Survival Trekking Stick+Knife+Spear+Bow+Fishing Rod & Compass

Introduction:

My elder brother and his friends do lot of trekking tours, almost at every weekend they plan to explore new places. Mostly they plan to visit forts because they all are devotees of “Shree Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj” who have built more than 250 forts (over the mountains) in our region.

They generally carry fruits and ready to eat food. Essential items they carry are knife, lighter that’s all. But to climb mountain (almost every fort is located at mountain) everyone needs a strong bamboo stick.

Bamboo stick have two uses 1)to assist climbing 2) For protection from wild animals (mostly monkeys). Once my brother’s friend was attacked by a monkey and that friend don’t have stick and his knife was in his bag pack. So from that incident I was thinking about making a folding “all in one” bamboo stick which will carry all essentials things. I design a basic version first and then modify it as per need. I made this stick in two parts so we can easily carry in our bag also try to keep total weight is about 200 Grams. Once stick assembles then it can convert into spear, bow and a fishing rod. It has knife very handy and a compass to check direction whenever you want.

As usual i am using material which is easily available. these are not detail pictures, but you will see all in next steps.

1. 3/4 “ PVC pipe - 32” long

2. ½”PVC pipe- 08” long,

3. Bamboo (for making strips)- 32” long

4. Epoxy glue (I used Bondtite)

5. Angle grinder- (Optional)

6. ½” dia compass

7. Fishing thread

8. Wooden coupling(details given below)

9. Old hacksaw blade or good knife

10. Some rubber bands, cloth pins, paper clips

I am not a professional knife maker but believe that we can easily convert any metal piece to knife. Here I made knife from old hacksaw blade. This blade is 1/16” thick and 1.5” wide. First I cut it along length and give knife shape with angle grinder. I kept hacksaw blade teethes as it is, they don’t have any use but just add nice look to knife. Then sharp it with angle grinder and then add a bamboo handle (1” dia).

Hacksaw blades are extremely hard due to its carbon content. They are not ideal for survival knife as they are brittle. But if we keep its length short (I kept here around 7”) then they don’t break easily if fall on hard surface.

For stick we can use bamboo itself but I want to add a bow function to “trekking stick” so I decide to make stick from composite material. Inner core is a made from stiff PVC tube (1” OD) and outer cover is from bamboo strips. My brothers height is 5’8” so I select stick size 3’2”(find out with trial and error, it’s a minimum length require to walk comfortably for 5’8” high person).

For making bamboo strips, cut bamboo in half and continue cutting till you get ¼” wide strips. Clean all buds and inner useless core. Now with help of epoxy resin stick all bamboo strips around PVC pipe. I have used O4 full length main strips and then short strips to cover PVC pipe.

Due to its composite design I have lot of free space for storage and its weight also reduced. I believe Its strength also enhanced compare to normal bamboo stick.

Knife will assemble in top portion. So any time we can use it as it is always present in hand. For spear arrangement I have to make strong coupling arrangement so I make a small threaded piece which will bond at handle’s end. I also installed a small compass in threaded end.Knife installation

Knife will assemble in top portion. So any time we can use it as it is always present in hand. For spear arrangement I have to make strong coupling arrangement so I make a small threaded piece which will bond at handle’s end. I also installed a small compass in threaded end.

Detachable is proper word but anyway I will use “folding” word. To make it separable we need to cut our stick in half (at 21”).

I have designed two joining processes

1. A threaded coupling

2. Hollow sleeve coupling

I have tried both, but for now I will show you “metal threaded coupling” and in my next version I will update it to “hollow sleeve”.

You can see pictures of metal coupling, it is two part coupling, each part accommodate “stick’s” one end. Coupling is made from MS piece of 50 mm dia. Threads are M16. Its weight is 130 grams.

We have already installed knife at top, to attach knife handle to stick we already provided ½” NPT threaded piece to handle. So I installed threaded nut at bottom of stick.

To make spear just remove knife and attach at bottom of stick with thread.

Its only contraption bow, but still we can make use of it. i attached two wire loops at each end,I kept some measured thread in stick and also did thread installation arrangement to stick by providing hooks. Just added small loops at each end which will hold thread. There is some space for arrows if you want to keep them. And with same thread and some extra thread we can make a fishing rod.

Keep lures, baits at storage space.

My main aim was keeping project size (length and weight) minimum as possible. I measure weight and its come 210 grams, and it requires storage space of 16” length and 2.5” dia.

This is very basic idea, and there is more to do with it.

Thanks for reading, please feel free to comment if you have any suggestions.

And if you feel my work deserve your vote then please vote for this.

#Happy making.