building a survival shellter

[stonewater]

My son and I love to 'practice' our skills. he had been begging me to build a "survival shelter" together. we have a big apple tree out back and next to it is our burn pile from the fruit trees we prune every year. it is full of mostly long thin branches, my apple trees put out long risers every year, I prune every other to give me a good supply of small branches for making things.... anyway we decided to look thru a few books and settled on building an a frame style shelter, one end of the center spine up against the apple tree, the other on the ground, with branckes leaning against the spine.

so I want to emphasis that the pile of wood aleready stacked neatly was about 15 feet away from the build site, I used my weed eater to clear the ground, and was intending to cover it with the tarp in our bug out bags.

the simple act of finding suitable branches of the right diameter, cutting these down with a pair of gardens shears (corona brand, also part of our gear, 15 dollars from home depot) which I find indespensible for small projects, it still took almost 3 hours start to finish. I did not even do the pile up the leaves for insulation part of it.


it may seem like a long time, and it was much longer than I thought it would take, and even when I was done I was not happy with the results. remember I did not have to trudge thru the forest looking for downfall, or cutting branches from trees with my folding saw.

so practice your skills, it will come in handy, especially these seemingly simple things.

stonewater;)

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Excellent!! Thumbs up!
It's something on our list of things to do/practice
I'd like to see some pics

[610Alpha]

@stonewater - great example!! plus some quality time with your son...PRICELESS!!

Would a hatchet worked easier than the shears (are they 2 handed shears)? I just wonder if a hatchet would have made it faster is all.

Good point about not having to trudge through the woods looking for your building material, that would probably have added to your time.

[EX121]

Good job, pictures please. When I used to teach this stuff, I would try to get the students to gather all of the stuff first. 2-4 hours start to finish is a good time. It is nearly impossible to make one of these waterproof using only natural materials. The best I have done for weather-proof is spruce boughs on a deadfall in the winter time, built while is was snowing, so that the snow covered everything. One thing to remember is only build as little as you need. Meaning don't expend more energy building a shelter than you will get from the shelter. If you can just 'burrito role' in the tarp and get by for a short time ok. But for a semi-permament campsite the type of shelter you built will probably give you more return for your effort.
Survival is all about balance food intake = energy out-put, water intake = output and etc.
Sorry didn't mean to hijack your thread.

[stonewater]

thanks!!

wow guys, did not expect the great response, yes I will upload some pics real soon.

@EX121
this shelter will double as a "fort" for him, he loves building stuff so we are going to go back and add a bit here and there, (dakota firepit, a little candle lantern he built, some other fun stuff) but as of now it is water resistant, has a piece of the silver tarp on the ground and over it. he wanted to sleep in it last night, but we did not have time to get him situated and truthfully I did not want to sleep outside on the ground next to him :)

@610 Alpha,
2 handed shears would work better, or perhaps a hatchet, but I want something in my sons b.o.b. he can use and wont lose any fingers !! these give you nice mechanical advantage and can cut up to 1/2 inch sticks fairly well. the bigger stuff (spine and a couple of others) I did do with my folding camp saw, also an essential!! I carry a vietnam special forces designed tomahawk (trenchhawk) and a folding saw and a pair of shears. the hawk is composite handled, from cold steel, so the total weight is less than 3 lbs for all 3 items, the hawk works well for an entrenching tool also.

I cannot help but reccomend a tomahawk as part of a b.o.b. multiple uses, comes in very very handy!:p:p

Stonewater

[EX121]

That's great it will work well for him. It's nice that you have a place and the will to do stuff with your son. Very nice.

[stonewater]

so I went out to take some pics, we had a strong set of winds as a low pressure system blew thru... needless to say the tarp was blown off and the frame was toast. lesson one-plan for wind!! going to rebuild it next week, goin on vaca tomorrow to a conventon in idaho.

stonewater

[stonewater]

so to continue on with this "showing my son some stuff" I decided we would try each day to build different types of fires, (teepee, box, etc,) to see which type of fire needed the least amount of attention, and using different types of kindling, and firestarting methods. so far for kindling we have used the white firestarter you get in little foil packs, dryer lint balls dipped in wax, standard ground fodder, (leaves really small twigs, etc) cotton balls in vasaline, magnesium and what I think works really well, 10 wooden matches dipped in wax individually then bundled together with a piece of kite string. as for ignition sources, we have used storm matches, regular matches, flint and steel, and we will be doing a firebow soon, have all the materials.

I can say i really liked the fire that was build in a box style, 4 large logs, the 4 smaller logs perpendicular to the first, then up and up until you get to the tinder and firestarter. more of a pyramid really, stacked correctly, it burned for over an hour without having to touch it once it was started.

as for firestarters, they all performed well. the nice thing about the lint ball is you could spin it to a point then light it and set it in the kindling, it was hard to light with the magnesium but enough mag in a pile of dried leaves does the trick. I still need to try my charcloth.

www.royal rangers .org
stonewater

[WILL]

Great dirt time for you and your boy. It's a good lesson you learned- that time and energy is used in bushcraft efforts. Those are two commodities you probably don't have in a bug out, so bringing the appropriate gear is important. The skills are excellent in case you get seperated from the gear.