Axe Usage
Ron W. Fox (RonWFox@AOL.COM)
Wed, 18 Oct 1995 08:42:46 -0400
In a message dated 95-10-16 09:10:44 EDT, Mike Murray writes:
>The best and safest way to sharpen an ax is to do it at home.
>A vice will hold one very well while you are sharpening it.
You need to practice sharpening an axe in the field if you expect to
be able to do it when you have to. Axes have been know to be dropped
on a rock, or be otherwise dulled through use or misuse.
>The best place for an ax on a campout is locked up. If
>you can't break the stick saw it with a bow saw.
And if there's been a downpour and you want to follow the
recommendation in the Fieldbook and Handbook to split a
larger log to use the middle as dry wood, you use what?
An impression that I have gotten as I have become re-integrated
into Scouting after about 20 years out is that few Scouts know how
to use an ax anymore. Is this due to a fear of injury? Or a lack of
need to use them?
To properly date myself, I didn't use a bow saw until I was 13 (~1965); until
then, cheap, readily packable bow saws didn't exist. Before then, if you
wanted firewood you'd go out in the woods, pick out a dead tree, cut it
down, remove the limbs, cut it into lengths, and split the larger logs with
an
axe. The smaller Scouts used a 3/4 axe, the larger Scouts a full one. Any
First Class Scout would be given this assignment without a second thought.
We never lost a Scout.
I realize full well that there are very good conservation-oriented reasons
why you don't go cutting down every dead tree you can find anymore. I
don't advocate that. But at our Lodge's last fellowship, I found myself on a
tree thinning crew. We were removing trees marked to be taken down for
various reasons. The Life Scout I was paired with had absolutely no clue how
to fell a tree. It never occurred to me until then that that was possible.
What
axe skills are needed for advancement these days?
Ron Fox
Cubmaster, Pack 69
Willow Springs, Ill.
Des Plaines Valley Council
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