained really good before it got cold I got to prop it all up and get it to dry out before I can use it all right we're going to letthat fire thaw out the shelter get everything warmed up and I'm really excited to build a forge out here and do some blacksmithing projects tomorrow but I'm going to need a lot of charcoal so I'm going to builda charcoal Kil and I need a lot of
wood think I'm going to go ahead and start cooking some lunch I'm getting hungry I got some frozen salami I want to thaw out with that right there I got some cheese wrapped in tin foil
oh that smells amazing I got a big slab of soft cheese covered in a fig marmalade just warmed it up over the fire got it already pre-cut into a little cubes got a nice Italian salami there we gowarm cheese little salami some fig
sauce we're going to use this to make our charcoal kill
d
we got the wood jam in there about as tight as I
can there's a lot of snow and moisture in these logs I'm going to try to get as much of that moisture out before I put the lid on you already start to see a lot of steam coming outout of the barrel you can hear the water sizzling in the bottom of the barrel not going to get any charcoal till all that water'sgone oh yeah that's really taking good a lot of steam and a little bit of smoke still feels pretty cool in the middle though we're just going to let that go for a nice long time I'm going tobe checking on this fire on and off all night long
He makes the shelter more comfortable, tends the charcoal kiln through the night, and cooks several meals over the fire. The chapter ends with him checking the kiln in the morning and confirming the charcoal is ready.
all right I think it's time to start making this place comfy put my animal hides inthere got a couple Caribou hides as a mat a nice Buffalo hide as a blanket
oh it's hard to see on the camera but every now and then the smoke coming out of the barrel is catching in on fire you can hear the wood popping and stuff so I think we're starting to getsome charcoal on the bottom but most of this smoke coming out of here is actually just steam it feels wet pieces like this are still wet all right I'm going to go ahead and cook a baked potato here
let's get this thing surrounded by coals for dinner I thought I'd cook myself a whole chicken I'm GNA go ahead and spatch this bird which is basically a way of preparing it so it lays down flat makes itcook a lot faster just cut either side of the spine and take the whole spine out
some salt and pepper let that roast
see how we got Flames coming out still a lot of steam coming out but look at that look at the Flames coming out once I consistently see Flames coming out of the barrel then I know it's time toput the lid on we just keep this fire going all night and hopefully tomorrow we're going to have a whole bunch of charcoal
all right we're going to go fill this up a couple more times make sure I got plenty of water for tonight it's a long tradition that you have to burn at least one thing when winter camping and Ithink it was my water bottle it's got like a goiter I set it near the fire to keep it from freezing and got it a little too close yeah I better take care of that it's my only waterbottle on this trip now let's see how the bird's doing looking good
all right let's check on the
charcoal see the bottom of the lid is covered in Wood tar starting to come along
little jar of gravy here it's pretty Frozen get that warmed up got some frozen
oil got bacon chunks green onions yellow onions and chives frying in a little butter and
oil definitely overdid the baked potato but that's okay
got butter salt pepper chives onions bacon and a little bit of gravy on a very overdone baked potato it's a little charred on the outside but the inside's still good all right let's take a look at this chickenoh that looks pretty good oh you know it's done when you can just pull the leg off and you don't have to cut it we're going to try some spicy H barbecue sauce too oh that is a goodpotato oh so hot oh that gravy is just Tangy and goodoo I like this spicy honey barbecue sauce oh slow roasted chicken over a fire is hard to
beat that was good
got a little dessert coming our way this is a little Australian cookie called a Tim tamam and if you bite the ends off then you can use it as a straw then all the hot chocolate melts the insidebut that is a Tim tamam slam right there it's definitely feeling colder on this trip put thermometer out in the tree over there I'm going to go check it see what it says yeah it looks like it's about3° fight right now all right I'm going to bring this inside the shelter we're going to see how good of a job I did building this thing all right I'm going to go ahead and just stick it rightthere on my bed see we're almost 30° just a little below freezing it's kind of fun look at all the icicles it's made all right I'm going to go grab some wood real quick and uh I'm going to
get ready for
bed going to use my jacket and gloves as a pillow oh I'm pretty tired I think it's time to go to bed see you guys in the morning oh good morning oh I'm pretty warm even though the fire'sgone out but my feet are a little bit cold but I need to get up my hide froze to the logs there we
go oh that burned down pretty good can't remember exactly but I think I built the fire under that Barrel around 300 p.m.and it's 8 : a.m.right now so 17 hours it's been burning I think it's time we crack it open and see what we got I expect it's not completely done but we'll
see W Barrel's much lighter all
right look at that
that is greatcharcoal there's some pieces that aren't done all the way through this this will work right it's so light you can just feel thedifference you can see that some of it down there is still
cooking well that seems to have worked reasonably well we're going to let that sit with the lid on while I go make some breakfast hopefully it'll cool down a little bit
After breakfast, he sets up the forge and anvil, fixes the frozen bellows, and begins heating steel for the knife. He shapes the blade, works through the fire and filing process, and hardens the steel before bed.
more all right I'm going to be making a tin foil breakfast it's hash brown sausage bacon and vegetables you can hear it sizzling already let that sit and cook for about an hour or so
needan
that looks pretty good going to add some of this spicy honey barbecue
sauce oh that was good
look at that it's 10:00 and it's all sunny
got my Forge and my Anvil set up you work the Billows by pumping the handle up and down and that turns this flywheel which runs a fan and blows air into the
coals unfortunately the grease on the forage is frozen up so it doesn't want to work very well right now so I'm going to go ahead and get the fire going and I think that'll solve my
problems so there's a little tooth right here in this gear and when you spin the hob the centrifugal force puts the tooth out and it grips the inside of this gear and engages the flywheel there's a lot ofgrease in that Hub and that grease is cold and so sometimes the tooth isn't coming out and engaging properly I think warming it up is helping it work a little better but it's still got
problems let's see if that helps yeah that's working so I got a piece of leaf spring steel from a broken ATV trailer we're going to go ahead and heat that up we're going to try to turn it intoa
knife all right
there you go
there we go I'm almost done using up all the bad charcoal this stuff still works pretty good
starting to get into some really good charcoal here stuff is burning
great I was thinking how I want to replace this with a metal handle all right it'll still work just going to be a lot more work a
we'll let that cook for a couple hours while I got the forge cleared out I'm going to go ahead and empty it there's a bunch of coals and Ash down there and the fan won't turn
I need to sit down this is going to be a
while you know there's a common myth amongst metal workers that files should only be used in One Direction turns out that's not true works a whole lot better if you do it in both directions
all of my structure caught fire now we go deal with that wouldn't be a winter camp out if I didn't catch my structure on fire at least once let's see how these moose ribs are doing if you wantto know if they're done you squeeze the end and if the meat's pulled off the end of the bone then you know they're done and this one is
done is from the moose I shot this fall oh I like moose
ribs oh that was good so messy though my hands are so dirty the only clean spots are where I was touching my
food I got to keep working on this knife
like the look of
that there you go one hole drawn oh it's time for a little dessert oh got a little mini pie nice and
warm oh that was good all right back to
work three
holes now it's time to harden it
who when you get high carbon steel glowing hot and then cool it down suddenly it becomes harder so after you quench the knife in the snow you then you test it with a file to see if it's theright hardness I like it I think it'll work just fine well I'm at a good stopping point for tonight and I am exhausted it's really late so I'm going to hurry up and get to bed oh my back
The next morning he resumes work, eats breakfast, and continues refining the knife shape. He makes and fits the handle, sets the rivets, sands the wood, and oils the handle to finish the blade.
I'll see you in the morning we're going to finish this
knife oh I'm tired my arms are sore
oh oh look how lazy I am it's 8:40 in the morning and the sun's up a the days are getting longer finally all right I got a lot to do today we're going to stoke up this fire andget breakfast
going all right I got a couple cinnamon rolls I wrapped up in tin foil we're going to go and warm those suckers up
got some very Frozen breakfast
sausages poured the hot water in my plastic cup I can feel it crack and do all sorts of weird stuff hope you're okay there cup you're the only one I got today I'm hungry cold and thirsty and thisis just hitting the spot it's a spiced orange herbal tea good
try to squeeze another round out of those teabag could go for some ketchup or some brown sauce right
now hopefully I thaw these and not burned them little bit of both o a caramel pecan cinnamon roll burned it a little bit right there but it's still good oh that was good all right I think it's timeto get to work woo this is cold the Tang's a little bit wonkier than I would like so I'm trying to improve it with the file all right that's about as good as I'm going to get with thesetools now we need some wood for the handle there's a
contender there we go
I put some water on my wetstone and it froze think I better warm up my wet stone first
well it's almost noon I I think I'm going to start making somelunch look at all this lovely
charcoal it's nice having a big thing of charcoal to cook
over for lunch I've got a Cornish pasty that I'm going to bake in the coals it's a handheld version of a meat pie from the southwest of
England now we got to set the rivet this is the sketchiest part these are just Quin steel rods and they stick out just a little bit further than the wood and when you smash them with a hammer they'llMushroom on the end and that'll squeeze the wood to the handle and make everything set but if you smash the wood instead of the metal you'll split the
wood there we go oh now we sand
it's looking pretty
good did reasonably well well I baked pretty well except I missed a spot Cornish pasties were a traditional meal for the Cornish miners something they could eat with Dirty Fingers I think that's very applicable
today got beef carrot and parsnips it's good oh that was really good
got a little bit of cooking oil I want to rub into the handle to protect it but it's frozen so we're going to boil some water
here this dead black Spruce is so dry and porous it's just soaking up the oil it's not a hand that should be clean this is a handle that should have ash and soot on
it well it's not exactly razor sharp but I got an edge on it
He makes dinner, finishes the sheath, and shows the completed knife and sheath together. After eating moose stew, he wraps up the trip, leaves the forge behind, and signs off.
oh my back I I'm going to take a little break and make some dinner for dinner I got some MSE stew that I vacuum sealed and froze just going to throw it in a pot of boiling water andit'll heat up easy peasy now about this
first rivet in the sheath that's
good all right we're going to stretch the leather out a little bit there we go a knife and sheath
it's a sick little piece of equipment there I like it oh looks like we're just in time too oh yeah moose stew is
done oh that was good ah feels good to have some food in me but uh this project worked out pretty well but you know what I've been out here for 3 days and it's time for me to gohome but I'm going to leave the forge out here definitely think I'm going to be
back there I okay keep my Forge out of the snow and ice all right we're going to leave the charcoal here I'm sure I'll need that when I come back Anvil yeah it'll be fine all right I thinkthat's it for this trip I'll see you next
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