How to Make a Folding Camp Saw

Call it a bow saw, a pack saw, a buck saw or a camp saw. Whatever you call it, a foldable saw is an invaluable piece of equipment for any outdoorsman. This is the kind of tool that Surviorman would take out into the bush and build a small city. Behind a knife, it's probably one of the more useful survival tools. This post will describe how to make your own foldable, packable saw for only a few dollars.

I'm making my saw out of a piece of maple. Maple has an excellent strength to weight ratio and is a good choice for making a folding saw. It also is very stable; it is unlikely to split, twist or crack even when exposed to moisture. That's why people make cutting boards out of it. You can also make it out of ash or various other hard woods, but maple has the added benefit of being a free piece of wood from the woodpile. The first step is to mill the wood into boards. A chain saw, hatchet or adz does a nice job of creating a flat edge. Once you have a flat section, you can safely run it through the table saw.
Starting to look more like wood and less like a log...
Now we have something that generally resembles lumber....
... but before we can use it, it needs to be run through the joiner/planer which will make each side perfectly flat.
Next, I cut the squared board into three sections: the two sides and the cross member. The two sides are about an inch and a half square and approximately 10 inches long. The cross member is about an inch by a half an inch and slightly shorter than your saw is long.
I started by ripping a notch in the middle of each of the side pieces. The notch is about half as deep as the saw is thick and will accept the blade when the saw is in the folded position. I also rounded off the bottom and cut a notch in the top. This notch will provide a flat purchase for the threaded rod, which holds the saw together, as the side pieces will bend in slightly when the saw is assembled. This will become clearer as the saw takes shape.
To make the spreader bar, I ripped the wood on the table saw to be about an inch by half an inch. The spreader bar need not be as beefy as the side pieces. Plus you'll be carrying this saw, so any weight you can shave is worth it. To make the saw a little easier to handle, I rounded over each of the four corners of each piece with the router.
The notch on the inside of the right and left pieces of the saw only goes through one side of the handle. When saw is assembled, the blade will be rotated in the other direction. This requires you to remove a little bit of material on the other side of each handle so the handle will rotate around the blade. This is done at the non-hooked end. In other words the end that will receive the blade, not the end that will receive the threaded rod. The notch here need not be wide as it only has to receive the thickness of the blade.

The other end, the hooked end that will receive the threaded rod, needs a similar notch, but as thick as the rod is wide. Note that you can use the thinnest gauge rod they sell, as weight is an issue.
The spreader bar connects to the side pieces via a mortise and tenon joint. This joint is strong and it's easy to disassemble when it's time to pack the saw. You can make a basic mortise and tenon joint without jigs or fancy tools by setting the fence on your table saw as far from the blade as you want the tenon to be long. Then take a push fence and run each end of the spreader bar back and forth removing a little bit of material from each side of each end of the spreader bar.
If you were making fine furniture, this technique might not give you perfect results, but for this saw it gets the job done nicely.
To make the mortises, mark the middle center of the two side pieces. Note the mortises go on the opposite side as the grove you cut to accept the saw blade when folded, as they will accept the tenon when unfolded. Measure the height and width of the tenon and chose a drill bit as wide as the tenon. Drill several holes and then hollow out the mortise with a hand chisel. Again, you could spend the money on a specialized mortiser, but this will get the job done for basic projects.
The saw begins to take shape!
The blade attaches to the side members with bolts. I chose to countersink my bolts so they will sit flush. This is primarily for aesthetics, but it will also make it less likely for the bolt to unseat itself or snag on anything. Using a locking bolt is also a good idea.
Next simply cut the threaded rod to size, sand the saw and rub with some linseed oil to season the wood. And you're done! The wing nuts on the threaded rod pulls the side pieces inward against the cross member, which acts as a fulcrum, and pulls the blade tight. This design is surprisingly strong and stable and will saw through large logs.
And look how nice the saw looks when it's folded up for storage. You can also making a stuff sack for the saw to keep the parts together in your pack. I made this stuff sack, just like I made this.
Enjoy the outdoors!

How to Make a Sleeping Bag Stuff Sack

It seems like stuff sacks are always getting lost. Plus many sleeping bags only come with the small stuff sacks to compress the bag in your pack, but not a storage sack. Storing a sleeping bag in its stuff sack will compress the fill insulation, reduce it's insulation properties and the bag's life span. So here's a description of how to make a stuff sack and a storage sack for your sleeping bag.

Old pillow cases make great storage sacks for sleeping bags. They're about the right size and it's a higher use than tossing them into the rag pile.
Where the side seam meets the top seam (where the opening is), make a small cut on both sides of the seam. Then take an old shoelace or a piece of string (that is more than twice as long as the pillow case is wide) and snake it through the top seam. The seam on a pillow case is usually several inches, so it should be easy to work it through, but a bobby pin around the rope can help.
Tie the shoelace in a knot so it doesn't pull back into the seam. And you're done!
To make the stuff sack, you'll need a sewing machine and an old piece of nylon. The size of the bag will be determined by the compressed size of the sleeping bag. A winter bag will be larger and a summer bag will be smaller.

Start by making the loop for the draw string. Along the top side of the fabric, fold over about an inch of fabric and sew about half an inch from the fold.
Then simply sew along the bottom of the sack and up the side to the draw string loop, essentially creating a box. Store bought stuff sacks have a round bottom and you can certainly add this step. I decided just to make a front and back because it's easier and faster and I'm not that great on the sewing machine.

Then snake a shoe lace through the draw string band, turn the sack right side-out and you're done! You may want to buy one of those line pincher things from the outdoor store to keep the drawstring tight.
There you have it! A stuff sack and a storage sack for your sleeping back from materials you probably have lying around the house.

How to Make a Degassing Whip

You may be asking, what is a degassing whip? Well, if you're a home wine maker that does not use a filter, a degassing whip is a great tool to remove suspended carbon dioxide from your wine prior to bottling. This ensures you will have perfectly flat uncarbonated wine in the bottle. Many home wine makers run into the problem of a small amount of fizz in their finished wine. Even with extended bulk aging, you may not remove all the carbon dioxide. A degassing whip takes care of that problem.

When you've just done your last racking prior to bottling, you attach the whip to a hand drill and slide the whip into the carboy. The whip circulates the wine but doesn't go so far as to churn it, which could add oxygen and oxidize the wine. This circulation releases any suspended carbon dioxide that may be in the wine, and you'll probably be surprised how much will be released!

Many wine making stores do not carry degassing whips, but thats just fine because you can make one cheaper anyway. Essentially all you need is two little square pieces of aluminum sheet metal, an aluminum rod and an aluminum nut and bolt. I bought the nut, bolt and the rod from Home Depot for $4 and will be using an old bicycle brake handle for the propeller blades. I'm using aluminum for this project because it is non-reactive in food and will not rust. Plus it is a soft metal and is easy to work with. Note that the aluminum rod should be several feet long so you can get all the way into the carboy.
Using a hack saw, I cut off the top of the bicycle brake. I then splayed the housing out flat. I also drilled a hole through each side which will attach to the aluminum rod.
I now have the two blades finished. Notice I left a little notch on top. This will come in handy later. To finish off the blades, I hammered them flat against an anvil.
It makes it a lot easier to drill into a round piece of metal if you have a flat section to get the drill started. With aluminum, you can just hit it with a hammer.
I then drilled a hole in the end of the rod. The hole should be slightly larger than the bolt you'll be using. There will not be much pressure on this bolt, so it need not be large.
Next I attached the blades to the bottom of the rod. Notice how I bent the notches down towards the rod. This keeps the blades in the proper orientation...
...because the blades will dangle down when you're sliding the whip through the neck of the carboy, but when you turn on the drill, the centripetal force will force the blades outward making a propeller which will spin the wine and remove the carbon dioxide. The blades are mirror images of each other, so the notches will hit the shaft and be forced upward opposite each other. In other words the blades will always rise opposite each other, not on the same side, because the notches will prevent each blade from going the wrong way. This keeps the whip balanced and functioning normally.
Whip the wine for about twenty or thirty sections and then reattach the airlock. You'll be shocked how much gas is released!

How to Make a Wooden Bowl

Making wooden bowls is a woodworking skill that takes a day to learn but a lifetime to master. Most woodworking projects require many specialized tools that are expensive and for most people, take a lifetime to acquire. Turning wood on the other hand, requires only chisels and a lathe. You can make banisters, finials and baseball bats, but the real fun in owning a lathe is making bowls. You can spend years making different types of bowls and never get bored. I consider working with wood simply another medium for the artist but no where is this more true than with woodturning because it is completely free form, like sculpting.

One of my favorite things about turning bowls, is that you can use wood from trees in your area rather than heading to the lumber yard for wood. The lumber yard is to trees as the grocer's meat counter is to a cow; you get the end result but you miss the intimate connection to it's source. When you carve a bowl from a tree, you have a direct connection to the wood, the life of the tree and it's sacrifice to provide you with it's flesh. Making a bowl where you know the provenance of the wood will make the result even more special.

I'm making this bowl for a friend of mine and so I took a log from a beech tree that fell down in their yard. Every growth ring you can see on the bowl is another year of life shared with the tree. The bowl's thicker rings are warmer or wetter years that were especially good for growing or perhaps another tree nearby fell down, letting in more light. The narrow rings show years when there was drought or perhaps a late season ice storm that stunted that year's new buds.

When making bowls, it's imperative to have dry wood. Newly cut wood is green, meaning that the tree is still alive and there is still a relatively high moisture content. As you're not kiln drying the wood, like a lumber company would, you need to let the wood air dry for several months to a year in a low moisture environment. If you do not, the wood will split as the moisture dissipates. It would be a shame to put so much work into the bowl only to have it split. This log here has been aging in the woodpile for about two years and in a garage for about 4 months.

One note of caution, operating a lathe can be dangerous. It's best to learn how to turn wood with a simple project with someone who knows what they're doing. Like Norm says, be sure to read and understand how to use your power tools. And there is no more important tool than safety glasses.
A chain saw can help with the rough cut of the bowl. The round section of the bowl must be perpendicular the round part of the log. In other words, the center ring of the wood must go through the sides of the bowl, you cannot have the center ring of the wood in the middle of the bottom of the bowl. The way the grain runs, you'll end up with a warped or cracked bowl. Many people make bowls out of the root ball of the tree precisely for this reason; the grain runs in various different directions making the bowl stronger and less likely to split along the grain. These pieces of wood have the added benefit of being very beautiful.
First, remove the sides of the log.
The two flat sections will make up the top and bottom of the bowl, or in other words the base and the top rim. Take a compass or trace something circular to make the rough outline of the bowl.
Use the chain saw to remove the excess. You'll now have a roughly round bowl blank. The grain of the wood will run from one side to the other, not from the top to the bottom. You'll also have a lot of saw dust and scrap pieces of wood for the kindling pile! I believe Michelangelo said something to the effect of that the sculpture was always inside the marble, he just had to remove the rock around it. You'll find this true as you begin removing the wood around the bowl.
There are several ways to attach wood to a lathe. When making newel posts or baseball bats, you rotate the wood between two points, one that is connected to the motor and another that spins free. You start like this when making a bowl but once the piece is rounded, you'll need to spin the wood with only one connection to the router- the motor. This requires a much stronger connection.

There are a few ways to make this connection. One is to use an expanding chuck that fit insude a grove that you carve in the wood. This is done by screwing a plate to the wood, turning the wood until it is round, and then carving a grove on the bottom of the bowl. I prefer to skip this step and just screw the bowl to the mounting plate. I'll cut off the base of the bowl that I'm screwing into, so you'll never see the screw holes.
At this point the wood blank will be circular but not smooth. The first step is to put the lathe on it's slowest setting and remove material until the blank is smooth and round. If you spin the wood too quickly while it's still lopsided, the piece will vibrate uncontrollably and you wont get much carving done. The cupped chisel, called a gouge, is the best tool for removing the excess material. As the wood turns, the chisel will remove the high points of the wood until the entire surface is round.
When you remove enough material that the piece is round, you can increase the speed of the lathe. The faster the lathe spins, the smoother the cut the chisel will make.
With the piece rounded, you can begin shaping the wood. This is where you can get creative with the shape of the bowl. Let the natural shape of the wood guide you. Follow the shape and contours of the wood. When you're finished removing material and want to focus on shaping and smoothing, move on to the other chisels.
Removing wood from the middle of the bowl can be difficult because it requires cutting a fast moving narrow inside edge. Making wide open bowls is much easier than making narrow bowls for this reason. With some practice, and moving of the guide fence, you can make narrow walled bowls like this one. However, chisels can grab and cause injury easily, so be very careful.
Eventually the center will be hollowed out and you can begin shaping the bowl in earnest.
When shaping the bowl, using a caliper is a useful because it allows you to keep the thickness consistent across different sections of the bowl.
Different chisels have different purposes. I still have a lot to learn about bowl making, but generally this flat chisel is used for smoothing and shaping.
When the bowl is the shape you want, begin sanding while still on the lathe. It is much easier to do it now than when it's removed from the lathe.
When removed from the lathe, unscrew the mounting plate...
... and remove the hunk of wood that the mounting plate was screwed into. How you remove this will depend on the tools in your workshop, but a handsaw will do the job nicely. Then just sand the bottom flush.
Some hand sanding is always a good idea.
Finishing the bowl off with some steel wool will add polish and shine.
I've heard several different schools of thought on sealing bowls. I prefer not to use mineral spirits simply because they're petroleum based however I've heard some woodworkers recommend them to seal bowls and cutting boards. One thing for sure, do not use olive or vegitable oil as they will eventually go rancid. It will not hurt you, but they may have an unpleasant smell. Nut oils are the best choice as far as I am concerned. They're all natural and will not go rancid. I've heard that walnut oil is the most stable nut oil for sealing wooden bowls. The oil also nourishes the wood, prevents cracks and splitting and brings out the beauty of the grain.
The heartwood runs directly through this bowl and there is even a hole in the center growth ring. The pigment of the heartwood is much darker than the sap wood further out. It almost looks like a paint spatter on the edges. Very beautiful.
And when you're proud of something that you've made, be sure to sign it with your initials. Buying a branding iron is a great investment, but you can always carve your initials in a hidden spot.