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December 29, 2018
RIP Larry Dean Olsen
This issue is dedicated to a very special man who passed recently, Larry Dean Olsen. He is considered the father of the modern primitive skills movement. I cut my teeth on his book Outdoor Survival Skills. He was the founder of one of the oldest and well established primitive skills events in the United States, Rabbit Stick Rendezvous. He once traveled all the way from Utah to attend my primitive skill event, Tribe Gathering. He has also made a difference in many young people's lives with the Anasazi Foundation that he founded where he took troubled teens into the desert and taught them primitive skills and how to turn their life around from a path of destruction. He was a great man and will be missed by many.

Hafting
Hafting is the securing of an arrow point, blade, celt or any other tool for use. Other than the arrow it is basically putting a handle on a tool for ease of use. Part of hafting is to make a notch to receive the point/blade, etc. the other part is how to secure it with some adhesive and/or binding. So I want to illustrate and describe some methods of hafting as well as making glue and using sinew.

Larry Dean Olsen came up with a clever way of breaking out a notch for an arrow point.

Other methods of breaking out the notch would be sawing it out depending on the material. With something hollow like rivercane it is just a matter of notching at the bottom of the notch and breaking out the excess pieces. In the case of rivercane arrows unless you are inserting a wooden foreshaft you will also need to place a backing beneath the arrow point for it to strike against when it makes impact. This works but I prefer a wooden foreshaft when making arrows and atlatl darts.

What about hafting a stone axe or celt? There are many different ways as I have illustrated. I read about someone once though that actually drilled a hole in a live tree branch and inserted their axe head and allowed the tree to grow around it and then cut the branch accordingly for a handle! I'll bet that was a tight permanent fit!

Also illustrated is an adze for digging and doing wood caving on a large scale like a dugout canoe. Also notice the clever way of making a hide scraping tool. This is a good way to do this type of tool since you may need to remove the blade from time to time to rework the edge to keep it sharp.








As far securing the blade, point, celt, etc. you have many options. I personally like to glue and bind in most cases. Bindings can be cordage you have made from plant fibers or string you have on hand. Sinew is what binds an animal's muscle to the bone and is a great material to use. I mostly have access to White Tail Deer here in NC and remove and use the sinew along the leg and along the backstrap, the longer the better. In case you haven't ever removed sinew it is fairly easy. Just look for that silvery, shimmery skin covering a muscle bundle. It is attached at both ends. Use something dull and get under it and then follow it to the end and cut loose. You should then clean any excess meat from it. The sinew is now useable. You can also dry it and reconstitute it later. When you are ready to use it just separate out the thickness of sinew needed and wrap it around the arrow point or whatever you are hafting and allow to dry. The good thing about sinew is it dos not require you tie a knot. It contains its own glues and will hold itself in place. However it is susceptible to moisture and can come loose. I prefer to cover the dry sinew with glue of some sort.

So what about glue in the wild? You have two choices: hide glue and pine pitch glue. Hide glue is produced by boiling and concentrating pretty much any animal bones, hides and hooves. Fish skin can also be used. The best part to make glue with is the dry shavings that come off of a hide you you have dry scraped for tanning. Hooves, rabbit skin and fish skin is used to make hide glue commercially and is popular among woodworkers. If you want to make a quickie hide glue at home get some clear, unflavored gelatin, add water and boil and concentrate down. Gelatin is usually made from pig hooves.

Pine pitch glue is very easy to make., much easier than hide glue. Just find sap bleeding from an injured pine tree. Collect the sap and place it in a container where it can be melted down by a fire. It has a very low melting point but is also highly flammable so be careful and don't do this indoors. You then take equal amounts of ground charcoal from the fire, not white ash but charcoal, and mix it with the melted pine sap.. The finer you grind the charcoal the better. If you don't add charcoal when the pine sap dries it is glass like and brittle. If you don't have a container don't despair I have used a flat rock near a fire and let it melt. You can also make the task of applying glue easier by making a pine pitch glue stick. This is done by taking a small twig and dipping it in the pine pitch glue you have made and then dip in water and then pine glue again back and forth till you get a wad of glue built up. It is kind of like making candles. When you need to use it even a candle will soften it up enough to apply it. If you make several of these you will have them when you need them and they store very well.
Stone Knife & Sheath
$95

Great hunter-gatherer feeling knife. Blade is knapped from rhyollite and is hafted into a deer antler handle. Sheath is also handmade from deer rawhide. Beads are snake vertebrae.
Buy Now
Mini Firemaking Kit
$30

Great looking to hang around the neck but also useful. Contains ferro rod with bird bone handle, a striker, tinder bundle, even a candle. Make fire without matches!
Buy Now
Pipe Bag & Pipe
$65

Great looking leather pipe bag reminiscent of one a Native American or early American colonist might carry. Pipe is made of clay and authentic to the 1750s. Includes pipe cleaning tool from Czekoslavakia.
Buy Now
Copyright © 2018 Way of the Raven, All rights reserved.


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