I've only done one so I'm no authority but making one seemed like an awful good way to get to know my way around a particular knife pretty quick. This is a link to an image of the try stick from one of Mors Kochanski's books. http://www.karamat.com/trystick.pdf Post 'em if ya got 'em! Busted my cherry with this one on a piece of willow I found when I was out fishing and using a S!K 2.7. The tip was a little fat for cutting out the square hole on this particular knife but it worked good in general. I don't understand how to use the root stripper but I tried to recreate it as well as possible from the image. Defeats the purpose of making a root stripper if you don't know how to use it I suppose but gotta start somewhere. No point in that Boker being in the picture, it must've seemed like a good idea at the time for size reference of something. I'm sure there are some people on here that can whip one of these up in their sleep but if you haven't done one before it was definitely educational!
Try sticks are a phenomenal way to get to know a new blade. It's also good carving practice! Here's my first try stick. Carved it a few years back with my Pasi Hurttila Tuohisarvi puukko.
Those are sweet Reno! You took your cuts down way further than I did, I was chicken that I was going to split the wood. That MP Seax is bad, I just got a Bush Seax from AA forge, my first from him. Nice long straight edge to it.
Thanks man. Yeah, I regret selling that one... It was nice. Oh well, I now have this beautiful custom Seax to dry my tears with...
Dry your tears with that you wind up looking like the guy from Pink Floyds "The Wall"! I just like whittling so my try sticks just let me get a feel for how a knife cuts. I just never considered taking a picture of them.
From the sales thread I got it from- Tapatalk_1474081048116 by Grog posted Sep 16, 2016 at 9:59 PM 3/16" 52100 convex, 5" blade, 4 3/4" handle. Very purty.
That's freaking sweet. I've been close to trying one of his knives for a while. He makes some badass stuff. Actually the knife on the way to your house is made by his brother.
Yep, been following those fellas for a while. Not that I'm chomping at the bit for the Grey Wolf knife or anything.... Cannot wait!
Hey I don't blame you. I try to have patience but I'm still like a kid waiting for Christmas every time a package goes out!
I think it's just to demonstrate various cuts used in bushcraft. We did them with RB at the SoCal class years ago.
It's just a practice piece. Better to get used to making the cuts and and the mistakes before you actually need them. By doing the Try Stick, you're building muscle memory and fixing the process into your mind for future reference. It's orders of magnitude better than simply reading about it in a book and hoping you'll remember it when the time comes. And it gives you something to whittle away the hours while you're sitting in camp. The better the cut, the bigger the bragging rights.
Never heard of this but I was playing with my Esee 3 several months back and carved many of these designs into a limb. Had no idea what I was doing besides passing time. Now I'll have to do another one
I've got to turn my email notifications back on, dangit. Try sticks are great for using a knife in weird configurations you may not think you'd need it for until, well, you may need to. The weird notches are great ways to find out how you can use a certain knife in different grips. My favorite is the rectangular notch through the stick, it really brings a knife's point design into light. I've never used most of those notches and cuts on anything but a try stick but they're great to get to know your way around all the things a knife can or cannot do.
