Billy Newman Photo Podcast | 164 Finding Agate And Selecting A Pocket Knife

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Billy Newman Photo Podcast
Billy Newman Photo Podcast
Billy Newman Photo Podcast | 164 Finding Agate And Selecting A Pocket Knife
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Rockhounding on the beach. Types of knife blades and steel.

Gear that I work with 

Professional film stock I work with https://imaging.kodakalaris.com/photographers-photo-printing/film/color

I keep my camera in a Lowepro camera bag 

https://www.lowepro.com/us-en/magnum-400-aw-lp36054-pww/

When I am photographing landscape images I use a Manfrotto tripod 

https://www.manfrotto.com/us-en/057-carbon-fiber-4-section-geared-tripod-mt057c4-g/

A lot of my film portfolio was created with the Nikon N80 and Nikon F4

https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/f4.htm

https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/n80.htm

The Nikon D2H and Nikon D3 were used to create many of the digital images on this site https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond3 https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond2h

Two lenses I am using all the time are the 50mm f1.8 and the 17-40mm f4 

https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/5018daf.htm

https://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/17-40mm.htm

Some astrophotography and documentary video work was created with the Sony A7r

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-a7r

I am currently taking photographs with a Canon 5D

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-5d-mark-iii

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If you want to look at my photography, my current portfolio is here.

If you want to purchase stock images by Billy Newman, my current Stock photo library is here.

If you want to learn more about the work Billy is doing as an Oregon outdoor travel guide, you can find resources on GoldenHourExperience.com.

If you want to listen to the Archeoastronomy research podcast created by Billy Newman, you can listen to the Night Sky Podcast here.

If you want to read a free PDF eBook written by Billy Newman about film photography: you can download Working With Film here. Yours free.

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I am Billy Newman, a photographer and creative director that has served clients in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii for 10 years. I am an author, digital publisher, and Oregon travel guide. I have worked with businesses and individuals to create a portfolio of commercial photography. The images have been placed within billboard, print, and digital campaigns including Travel Oregon, Airbnb, Chevrolet, and Guaranty RV.

My photographs often incorporate outdoor landscape environments with strong elements of light, weather, and sky. Through my work, I have published several books of photographs that further explore my connection to natural places.

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Website Billy Newman Photo https://billynewmanphoto.com/

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164 Billy Newman Photo podcast mixdown Agate Beach Pocket Knife

Hello, and thank you very much for listening to this episode of The Billy Newman photo podcast. I appreciate you guys checking this episode out. It is now November. Thanksgivings. Coming up soon, my birthday is on the 11th of November. And so, settling into the year pretty well is kind of like the New Year of being 32 now, which is fantastic. But yeah, I’ve been hanging out a bit and settling into November in the winter and winterizing and some stuff around the house and doing some kinds of simple outdoor stuff. So try to keep up with a bit of some foraging stuff for substantial machines while it’s out. But that’s sort of shifting over a little now that it’s a little deeper into the fall. So I’m kind of looking at some other stuff to start doing now that it’s been kind of freezing a little more regularly.

I think now that I’ve been going out and finding more stuff, that’s a little mushy. And for a lot of the fall, I noticed how I was kind of dry this fall through a lot of October. So a lot of those, that kind of warmer mid-temperature 40 to 60 degree days that we would have had with kind of sustained rains, we just didn’t get a lot of that through October, so a lot of the fungus growth or a lot of the mushroom growth through the Shawn trails didn’t take off like I think I saw it do last year are still able to get many bags, you know, like a good bit of a harvest out of the forest every couple days. But, as it is, it was less than it was last year.

I remember there were times last year when it just seemed, you know, wet for weeks or something, but when I went out, it was just everywhere. So, yeah, they’re just popping up outside the road, almost. Now when I went out, I saw a bunch of other types of mushrooms. Like you know, I was looking for some other species, but not the shut trout type. And it’s kind of interesting to see how the various sorts of changes of what’s growing as it gets later into the year. But I’ve been doing a bit of that. I was doing a bit of woodsy stuff, going out and checking out some things, trying to gather some wood and some firewood, then bringing it back and typing it up and stacking at home and stuff. And most of those for like outdoor stuff.

You don’t have an indoor fireplace. But I’ve got like a fire pit and like a bit of fire stove, like a bit of cast iron stove that I’m trying to do some burning into, which is kind of fun. I’m trying to set up an outdoor, little workshop spot to do some stuff through the fall and try and do some, I guess. It’s not good stuff. But yeah, trying to do a little of woodworking project stuff that I got kind of lined up and sort of some light stuff. But it’s kind of fun. I’ve got a big stack of ancient Redwood cool.

Redwood two was reclaimed lumber from an old, like a senior, I think it’s an old railroad tunnel. And it was built way back at the turn of the century. Like you know, 1900 actually, I think it was like 1870 that the tunnel was built. And it’s old long-grain Redwood that was cut down, way back then when they were still, you know, like logging old-growth redwood trees out of them out of the California Oregon border area there. And yeah, I made a redwood tunnel. I think it caught fire at one point, then they pulled a bunch of the wood out and sat around from the 70s to now. And I think now I’ve got a big pile of it. So I’m going to try and take some rise of Redwood, and it’s charred on one side, and then it’s weathered on the other sides. So I’m going to go through some of those and see if those pieces are of high enough quality that I can salvage them or make something out of them or make some pieces out of them or add them to some other sets of wood to make some useful things out of it.

I sent a couple of planks of it over to be refinished and then made it into a tabletop that I have put together for an excellent coffee table. And I liked that I want to do some other stuff like that if I can, and I’ve got enough planks for it that I could do. I have got a few cool projects. To see what I can put together with it. But I’m trying to do that a little right now by setting up a space outside placing the stack of Redwood together. Then I’m planning out a couple of different pieces, like photo craft pieces, that I can put together. Before you know, I had a sort of like a photo frame, or like a photo clipboard, I’d put together a couple of times. I think we also had like a couple. This would just be sort of like decorative wood pieces that you’d have for like a jewelry holder or an incense holder or some other kind of planked wood tool that you’d have. However, I’ve been trying to pull out a couple of things like that really; I thought that photo frames would be kind of cool, and they need a miter saw for that. I think you have to do that like this really kind of specific 45-degree angle cut on those angles so that it all matches up correctly to make that a proper square. And so I’ve heard that making homemade picture frames is a bit more tricky than it sounds like if you want to get into action, or I guess crafting it properly, so you have some skill at it. But I don’t have many of those tools. And then you can do it like in handmade too, and just sort of measure it out, and kind of down and then sand it into place and put it together.

So I may do that with the red word. But I also might use some other kinds of pieces of hobby wood or something to do that. But Redwood is porous, and it’s softwood. So I’m also to see different ways to be treated to be used a little more effectively. But like for the tabletop or some other pieces, it just seems so soft and so white that if it wasn’t treated, it looks like if you wanted to put something on it, or you put some pressure on it, you’d like to leave a mark on the wood, which I definitely, I think done before to set up some redwood, which has been kind of cool—moving that to the side, doing some rockhounding stuff, which has been relaxed. I’ve jumped over the coast a couple of times. Now, I’ve been trying but haven’t done this yet. But I’ve meant to bring over my metal detector, and it’s got a metal detector; I don’t want to bring it over to some like the steps and some areas like the walkways and beaches as you go out toward the shore, from those. There are significant city parks that are sort of those walkways and funnels for the public to go down to the beach; I want to go over there with the metal detector and kind of scan through that area to see if I can find any cool stuff, anything that had dropped or had washed up or that come ashore there.

I think it’d be kind of fun. I haven’t even gotten out of a metal detector before. But I’ve seen some people doing it; it sounds kind of like a fun hobby. I think the beach would be an excellent spot to drop over and do it. When I was out there at the beach, I saw some people they were doing. ItititI might be wrong about this. But I think they were doing like some gold mining on the right, and they’re going over to like the Creek area as a critical sort of flow into the ocean. But then there would be deposits left after the high tide in the sand where some darker black sand sort of pools up and in the some of the spots of this, you know the kind of ripples that you get in the sand that some variety of washes away. But in these little spots where there’d be a deposit of this darker washing sand, that guy was going on along with like a minimal or just, you know, regular bucket and a trial. And it goes through, and you do it like a real thing, kind of scooping up that black, that black sand that’s at the top, the top of the water, or the top of the sand there.

And then put it in the bucket and then take it over to his dish over by the creek, add a little water into it, slosh it around, and then try and wash it down. So you get out the iron. And I guess kind of washing it down sees you get. I think it’s like a more concentrated mix that you can get the gold powder out of or, you know, like there are tiny gold flakes out of when you’re doing your prospecting. But I think what he could do was kind of go through the sifted down to the heavier contents. Or, you know, I think what you do with the gold panning stuff is you sort of throw out the lighter ingredients. And then as the gold, which is heavier in the iron, which is more serious, washed to the bottom ridges of the pan, then that’s when they start to reveal themselves, the lighter silicon stuff gets thrown out in the wash. And then you’re able to go through and then pick out those tiny flakes or specks of gold that might be in there and then put them in a bit of collection tube on the side, which is kind of cool. So it seemed like what he was up to.

And some of that I’d like to do; I think it’d be kind of fun to go over, try and pick up some sifting dirt. And then, or sifting sand or whatever it is, go through and pick out a couple of flakes of gold. It sounds cool. I ran into another guy out there. And he was like an agate picker. This is something I want to get into too. I talked a little about agates, how they’re formed and how they show up and all that, and I’d be interested in finding out the geology of how some of these creeks have agates created here along the west coast. I think it’s kind of cool. The land formation over the geology is over here. And however, that goes back to the history of the agate formation that went on over the coast.

But I think just north of Newport there’s a beach called agate beach, apparently a place where there’s going to be agates found, but this guy that I was talking to he was saying what he was saying, like if you kind of prowl around town, and this kind of these older, smaller, you know, coastal cities here in Oregon and probably in Washington or wherever they might be. But if you sort of prowl around the town, you’ll see these almost say rock shop or gem shop or something like that at some little shack kind of place with an old sort of weathered sign on it that sort of looks goofy looks like an old-time prospector kind of works there and kind of does it himself. But I guess he did some of those people, some of those guys, some of the more invested rock hounds in the area. And some of those guys, if they’ve retired, I guess, you know, the lead up some of their picking spots, or let up some of their information on, what they’ve done to collect some of these remarkable rocks and gems over the years. But some of those people in those local town spots have some accessible starter information for people getting into some rock counting stuff.

But I was told recommended by a guy over in Newport to find a man named rooster. So I could find out about the good rock hound in spots. Sounds fun; I haven’t taken up on it yet. But the guy gave me an agate that he had collected. And he was telling me that the excellent time to go is in the wintertime after some more significant winter storms come in off the coast and then dredge up. Well, I guess they do not dredge up, but I guess they wash out the light, I think like we were talking about washing out the sand, it’s kind of comes into sandbars they wash out that exposes some gravel beds, some of those rock beds that are a little lower down in the sediment. And that reveals some of the beds that have the agates in them.

And I guess those come up during low tide in the wintertime, I think after what January, February, something like that. And that’s when this guy found most of the agates that he’s spotted out there in areas like Agate beach up to up to where I don’t know what’s up north of there. Is that the Yukon ahead, or is it below it? I can’t remember now, but it’s cool. Yeah, so it’s fun going out and doing some agate-hounding stuff. And it’s kind of fun. I like doing that sort of stuff. I like to sort of poke around. I want to get out there with the saying that the metal detector that I want to get out there with, I think that’d be kind of cool. As I’m hearing, there are several things you can do with the metal detector, and it’s pretty fun most of the time. In the spots that I’ve been out, the only thing I’ve found so far is like casings from, you know, ejected bullets that have been fired out of a rifle over in Eastern Oregon whenever I guessed when someone else had been out there hunting or doing some shooting or whatever it is.

And then I’ve kind of come along through a camp and found some, some old shells and stuff laid out in the, in the dirt over there in between the sagebrush. But that’s about the most that I’ve ever found is like a cool thing that I want to go out to the coast, see if I can find something fun and relaxed. That’s washed up onto the shore. I had a family that lived that over on the coast for a long time. And you know, when they kind of go out to the coast to do their walks and stuff. I think when you have more access to the beach, you go out there more, and they’ve found some cool stuff that would wash up over the years. I think they found some things that seemed like they were from some Asian fishing boat or some little buoys that would come in or a little like crab fishing things that would wash in from our ships or other ships and stuff, and it’d be cool. It’d be fun to find some things out on the beach, and I think it would be fun. I was looking at a couple of other things that I thought would be kind of neat since Christmas is coming up soon. And since my birthday just passed, there are a few kinds of everyday things that I have been looking into.

And some of the brands that are sort of around that would be a cool one to pick up. But I’ve been looking into a few different pieces. One of them was pocket knives, and I carry a pocket knife with me most of the time. Before I talked about the Gerber Gator that I have around, I thought it’s about a four-inch blade, and it’s a little more than a four-inch handle. It’s a full-size grip in hand, and I guess what I’m saying there is it extends open to about eight and a half inches or so on the handle and blade as it’s empty. Then it’s got the locking back, which I like a lot more than kind of that finger release that you press sort of on the inside of the blade to sort of push a little of metal out-of-the-way so that the edge can kind of fold back and collapse in on itself.

I don’t prefer those, and I found at least like the cheaper blades that I’ve picked up that were like that to start to fail over time when that slight metal springiness to it that sort of pushes in place begins to kind of wear off or bend out a little and then after a while it wouldn’t lock in place it would lock back enough to be there but then as soon as I put any pressure on it would fold back in on itself and come toward my hand. My fingers and stuff I was cutting, so that had happened. I think a couple more with a couple of knives that had that was like that a few times. So now, when I’m getting a folding pocket knife, I try and avoid that style of it.

There are a bunch of them that are like that, and there are a bunch of them that are pretty cool, and I bet if you buy a higher-end brand, or you know like a better bill knife, then you’d probably have better luck with it. But really, I prefer the back that locks on it. So like kind of, I don’t know, maybe three quarters down toward the bottom of the handle, there’s going to be like a bit of metal bit that you’d press your thumb into. And that kind of pulls that part of the Tang of the knife lifts a locking release in the blade, and then you’re able to swing the hinge of the blade shot to collapse it, fold it and then put it back in your pocket.

I like that kind of style more than this other type that I was talking about. But when I was looking around, that’s what I tried to pick up with the Gerber Gator, but I had, and I like the Gerber knives; I’ve had a couple of variants of that style before. I want to kind of rubberized handle. And I like the price too. It’s like 29 bucks, or then you can get them, I don’t know, maybe like on the more expensive end for like 40 bucks. But these Gerber gators are the full size, and I think there’s a mini they’re pretty good. Kind of mid-range, usable, folding type of pocket-friendly that you’d have. And I like it a lot more than some of like the Kershaw’s stuff that I’ve had that sort of at that lower-end price point that’s like below $20.

I’ve had those for about six months or so. And then some tech screws start to unwind on me. And then all of a sudden I’ve got, I’ve got a knife that’s in like four different pieces, washers and bits and stuff kind of all over. And that’s happened a couple of times with those, those sort of assembled knives to try and find some stuff that’s like, got a specific type of construction on it that keeps it a little tighter together, the hex screws are pretty well, on the higher end pieces. So those do hold together really well over time. And they don’t have to be dismantled or reassembled. But on some of those less expensive knives, unless you’re doing some more regular tool maintenance to keep those bolts tight, they do start to sort of work themselves out on you. And the steel the blade, I haven’t even gotten to that the steel blade changes like all the time, or Bondo, it doesn’t change all the time. But there are many variations of quality knife steel that go into these, these folding pocket knives or full tang pocket knives. But I was kind of looking into that a bit.

Like I guess like what used to be the standard for hard knife steel, back 30 years ago isn’t anywhere near the same as it is now there’s a bunch of different variations of things that they give you different benefits or, or drawbacks I guess it’s like, there’s like steel. However, there’s steel that you add chrome into, or that you add a certain amount of nickel into, or they add a certain amount of carbon into. And these different variants that are added into the metal give the other steel properties. And that provides the blade with the edge, you know, the way that the sharpness, that blade reacts to different forces that make it react differently. So some types of steel are more brittle. But they do they like crack if you start acting with it, or, but that makes it like hard, I guess. And so that gives you like stronger edge retention. So you can keep that edge sharp for a long time. But if it’s a durable type of steel, maybe it’s got a softness to it. And so if you start doing much-extended cutting with that sharp blade, it’ll go dark on you faster, and you’ll have to re-sharpen the edge, and then it’ll lose its sharpness maybe a little quicker.

But then some blades will rust if they get wet, so if you got an edge that’s sharp and stays sharp but rests quickly when it gets wet at all. And that’s like a pretty tricky knife to have around to, and so people choose a nice for different things, I guess it’s like boat knives, or there’s a specific type of steel that’s used for people that are doing much stuff on the ocean, like when they’re overexposed saltwater. So they use us; it’s not. Is it like an H one steel? That doesn’t sound quite right, but they have a specific type of steel that will not rust, but it’s tough and holds like a solid edge. And then there’s a bunch of different variations of hard steals, you know, like steals to have like some more substantial amount or I guess more formidable resistance to whatever elements are going to be exposed to so the Gerber Gator that I have that’s a D two steel, I think you can look this steel’s that they’re going to be probably more informative some chart online will probably be more informative than my breakdown of stuff.

However, they’ll kind of get into the chemical compounds of what makes these steels different and what makes the knife blade better or worse for the function that you’re going for. But really, there is like a tear of not quite good enough for most things and then where people knife collectors are trying to pick into for like higher quality knives. And I think it’s it’s a good litmus test for how high quality your knife is. There’s some good steel that makes inexpensive knives. So I guess like for Victorinox Swiss Army Knife, you’re looking at a 316 steel, which I think now is like a pretty low-grade kind of steel even for many buck knives. I think it’s like the four, four sixteenths or something like there.

Yeah, it’s a little more for, I think, for Letterman’s too, it’s sort of in that area; then I guess if you get into the essay or rat three knives, you’re looking at 1095 steel, which I believe is like higher carbon steel. Then I think you get like D two steel like this Gerber Gator is that sort of in the same zone. There’s also this other stuff this I think Chinese made steel’s, that are, I think it’s like seven-car I got a knife around here somewhere. But it’s a seven-car, then there’s eight-car and nine-car, and it’s got like a couple of other letters after it too.

But I think the first couple is like a seven and eight or nine. And it’s kind of to the degree that it is good, let’s say for this, or it’s like tough steel or whatever it is. But I think seven is a lower grade, kind of average grade knife blade steel, and pretty good compared to too much stuff. And nine is more of a premium and inexpensive steel option made by Chinese manufacturers. So I have a couple of knives that are made with that. There’s also another steel called OS eight. I found that around several times, and I think that’s in some higher-end, higher-end knife blade pieces to also use by some higher-end knife manufacturers.

I think I’ve seen some stuff from Benchmade and Spyderco in the OS eight. And let me pull it out here. I was actually kind of thinking about Spyderco and Benchmade and the Columbia River Knife and tool. Let’s see those Columbia River Knife and tools Benchmade. There’s another one I’m trying to think of. It’s a port that’s like an Oregon-based knife company. I didn’t know that. I didn’t realize there were so many Oregon-based knife companies up around this area, but there’s also Spyderco, another knife manufacturer that I was looking at. I think there’s a Japanese, but I picked up a Spyderco knife recently.

Those are a lot more expensive than they are, kind of like a lot of the average run-of-the-mill pocket knives, so you’d probably pick them up in many stores, or you know, like a lot more basic supermarket-style source. I don’t know why you didn’t have a hunting knife at the supermarket, but NASA was hunting that but just like useful. Folding knives that a good pocket knife tools. But I picked up the Spyderco knife, and I noticed the differences in some of its quality just in kind of the way that the construction is the sharpness of the blade the way that works and this is I think Vg 10 steel on the blade. And then it’s got some like what polycarbonate nylon handle Wow, whatever that is, you know. However, the handle works well that I was also looking at G 10, which is another handle material listed out there on the number of knives, and that seems to be one of the higher-end knife handle options. On the higher end Columbia River Knife and tool m 16 knives, I see that as an option for the nicer like Benchmade knives. I was looking at some Benchmade knives like the reptilian.

I think that has a G 10 handle option. Also, the Benchmade bug out I was looking into that knife, and that I think has a G 10 handle too. But I think that provides a sort of a kind of a powdery grip almost to it. I think it’s another kind of composite material, but it’s got a good grip on it so that you can still kind of maintain a handle even into the sort of wet or slippery conditions. Another knife I had used my carta on the handle, which is, I think, layered. I tried to do this before on my own, and I’ve seen someone make it themselves before too, but I think it’s it’s like layered and then sanded down. Fiberglass, and linen or fiberglass, and denim or like resonant denim or something like that. But I’ve seen people kind of like layer. They’re like soak They kind of penetrate just like you’re talking like a bunch of like little sheets of say like linen in this case but something kind of like a fashion texture. But you take a bunch of sheets.

To this, and then you penetrate that with fiberglass resin and then lay that down and then add another layer of it, lay that down on that another layer and lay that down. And then you clamp all that together and then let it cure. That makes this kind of like real compressed brick, of these stacked up pieces of fabric interlaced together. And then they’re now fused and kind of frozen in place with this; this fiberglass resin is to like sort of this sort of solid block. And then we were able to do saw right through that. And then you have this kind of solid and grippable sandable material that you can kind of scrape down and shape into whatever kind of size or shape piece you want. So it has some scales to a full tang pocket knife over here that has micarta handles. And I think it’s a cool handle type that works well for some stuff. But there are also a lot of other options out there.

Or it’s that’s something that I thought about when I got it and sort of what I think about like the G 10. Handle stuff, too, is that there are just like many handle options out there. And that’s the tricky thing, too, is like, like I look around it. I don’t know how to get into it. But like I look around at like bushcraft videos, you know, I might have talked about this before even, or I’ve had the thoughts before to about like bushcraft and like kind of the idea of a lot of like outdoors people ship stuff and a lot of like outdoors, travel and use the landscape. And I think I have an understanding that that is cool. But the bushcrafting stuff has some little twists or limitations that I think sometimes make it a little goofy.

However, part of the idea is you have like a big knife almost close to a machete that you use for everything from buttoning down two-inch-thick trees to, I guess like just building a trap to hunt small animals to just straight hunting or combat or whatever it is, we’re supposed to be this kind of all-purpose wilderness tool. Those are cool knives. And I do have a couple of those in that size range. I like the four-inch size probably most, a lot of the time. But for much cool stuff. It’s like the five-inch knife like a five-inch full tang knife is cool if you’re going to try and do some of that stuff. But really at that point, or kind of my thinking rat is like it’s almost to all-purpose of a tool that you’re trying to apply a knife to, you know, like, you don’t need, maybe to always do that sort of stuff with a knife. Now it’s cool when you understand how to use a knife. And then you can build out stuff while you’re in the woods or while you’re in the backcountry that you didn’t have to bring in with you.

So that is a cool kind of survival mechanism with not even survivalists. However, just when you’re in the woods, there’s a way that you can build out much stuff that you would maybe think that you would need to bring with you just kind of a lot of like structural stuff that you can kind of set up or make some makeshift elements with if you know how to do some simple things with a knife. And I’ve heard of an of like these practice systems called the try sticks, you’ve probably looked that up like bushcraft try to stick or something like that. But it’s just bushcraft skills thing where you go through with a twig, you know, like kind of a two-foot-long stick that’s about an inch and a half in diameter.

And then you try out a bunch of these different cut maneuvers on it. So you kind of like a flat cut, a scooped cut, sort of like a pointed carve, or to make like a dividend something or make you know just like all these different little pieces that you kind of go through and do. And I guess there’s some little system of those that you can use those pieces on a stick as different tools to make, and you know different things. Who knows what the I’ve seen like snowshoes made, I’ve seen tables made, I’ve seen like fire pit cooking kitchens made, I have seen a few different pieces and stuff.

So it’s kind of interesting to see what people can kind of throw together really a lot of the time. I think what it was used for as a plan is what you see expressed by the bush crafters is you got a big knife, and then you whacked down a chunk of a tree; you make a stand to hold a pot over a fire to purify your water. And then you make sort of an A-frame to throw your tarp over so that you have your dry shelter. Now I think both of those are one of the least effective means of providing that thing outdoors. So like you know, I don’t know how to say it now, but it’s like, it’s good to know how to start a fire, and it’s good to know how to stay out in the wilderness if you only have a tarp. Also, it’s good to bring a tent and a sleeping bag, and it’s good to bring a jet boil and some fuel and a lighter. And those two things like cut down on the amount of weird sort of dangers that you would have from exposure, or risk of bad water, or whatever it is.

So a lot of the time, when I’m thinking about trying to do some outdoor stuff is how to like cut down on a lot of the extra work or the extra danger of some of those risks that you would have to put yourself out into if you’re trying to drink unpurified water through a sort of haphazardly made heavy can over a fire pit for an hour or two, or whatever it is, or staying under a tarp when you have way better and less expensive survival gear, or you know, like 10, hunting, camping gear backpacking gear available to you.

So I think that those are kind of the options to sort of steer into. So that kind of brings me to what a knife is and what you do with a knife. And so for bushcrafting, you’re supposed to build everything that you would go camping with. And I kind of think, well, maybe that’s not really what I use an eye for, or what many people use an eye for. And I’ve seen it kind of more clearly express it like your knife or like a, and you can have a couple of different eyes. But it’s cool to have a knife that’s just for cutting and kind of keeping it as sort of as a more sacred discipline to keep that knife sharp. So they can do an effective job cutting, cutting into flash, if you need to do some hunting stuff, or cutting ropes or cutting parts of whatever you’re trying to put together out in the outdoors, whatever it is.

So I think that’s kind of like some interesting stuff about doing some knife preparation stuff. And there’s a lot to get into a sharpening and different sharpening stones and some thoughts about some sharpeners and sharpening stuff that I want to get into. But I don’t know that kind of my wrap-it up there for this part of the podcast. And I’ll probably come back with a pipe. Two things to do with your pocket knife that are useful when you’re doing some outdoor stuff. And I could bring it around the photo stuff to like what I’m saying when traveling light. I’m outside in sort of more of my normal circumstances, as a two and a half to three-inch folding pocket knife gets by, in almost every circumstance that I’ve needed, and I don’t need that big of a knife; I just need a small amount of that blade, or you know, I need a small blade to be sharp. But I think with that you can be effective. Like with a scalpel, you know, you can go through and do a lot of significant and proper work with just a scalpel. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that a bigger or more broad or more thick blade is going to be a superior tool to just really the active cutting and slicing or the active like trying to chop into something that you’re you’re trying to do with a pocket knife when you’re carrying around out in the woods with you.

thanks a lot for checking out this episode of The Billy Newman photo podcast. You can see more of my work at Billy Newman photo comm. You can check out some of my photo books on Amazon. And then you look up Billy Newman under the author’s section there and see some photo books on film on the desert, surrealism, camping, some cool stuff over there, and you can check out the website for more podcasts. Similar to this one. You can also go to Billy Newman photo comm forward-slash support to find out different means and locations that you can go about financially supporting the efforts put into making this podcast and make it some photos stuff and some outdoor visual content that you might find from the work that I’m doing but appreciate you guys tuning in. Thanks a lot for listening to this podcast episode, and I will talk to you again next time.

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