# Forging a Knife & Survival Camping Alone in the Wilderness

**Channel:** Outdoor Boys
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHt1IEgEISo
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/zHt1IEgEISo

## Chapters

- 0:01 — Arriving at the Winter Shelter
- 7:04 — Charcoal Kiln and Camp Cooking
- 15:06 — Setting Up the Forge and Knife
- 25:15 — Finishing the Blade and Handle
- 31:40 — Sheath, Dinner, and Departure

## Transcript

**[0:01]:** 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 kill and forging a knife from scratch

**[0:39]:** it's been a couple weeks since I've been here at the

**[0:45]:** 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

**[1:23]:** 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

**[2:03]:** 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's going to melt I want it to melt before it gets dark tonight so that I can have a nice dry bed to sleep

**[2:21]:** 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 let that 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 build a charcoal Kil and I need a lot of

**[2:57]:** 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

**[3:51]:** 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 go warm cheese little salami some fig

**[4:23]:** sauce we're going to use this to make our charcoal kill

**[5:00]:** d

**[5:58]:** we got the wood jam in there about as tight as I

**[6:20]:** 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 out out 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's gone 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 to be checking on this fire on and off all night long

**[7:04]:** all right I think it's time to start making this place comfy put my animal hides in there got a couple Caribou hides as a mat a nice Buffalo hide as a blanket

**[7:23]:** 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 get some 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

**[7:59]:** 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 it cook a lot faster just cut either side of the spine and take the whole spine out

**[8:43]:** some salt and pepper let that roast

**[9:04]:** 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 to put the lid on we just keep this fire going all night and hopefully tomorrow we're going to have a whole bunch of charcoal

**[9:30]:** 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 I think 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 water bottle on this trip now let's see how the bird's doing looking good

**[10:07]:** all right let's check on the

**[10:15]:** charcoal see the bottom of the lid is covered in Wood tar starting to come along

**[10:33]:** little jar of gravy here it's pretty Frozen get that warmed up got some frozen

**[10:44]:** oil got bacon chunks green onions yellow onions and chives frying in a little butter and

**[10:55]:** oil definitely overdid the baked potato but that's okay

**[11:03]:** 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 chicken oh 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 good potato 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

**[11:51]:** beat that was good

**[12:06]:** 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 inside but 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 about 3° 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 right there 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

**[13:01]:** get ready for

**[13:10]:** 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's gone out but my feet are a little bit cold but I need to get up my hide froze to the logs there we

**[13:49]:** 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

**[14:13]:** see W Barrel's much lighter all

**[14:23]:** right look at that

**[14:31]:** that is great charcoal 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 the difference you can see that some of it down there is still

**[14:54]:** 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

**[15:06]:** 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

**[15:55]:** needan

**[16:09]:** that looks pretty good going to add some of this spicy honey barbecue

**[16:22]:** sauce oh that was good

**[16:31]:** look at that it's 10:00 and it's all sunny

**[17:07]:** 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

**[17:20]:** 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

**[17:48]:** 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 of grease 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

**[18:20]:** 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 into a

**[18:36]:** knife all right

**[19:02]:** there you go

**[19:35]:** there we go I'm almost done using up all the bad charcoal this stuff still works pretty good

**[20:01]:** starting to get into some really good charcoal here stuff is burning

**[20:17]:** 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

**[21:02]:** 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

**[22:01]:** I need to sit down this is going to be a

**[22:06]:** 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

**[22:28]:** 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 want to 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

**[22:56]:** done is from the moose I shot this fall oh I like moose

**[23:08]:** ribs oh that was good so messy though my hands are so dirty the only clean spots are where I was touching my

**[23:20]:** food I got to keep working on this knife

**[23:42]:** like the look of

**[23:53]:** that there you go one hole drawn oh it's time for a little dessert oh got a little mini pie nice and

**[24:08]:** warm oh that was good all right back to

**[24:18]:** work three

**[24:24]:** holes now it's time to harden it

**[24:48]:** 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 the right 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

**[25:15]:** I'll see you in the morning we're going to finish this

**[25:22]:** knife oh I'm tired my arms are sore

**[25:30]:** 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 and get breakfast

**[25:49]:** 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

**[26:01]:** got some very Frozen breakfast

**[26:11]:** 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 this is just hitting the spot it's a spiced orange herbal tea good

**[26:32]:** try to squeeze another round out of those teabag could go for some ketchup or some brown sauce right

**[26:42]:** 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 time to 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 these tools now we need some wood for the handle there's a

**[27:24]:** contender there we go

**[27:40]:** I put some water on my wetstone and it froze think I better warm up my wet stone first

**[28:27]:** well it's almost noon I I think I'm going to start making some lunch look at all this lovely

**[28:40]:** charcoal it's nice having a big thing of charcoal to cook

**[28:53]:** 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

**[29:19]:** 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'll Mushroom 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

**[29:44]:** wood there we go oh now we sand

**[29:58]:** it's looking pretty

**[30:03]:** 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

**[30:20]:** today got beef carrot and parsnips it's good oh that was really good

**[30:33]:** 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

**[30:51]:** 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

**[31:23]:** it well it's not exactly razor sharp but I got an edge on it

**[31:40]:** 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 and it'll heat up easy peasy now about this

**[32:00]:** first rivet in the sheath that's

**[32:10]:** good all right we're going to stretch the leather out a little bit there we go a knife and sheath

**[32:32]:** 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

**[32:52]:** 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 go home but I'm going to leave the forge out here definitely think I'm going to be

**[33:15]:** 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 think that's it for this trip I'll see you next

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