(Slice of Wisdom) Next question comes from Eric Taylor. I'm
teaching wilderness survival for the Boy Scouts. It was my
favorite merit badge by the way. Speak for yourself,
I like air conditioning. I do too, which is why I don't go
camping in the summer typically. I have to say there were two
merit badges I took twice and wilderness survival was one of
them, not because I needed to pass it again, but because we
got to go out and camped overnight in a primitive
shelter, and I really enjoyed that. But anyway, back to our
question. I'm teaching wilderness survival for the Boy
Scouts. As always, the best knife in a survival situation is
one you have on you, of course, but I would rather teach the
motto be prepared. I would love a few fixed blade and folder
combos that work well together, and the outdoors teaching
survival. These are scouts so affordable options are
appreciated with a combo under $200. Thank you. I love this
question I had a lot of and I knew exactly the answer like
right away. First off, I think $200 is a bit ambitious. That's
not exactly affordable. I think for most people. Thinking back
to my time in the scouts, especially some of the families
you know, are more strapped for cash in that program than others
they're not going to be able to throw $200 at a pair of items.
So I'm going to scale this way back and make it much more
affordable. Still a little bit of money but not a lot. And what
you want is a Swiss army knife and a more affordable,
lightweight so they'll be able to take it you know hiking if
you go on a hiking trip with this stuff. And if they break
not the end of the world either. As far as the Swiss Army knife
to pick, there's a few favorites of kind of outdoors folks out
there. The farmer series with the Alox handles again thanks to
their more rugged construction is a favorite. The one hand
trekker is also a favorite, but I think both of those might be a
little more specialized. You have to know more about what
you're doing to use a farmer to the full extent I would say and
they're a little more expensive. Like I said and you know this is
not the one hand trekker but this is the same it shares the
frame with this particular knife might be a little big for the
task at hand. So the one I want to recommend here is like pulled
up here. The Huntsman really great model comes in at 38 bucks
so not too bad. And you can get it first of all in a few
different colors but I picked the translucent blue here
because blue is a great color to carry in the outdoors, even more
than orange in certain situations blue can actually be
easier to see in the wild because a bright vibrant blue
like this is actually pretty rare in nature. So good thing to
keep in mind when picking other gear as well. But this has a
great set of tools for the outdoors user. Again kind of
like the Tinker from earlier you get a pair of blades you get
larger one that can be used for general purpose maybe a little
bit of food prep, smaller one is great for detail work great for
whittling, which is a great boy scouts pastime. Beyond that any
outdoor swiss army knife you're gonna want a saw. They do a
really good job with these pocket saws. They are sharp,
they cut really well for their size. Definitely essential.
Beyond that you get a nice pair of scissors, great for all sorts
of things sorts of projects, other merit badges, you get your
cap lifter and your bottle opener or why do I always do
that? cap lifter bottle opener and can opener canned goods and
Boy Scouts I know I opened a lot of cans with one of these. Even
though that's less of a thing. Now a lot of a lot of things
have pull tabs on the back you have that parcel hook you also
have an all great for leatherworking and other craft
projects and Boy Scouts. Great for a nice crisp edge you can
use to strike fire steals and that sort of thing. Speaking of
which, you've also got the skirt or sorry the corkscrew on the
back which not advocating your boy scout aged kids go opening
bottles of wine with ease, but they're great for for untying
knots specially in like tight paracord but also those fire
starting things I mentioned earlier. This is two of the
pieces from the kit you can get from Victorinox right now the
fire ant set comes with three rods and six pieces of Tinder,
which is what this is right here. And this strikes just like
a ferro rod essentially. And because of the twist pattern
they put on these, they can actually live inside that
corkscrew. So you've got added functionality there without
taking up added space anywhere else. They fold that in so it
doesn't pop out so much. There you go. Nice vibrant colors look
pretty good on this as well. It's really good to have those
on hand just in case you need it quite honestly. And then of
course toothpick and tweezers. The tweezers on the Swiss Army
knives aren't like Get the most heavy duty on there, but they
can be used in a pinch for things like you know, tick
removal, that sort of thing.
Good backup set anyway for that sort of thing. With that, like I
said, you want to pair that with a Mora, and I'm a big fan. For
younger folks, especially the Pro Series, either the pro C or
Pro S. See for carbon s, for stainless, this is the pro see
right here. Some may lean and saying, you know, get a
stainless knife for the Boy Scout, they might not be taking
as good care of it. At that age. I kind of think the carbon is a
teaching tool to help them realize they need to take care
of some things a certain way. And very affordable 13 bucks for
this guy right now. The reason I like this over something like
the companion or over some of the other models are a few key
specs. One blade length is just under four inches, actually
about three and five eighths. So it's under a key, you know, a
key mark for certain areas in terms of blade length, very easy
to make that work anywhere, and you also have the very
aggressive finger guard right here. I think that's definitely
important for a survival scenario, but also very
important. For folks who may not be as versed with the tool, it's
just a little bit of added safety. Plus, because it comes
up straight perpendicular or perpendicular to the edge is a
little easier to sharpen than something like the companion
which has an angled handle. On that note about sharpening,
you've got two different grinds here between these two knives.
So you'll be able to teach a couple of different skills. The
Scandi is of course, regarded as being pretty easy to sharpen
because you can lay your flat bevel of the edge right on the
stone. Whereas the Swiss Army Knife is going to have a you
know what we consider anyway, a more conventional grind with the
flat profile and a secondary bevel. And rather than something
like a super steel that's going to have an edge that lasts a
long time, but then is really hard to sharpen the softer
simple stainless that Swiss Army that Victorinox uses on these
knives is going to be a much better teaching tool to get
those scouts to learn how to sharpen effectively because it's
not going to be difficult to do with this particular steel. But
these work exceptionally well. They're quite tough. I prefer
this over like the more robust which is the same shape but with
a thicker blade. Because this has a scandi grind which is not
the slice easiest grind in the world works great for wood
carving, and stuff out where you might need to be quote unquote
surviving. But it's also thin enough you could still do some
like food prep stuff with it if you needed to. Really really
solid thing here scheef also lightweight whole package very
light comes in I think well the knife itself is 2.9 ounces and
the sheath does not add much. It's got a good clip here with a
hook on the underside to keep it from sliding off. And these two
together before like tax and shipping or anything else 51
bucks. lot you can do with this like I said versatile beyond
just the the wilderness survival merit badge. solid solid set
right there. I did want to mention one more, a slightly
more expensive more and that's the Kansbol. They started about
$34 for the standard version, but this version right here for
about 53 bucks if the kid does have a little bit more money to
spend. Also a good option thanks to the added stuff that comes
with it. These are brand new right now you've got a survival
kit on the outside of the sheath that comes with a full size
firesteel and it also comes with a diamond sharpener here on the
side really nice and the knife itself very nice to you don't
get as much of a finger guard there's a little bit there and
the blade length is over four inches. So again, keep that in
mind before you decide to go this particular direction. But
another great knife you got that scandi grind thin enough where
it can slice scalloped here at the front so the belly section
is even better at the slicing and crisp spine on this
particular knife which you don't get on the proceed. Now that's
very popular with Bush crafters because you can strike a fire
steel with the spine a little bit of a more advanced technique
there too. It's not something I would necessarily recommend for
every boy scout out there. Which is why I don't think it's you
know that big of a deal breaker that the Proceed does not have
that particular feature. But again, something for you to keep
in mind. Really fun question. I really enjoyed that and I really
believe in that combo right there. I think it's gonna be
great 51 bucks, few more if you want to get the the fire starter
capability and to carry it along with really, really solid