If you’ve read some of our previous knife reviews, such as the TOPS Hazen Legion 6.0 and the White River Firecraft FC5, you’ll probably recognize the word micarta. This term refers to a composite material that’s often used on knife handles and gun grips. Some types of micarta have a marbled appearance with light and dark layers, while others appear as a single solid color. Micarta is also known for its ability to absorb moisture, so it can provide a secure grip even if your hands are wet or sweaty. So, what exactly is this material?
Micarta is technically a brand name and registered trademark of Norplex-Micarta, but much like Kleenex tissues and the Thermos insulated water bottle, it has sometimes been used in a generic sense to describe a category of composites. These composites are formed from densely-packed layers of fabric suspended in thermosetting plastic (a.k.a. resin or epoxy). Micarta can be made from linen, canvas, denim, paper, carbon fiber, or just about any other fabric by stacking multiple layers and using pressure to impregnate these layers with resin.
In the following video, YouTube channel M.N. Projects shows how to make a DIY fixed-blade knife with denim micarta handle scales. The scales are literally just a pair of old blue jeans, cut into rectangles, brushed with epoxy, and pressed into a wood form using a bench vise and C-clamps. These scales are then pinned onto the knife, and sanded down using a dremel and sandpaper. If you’ve got a workshop at home and some basic power tools, this is something that wouldn’t be too hard to accomplish — these scales could give your old knife a new look and improve grip in wet conditions.
The thirst is all-consuming as you lurch forward through the parched sand and loose rock of the desert canyon. You’re lost, having ventured off the hiking trail miles ago. You have only half of a bottle of water left. Stopping under the unmerciful sun, you examine the bottle as if you were studying some precious jewel. Your body knows what it needs. But your mind says, “No! I have to save it!” You’re not sure why, but somehow it seems too precious to waste, too valuable to use right now. So, you put the bottle back into your bag and continue stumbling forward, hoping to magically find a flowing stream in this barren land.
The Myth: We’re often told that if we’re out on a strenuous hike, holed up at home because of a storm, or stranded in the middle of nowhere, we should ration our water. But does that strategy hold water when you’re in a sweltering desert?
The Reality: Human beings are adaptable creatures. We’re capable of surviving on a lot less than you might expect, and there are plenty of examples of this. In 1981, a young sailor survived for 76 days in a small life raft in the Atlantic. During the final month of his ordeal, he carefully rationed his collected rain water — just one pint a day. He made it, surviving to tell his tale. And perhaps it’s because of stories like this one — tales that linger in the pop culture consciousness — that the notion of rationing water in all types of emergencies is so widespread.
But the physical needs of a sedentary sailor lying in a damp rubber raft and someone walking through a waterless desert are quite different indeed.
In comfortable surroundings, an inactive adult usually needs about 2 quarts a day. In a dry climate emergency that includes exertion, the need may jump from quarts to gallons. High heat, low humidity, and dry winds can steal the water from your body quickly and in a way you won’t really notice — until things get serious.
Dehydration can lead to diminished strength and motor skills, sluggish cognitive abilities, extreme tiredness, and ultimately death. We may need to be at peak performance to accomplish the tasks of survival in tough desert conditions, and we simply can’t afford to work at a diminished capacity. Take a lesson from the humble yet ornery camel. In these harsh situations, the best place to store your water is in your body, not in your canteen.
Alternative Uses: You may not be able to get more drinking water in a survival situation, but you can always take steps to limit your water loss. Consider these other techniques:
Dress the Part: When traveling through hot climates, wear light-colored shirts with long sleeves, long pants, and a wide hat. It might seem counterintuitive considering the heat, but keep as much skin covered as possible, even your face. This limits your skin exposure to the sun, keeping you cooler — and it helps to hold in moisture. Ideally, you should wear cotton clothing in the day time, as cotton fibers will hold your sweat longer than other fabrics and help to preserve any perspiration and the moisture in your skin. Just make sure you have a dry change of clothes for nighttime, as the temperature can plummet in the desert at night (and wet clothing can chill you).
Go With the Flow: If possible, limit or avoid activity at the hottest part of the day. Walk, climb, or work in the early morning or late evening (or at night, if you have a light source), and rest in a shady place during the heat of the day.
Get Radical: Save water early and often. Don’t wait until you’re almost dead from dehydration to start implementing water-saving survival techniques. Breathe only through your nose, since mouth breathing causes unnecessary water loss. And when things get really dire, pee on your clothing to cool yourself down and keep your skin hydrated. Don’t suck on buttons or stones to keep your mouth moist. There’s no water in them — duh! — and they represent a choking hazard if you lose consciousness.
The Premise: Want to learn how to defend yourself in unarmed combat? If this is the case, Krav Maga Tactical Survival: Personal Safety in Action might just be what the doctor ordered. This comprehensive volume delivers knowledge on surviving many violent situations — from barroom brawls to parking lot beat-downs (and many others in-between).
The 411: The author, Gershon Ben Keren, is a fifth-degree black belt in Krav Maga and a second-degree black belt in judo. He also holds a master’s degree in psychology and has performed academic research on violence against women. He currently runs Krav Maga Yashir Boston, a training facility in Massachusetts’ capital.
What’s Krav Maga? Is that what you dip into your hummus? Nope, it’s the official combatives system for the Israel Defense Forces. The techniques and concepts of this system have been pressure-tested again and again, on battlefields and in urban environments. Krav Maga (which translates to “contact combat”) was founded by Imi Lichtenfeld in the late ’30s. Today, Krav Maga incorporates elements of boxing, Thai boxing, jujutsu, aikido, judo, and good ol’ fashioned street fighting.
Krav Maga Tactical Survival is Keren’s second book. It’s broken down into four parts: strikes and blocks; weapons defense — namely against firearms and knives; unarmed assaults; and throws and takedowns. He promises no crossover techniques from his first book, Krav Maga: Real World Solutions to Real World Violence.
The Verdict: The pages are thick and the pictures colorful and clear. Unlike many martial arts how-to books photographed in a dojo, the pictures are staged at real locations, highlighting the gravity of close-quarter conflicts.
An exhaustive quantity of violent situations are covered. You could get into a fight every week for the rest of your life and still not encounter all the scenarios described.
Situational awareness is analyzed throughout the book. Awareness of your surroundings belongs in every personal protection manual because that skill, more than anything else, will save your hide. Improvised weapons are also examined, such as smashing a ceramic plate and using the jagged edges for cutting.
Another unique feature rarely seen in other self-defense books is how to employ situational awareness to spoil the assailant’s weapon draw. Why wait for the weapon to come out? Well Keren doesn’t. Instead he shows the steps to dish out punishment while keeping the attacker’s weapon sheathed.
Krav Maga Tactical Survival is first-class in its genre, so the following critiques are relatively minor.
As mentioned, the book presents numerous techniques, making it difficult for beginners to sort out common attacks from the less-likely assaults. As you train for self-defense, consider spending the majority of training time on common attack scenarios. For example, it doesn’t make sense to dedicate an equal amount of time drilling a common right haymaker attack as you would with an uncommon knife-threat-from-behind abduction scenario.
Also, many of the savage strikes shown in the first section are never seen again. The hammer fist, elbow strikes, cradle throat strike, and the humble bite are all proven techniques in street fights. Yet, they receive little page real estate during the force-on-force scenarios.
Despite the minor criticisms, Krav Maga Tactical Survival is hard to beat (pun intended). It represents a solid combatives manual and undoubtedly stands alone in a crowded genre. We bet reading Keren’s first book, along with this sequel, will give you more (self-defense) tools than your local Home Depot.
Krav Maga Tactical Survival: Personal Safety in Action
The Amazon rainforest is well-known as one of the last bastions of unexplored wilderness on earth. There are still regions of its deep jungle which harbor native tribes who have had little to no contact with the modern world. It’s also an incredibly difficult environment to survive in — millions of square miles of dense vegetation, harsh terrain, constant moisture, and countless poisonous or venomous species. Even for experienced survivalists, overcoming the Amazon is a serious challenge.
A new movie, Jungle with Daniel Radcliffe, tells the true story of four men who entered the Bolivian rainforest, only to learn firsthand how difficult it can be to survive there. The men remained in the jungle for three weeks with only basic supplies, and tragically, some of them never made it out.
Radcliffe plays the role of Yossi Ghinsberg, a 21-year-old adventurer who had decided to travel the world after serving in the Israeli military. The film is based on the book Ghinsberg wrote to tell how he escaped alive, Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Survival. Check out the trailer for Jungle below:
If you’re interested in hearing more about this true survival story, watch the video below to hear it in Ghinsberg’s own words:
Even if you’re an expert hunter and have months of shelf-stable food reserves stockpiled for emergencies, it’s important to supplement your diet with freshly-grown fruits and vegetables. Home gardening is a great way to produce spinach, peas, tomatoes, herbs, or berries right in your own backyard. These items can add an immense amount of flavor and nutrients to your meals, whether you’re surviving the apocalypse or simply trying to make less trips to the grocery store.
Some people assume home gardening requires a large plot of land, complex irrigation system, and expensive equipment for tilling the fields, but it’s nowhere near that difficult. In fact, one of the most effective methods for growing at home doesn’t even require any soil. Hydroponics uses a water reservoir, suspended grow tray, and low-energy circulation pump to grow fruits and vegetables in a controlled environment. When paired with grow lights, it can even be done indoors or in a dark garage or shed.
Any time you’re having a discussion about difficult choices, the desert island scenario is likely to come up. You know the one — If you were a castaway on a tiny island with a single movie to watch and no other forms of entertainment, which one would you pick? We’re not really sure what remote island would have a big-screen TV, electricity, and a Blu-Ray player, but that’s beside the point. The point is to think long and hard about your choice, because you’d have to live with it for a long time, maybe even forever.
“I only get to pick ONE movie?!” Photo: 20th Century Fox
This got us thinking: what if you really were trapped on a desert island, but instead of choosing a movie or music album, you had to choose your only survival tool? At first thought, that might sound like an easy choice — but hear us out and read the scenario below before jumping to conclusions. After reading the background info and additional resources, you’ll be able to select either a knife with fire-starter or water desalinator in the poll at the end of this article.
Photo: Alessandro Caproni / Flickr
In case you’ve missed our previous installments of Survival Scenarios, here’s how it works. We ask you how you’d handle a difficult choice in a hypothetical survival situation. Previously, we asked if you’d rather be snowed-in or snowed-on in a fierce blizzard, or whether you’d bug out or stay put in a panicked stampede on New Year’s Eve. As always, today’s post ends with a poll where you can make your choice, and see how others felt about the scenario.
Background Info
Before you decide what survival tool you’d prefer, we’ll provide some essential background info. The setting is a small uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean, part of a remote coral atoll. The island is mostly barren, aside from scattered palm trees and salt-water-tolerant low-lying vegetation.
No fresh water source is present, and the entire land mass is less than half a square mile. The only animal life present on the island appears to be a handful of seabirds, a healthy population of rats, and whatever marine life you can find in the clear waters or on the beach. The good news is that the climate is above 80°F year-round unless a tropical storm rolls in (not an uncommon occurrence).
You ended up on this island while on a week-long sailing trip with your good friend Philippe, a wealthy retiree and experienced sailor. Three days into the trip, you spotted the island and decided to go ashore and enjoy some solid ground. Philippe said he’d stay behind and anchor the sailboat, so you hopped into the inflatable dinghy and paddled to the beach. After about 30 minutes of walking around, you pushed your way back through the vegetation to find the dinghy — but the sailboat wasn’t where it had been. It had shrunk to almost a speck in the distance.
At this point, you have no idea what happened, or why your trusted friend would leave you behind. You can’t believe it could be intentional, but you also can’t think of any other explanation, aside from some sort of catastrophic medical issue that caused him to lose control of the boat. Knowing you couldn’t possibly paddle far or fast enough to catch the boat, you stand on the beach and watch as it slowly disappears on the horizon.
You’re not sure if anyone is coming to look for you — at least not any time soon. Your friends back home know you headed out with Philippe, but no one knows the exact route you took, and no one expects you back for at least a week. You could be stuck on this sandy beach for days, or much longer.
Gear and Resources
This situation completely blindsided you, so you’ve got virtually zero useful gear. On your person, you have nothing but the clothes on your back — cargo shorts, a T-shirt, a baseball cap, and canvas boat shoes. Your pockets are empty; all your emergency gear was on the sailboat. You recall some miscellaneous garbage washed up on the shore of the island, but nothing overly useful (no anthropomorphic volleyballs, either).
The dinghy appears empty aside from the paddles you used to get ashore and a tattered duffel bag with some dock rope. However, upon closer inspection, you see that the duffel bag contains one of the following two survival tools:
A small hand-pump reverse osmosis water desalinator
Either one of these tools would give you a major head start on surviving the unknown amount of time you’ll be stuck on this island. Read on for some of the potential advantages and disadvantages of each choice.
Survival Knife & Ferro Rod
Technically this could be considered two tools, but it’s fairly common to see survival knives packaged with a sheath and ferrocerium rod fire starter. You’re lucky enough to have both.
As you probably already know, a sturdy fixed-blade knife is one of the most valuable survival tools money can buy. On the island, it’ll permit you to chop wood for a campfire, carve simple traps to catch rats or birds, and even spear-fish in the surrounding waters.
If you choose, you can also use your knife to slice up the inflatable dinghy and scavenge its synthetic rubber skin to build a shelter or other tools (we’ll get back to this). The ability to build a waterproof shelter will be especially important if a tropical storm hits the island, since you’d end up drenched and miserable without it.
The ferro rod will enable fire-starting with relative ease. Just strike the rod with your knife and shower a bundle of palm tree bark and other dry tinder with sparks to get a fire going. Considering the warm tropical weather, you probably won’t need the fire for heat, but you can still use it to create a smoke signal for rescue or to cook any food you catch on land or in the sea.
The knife and fire-starter provide the ability to make almost everything you need easily — with the glaring exception of drinkable water. Since we know that drinking seawater is always a bad idea, and that boiling seawater will only increase its salinity, the only hope to get a drink is to catch rainwater or desalinate (remove the salt from) seawater. In order to desalinate seawater, you have a few options:
Scavenge the beach for a vessel to boil seawater in (via fire or hot rocks), and a second vessel to catch and condense the steam, forming a rudimentary distiller
Make a solar still using scavenged plastic or sheets of rubber cut from the dinghy
With the knife and ferro rod, finding drinkable water will be your biggest struggle, but not an insurmountable task if you’re clever and patient.
Water Desalinator
On the other hand, you could choose the portable desalinator, and have no trouble finding water to stay hydrated.
An emergency device like the Katadyn Survivor 06 requires no batteries or fuel, and is operated with a manual pump to produce more than 6 gallons of drinkable water per day. These desalination devices pass seawater through a reverse-osmosis membrane, eliminating about 98% of the dissolved salts and rendering the water safe to drink.
With the desalinator, you wouldn’t need to search for materials or build a still — you’d have a indefinite source of clean water as long as the pump remained operational. Katadyn doesn’t list an exact lifespan for its Survivor 06 desalinator, but says it should have “many years of trouble-free operation” when used according to the instructions. Since clean water is one of the top priorities for survival, this is a huge advantage.
Unfortunately, by choosing the desalinator, you’ll have no cutting tool and no quick source of fire. Chopping down trees to build a shelter will be tricky, although you could invert the dinghy and sleep underneath that. Any other cutting will need to be done with a sharpened rock or shell. Spear fishing and carving traps will become much harder.
As for fire-starting, you’ll be back to primitive methods. You could try starting a friction fire or making a bow drill, but palm trees and tropical shrubs don’t normally produce the hard and straight twigs that are conducive to these tasks. If you’re unable to get a fire going, you run the risk of becoming ill from eating raw meat, and will be unable to send a clear smoke signal to passing vessels.
The Decision
Considering these advantages and disadvantages, which tool would you rather have for desert island survival: a knife with ferro rod fire-starter, or a hand-pump water desalinator? Enter your decision into the poll below, and feel free to justify that choice in the comments section.
Survival Scenarios is a recurring feature on OFFGRIDweb.com, and will ask you to make a difficult choice between two or more hypothetical situations.
We don’t just want you to read our posts silently—we want to hear what you have to say. Share your thoughts or suggestions in the comments below, or head over to our Facebook page.
When you’re out in the backcountry, a durable water-tight container is a top priority for survival. Even a simple cup or jug will permit you to carry and store water to stay hydrated, rather than being forced to seek out a lake or stream every time you’re thirsty. Better yet, if the container is fire-proof, you can use it for cooking and boiling. This in turn helps prevent serious illness from water-borne pathogens.
Most of us think ahead and carry a metal canteen or bottle as part of our survival kits, but what can you do if you’re stuck in the wilderness without a container? One answer is to consider traditional or so-called primitive methods. Civilizations around the world have been making pottery for millenia, and forming water-tight and fireproof vessels from simple clay.
The following 4-minute short film, Earth and Fire by Solpin Films, shows how primitive pottery-maker Kelly Magleby used traditional Anasazi techniques to produce a wide array of clay vessels.
The Anasazi were a Native American tribe thought to be the ancestors of the modern Pueblo tribe. The group inhabited Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona from about A.D. 200 to 1300. So, Magleby headed out into the backcountry of southern Utah with a knife and buckskin to use the same resources the ancient Native Americans did. After 10 days, she had produced the Anasazi-style pottery seen here:
While most of us wouldn’t go so far as making dye and brushing intricate designs onto the pottery in a survival situation, it’s still an impressive skill. In the days long before mass-produced plastic bottles and metal canteens, these Native Americans used natural materials to create beautiful and functional containers.
These methods are equally effective today, so next time you’re outdoors, consider experimenting with river clay on the campfire — or at least don’t take your bottle for granted.
The amazingly cheesy 1988 cult classic film They Liveproduced what is arguably one of the most memorable one-liners in all of movie history: “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass… and I’m all out of gum.” According to lead actor “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, the line wasn’t even in the script — he ad-libbed it on set.
Piper’s character had no problem kicking ass without any bubblegum, but there’s scientific evidence to indicate that he might’ve had an even easier time with it. Believe it or not, several recent peer-reviewed studies have shown that chewing gum has a proven association with “higher productivity and fewer cognitive problems”. Even if you’re not hunting down evil aliens, there’s strong evidence to suggest that chewing gum can help you focus, relax, and accomplish more.
Whether you’re bored at work or trying to cope with a chaotic survival situation, popping in a piece of chewing gum can give you a measurable advantage. Here are a few of the cognitive benefits of chewing gum, as mentioned in this study from the U.S. National Library of Medicine:
Enhanced alertness
Improved memory and reduced cognitive errors
Sustained attention span
Quickened reaction time
Reduced feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression
In addition to these psychological benefits, the American Dental Association states that chewing sugar-free gum can protect the teeth and reduce the risk of cavities. Scientific evidence also suggests that chewing gum significantly suppresses hunger, so if you’re not able to stop for a snack, it’s a good way to stay on task. The foil wrappers can also be combined with a AA battery and used as an improvised fire-starter.
Your empty gum wrappers can be re-purposed into a simple fire-starting tool.
Considering all these reasons, you might want to think about adding a pack of gum to your survival kit if you haven’t already. If you find yourself in the backwoods without gum, check out our previous article about how to make natural spruce pitch chewing gum. Now go chew gum and kick ass.
Your clothing, like any other type of gear you own, is heavily dependent on your surroundings. You wouldn’t wear high-top combat boots to a wedding, and you’d get equally strange looks if you wore a suit and tie on a weekend hike in the woods. Selecting the right apparel helps you fit in with your surroundings, but also provides flexibility and comfort for hard use.
For those of us who need to adhere to an office dress code, or those who simply want to wear something a little more formal than a T-shirt, the polo shirt is the go-to choice. It fits in in urban environments, and exhibits a polished and professional look without the need for long sleeves or snag-prone buttons.
However, many polo shirts from big-box retail stores tend to be loose-fitting, and turn into an uncomfortable sponge if you get sweaty. This is where moisture-wicking fabrics make a huge difference. They breathe better, dry faster, and are often far more flexible than ordinary cotton.
Triple Aught Design (TAD) has released a new polo shirt for active pursuits. It’s called the Caliber Polo, and it’s made in the USA from Polartec Power Dry fabric. This high-tech material uses a bi-component knit to create a natural wicking action that draws moisture away from the skin. It’s said to dry twice as fast as 100% cotton and stay 30% drier than other single-component fabrics.
The fabric also has “Polygiene odor control technology that prevents the growth of bacteria and fungi using low concentrations of recycled silver salt.” That might sound like black magic, but silver salt has been scientifically proven to inhibit bacterial growth on treated fabrics (and therefore limit unpleasant odors).
The TAD Caliber Polo has a slim athletic fit, and is available in three colors, pictured above from left to right: Crater (light gray), Tarmac (green), and Deception (dark gray). It’s available now at an MSRP of $70. For more information on the Caliber Polo, go to TripleAughtDesign.com.
In survival situations, you might be forced to put aside your sense of disgust and eat foods that seem unappetizing in order to stay alive. Many of us would struggle to stomach questionable or potentially-expired food, but there’s one person who certainly won’t have any difficulty with the challenge: Steve1989. The host of this YouTube channel tests old and obscure MREs from around the world, and never seems phased by mold, dead insects, and decomposition of all sorts as he taste-tests these meals.
We previously wrote about Steve’s experience with a 1952 Food Packet MRE, but in a recent video Steve ups the ante yet again with the oldest MRE he has featured to date. He managed to obtain a sealed 1943 U.S. Army K Ration Dinner Unit, which he unboxes and tastes in the video below. Yes, you read that right — he actually eats a 74-year-old MRE.
“I hope that’s not bug droppings… I don’t think it’s supposed to look like that.”
Nevertheless, Steve tears open the box and starts snacking. This particular ration included a tin of “processed American cheese with bacon” which degenerated into a crusty brown hockey puck — Steve’s response is “It actually doesn’t look as bad as I expected it to.”
There are also cigarettes (standard in MREs of this era), gum, dextrose candy tablets, two kinds of biscuits, sugar cubes, and lemon drink mix. Steve tastes what doesn’t appear dangerously rancid, and even smokes the cigarette at the end of the video. If you’re wondering if your stomach could cope with this fossilized K ration, watch the video below. All we can say is we’re glad video cameras don’t record smells.
