hi folks I'm Craig Taylor and as always a huge thanks for joining me here on my
youtube channel the bushcraft Padawan one of the first
pieces of kits that I bought purposefully after getting interested in
this whole field of bushcraft was a Ferro rod a ferrocerium rod because
well all the cool guys had them right everybody that I was kind of looking up
to on YouTube and their blogs and things they all had a Ferro rod and I don't
think it was an impulse buy because you know years later I'm still using a Ferro
rod not the Ferro rod that I bought back then and that's the purpose of this
video purpose of this video is to encourage you to have a think about the
kit that you've got I'm a big believer in the phrase if it ain't broke don't
fix it I'm a huge believer in that which is why a lot of a kit that I've got
today I've had decades from when I was in the Army however I'm also big
believer in experimenting I'm a big believer in nothing ventured nothing
gained I'm a big believer in trying things out and modifying things and
tweaking things until you can turn something that is okay to good and from
good to great and from great to excellent so I want to encourage you to
have a look at your equipment and just figure out is there anything that you
can do or change or modify to enhance the way that it performs for you my
particular example in this video is the humble Ferro rod so this is one of my
earlier farad's I genuinely carry them with this was the first one that I
bought what here is a Ferro rod this is now my son's Ferro rod it just kind of
didn't it just sort of didn't work for me it worked has in it through sparks
don't get me wrong but the fact that I was able to detach the handle from the
rod yes I could super grip back in place I've done that already and it still came
apart so it was quite small it did its job at the time but I moved I moved on
from using her and I can generally remember why but I moved on
from using that and gave that to my son I then moved towards a light my fire
which is a very very popular brand of Ferro rod can't remember why I moved
away from using that although if you look you'll notice that there is a
relationship between the dip in a thumb point here that you hold it and the way
that it is degraded in terms of the way that I've used my strike on the back of
my knife on it I'm going to talk about that not that more in a future video and
slightly just slightly less depth later in this video here I then moved on to
this beast here this is a hefty bit of kit you know those there's my hand
there's a ferrule next to it it ain't far off the size of my hand to be
perfectly honest it weighs something okay and take a knock to the head with
it and it's gonna do you some damage I'm not advocating that folks there's no
moving parts on it if you look it's just a single drilled hole for which I've
attached some cord with a loop at the end for me to attach see my belt a
slight problem with these stories is she's gonna last forever this is gonna
outlast me it throws great Sparks but it's bloody heavy and I don't know about
you but I carry my phone rod round in my pocket my right pocket with a loop
attached to my belt so that I don't misplace it or if I don't put it in the
pocket correctly it's just gonna dangle there at the end of the cordage and not
drop onto the floor and one of the downsides of having such a beast of a
piece of Ferro rod is one it's heavy when you add that to all of the other
gubbins that we carry around in our pockets bushcrafting OSHA forever
pulling my trousers I haven't got much of a hip and a backside as it is there's
nothing to hold my trousers up so I didn't need extra weight in it but the
primary thing is this it has worn multiple holes in my very expensive but
otherwise very robust vada Pro flour raven trowel
just have a look at some of the holes in my right pocket
I've given up repairing them to be perfectly honest are the trousers on the
way out generally there's several years old but I've given up repairing them
because with this ferrule it just kept poking holes in it
I don't care carry my car keys in that pocket they always go my way my day sack
when I'm out and about there was nothing else in that pocket of any way or
substance that would have caused those holes
apart from this Ferro rod the other downside to it is if you attach a huge
piece of cordage to this then you've got a lot of gobiins floating around in your
pocket if you attach a short piece you can kind of sometimes be constrained
depending on how and where you're using your Ferro rod so I was looking for
something that would solve that problem would allow me to detach it easily from
the loop and reattach it from the cordage but also didn't weigh the size
you didn't wait address the weight equivalent of a tree trunk and wear
holes in my pocket and that brings it up today this is what I'm using at the
moment he's my Farhat of choice at the moment I bought this from Jamie Dakota
at Hull bushcraft it's a fairly short sharp stubby piece of kit wooden handle
on there actually comes em with a clear finish or a varnished finish but I asked
Jamie to send me an unfinished piece and I wanted to paint it Orange just to help
me locate it should the worst come to the worst it's got a piece of short very
short cordage attached to it there look at that very short indeed you could say
it's almost too short it's worth noting that this cordage the inside of it is
actually its hinder in itself I think it's called fire cord or something like
that I'm sure if Jamie's watching this video he'll correct me in the comments
below but here's the quite cool thing very very sure quite difficult I imagine
to be able to bring that to bear fully if it's attached to your belt which
mayonnaise but look at this if you bring is close to camera you see that you see
that metal attachment running into the end of the wooden handle if I depress
the plug that it actually comes apart and then
clicks back into place that's really handy that means I can carry a very
short piece of cordage in my pocket but still know that if I need to move the
fur rod away from my body to use it in some way I can do that and then I can
firmly reattach it so this is what I'm using at the moment
you'll also notice if I rotate that handle round there's no specific place
to grip this which means that it's much easier and I'm going to talk about this
in a future video it's much easier to work in time around your Ferro rod as
you can see I've started to do now it's much easier to work around it 360
degrees when you're striking against something
meaning that you're gonna mitigate that dip that you saw in my previous firm if
I hold it up you'll mitigate against that dip that you can see in the fur or
there that makes it very very difficult to use you can work around that because
you can work around the Ferro rod the only questions I've got in my head at
the moment about this and I've not had it long enough to answer them so they're
not negatives they're just questions how easy is this mechanism going to be
if I'm wearing gloves or mittens I want to say it's fiddly but I would say you
need a certain amount of manual dexterity and control to be able to
release that and replace that safely so that's one question and the other
question and again I've not had it long enough so it's not it's not a poke at
this is I'm just wondering if any dirt or grit or anything gets in there is
there a risk of this locking mechanism failing and despite you thinking that
you've attached it securely in actual fact some grit is in the mechanism and
it falls away I genuinely don't know Jamie it's not it's not a dig all at the
product I like it I'm enjoying using it they're just questions I've got in my
head for them in the fullness of time
hopefully I'll be able to answer for myself so just a reminder why I've taken
you on this trip down memory lane relating to my fire at the fair rods
it's because I started off with something
that worked it did its job but as my thinking and my practical application of
its evolved I realized that it wasn't for me and I've gone through a process
and may still be in a process of finally landing upon that's at that perfect
Ferro rod if indeed there is such a thing and that's all I want to encourage
you to do I do not want to encourage you to go out spending money on stuff it's
Black Friday today quite ironically when I'm recording this and of course lots of
people will be going out spending money on stuff I don't want to encourage that
I taught you to encourage some reflections some critical analysis some
self-reflection on the kit that you use and whether there's anything that you
can do to enhance the way that you're using it maybe is a new piece of kit
maybe it's just actually tweaking something slightly so that it can it can
bring about greater benefits to you and enhance your time outdoors even more so
thank you for watching my ramblings I've talked about the fact that I'm gonna I'm
referring to a future video on fairer odds which I've got planned up here
shouldn't be too long in the making that particular video but thank you for
watching this video got a question for you all now in the comments down below
either on Facebook Twitter or YouTube or read it wherever you're watching it what
have you modified recently or what have you upgraded to
recently and why yes we can all tweak stuff and buy stuff but why have you
tweaked something recently why did you replace or upgrade something recently I
think the why is the more important than the fact that you have do please let me
know in the comments below if you're a subscriber mwah thank you very much if
you're not shame on you click the button in this corner of the
screen it's been there for the whole video if you want to see more from me
then please do feel free to click on that subscribe button thank you as
always for watching enjoy time in the woods see you in the next video Cheers
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