5 Best Axe and Knife Skills For Bushcraft and Survival

A good knife and axe are probably the two most foundational tools in any bushcraft or survival kit. Each is incredibly versatile in the right hands. But they’re both useless if you don’t know how to get the most out of them.

While there is a lot out there on how to use a knife or axe in the woods, I feel the following five tips are the most practical. I’ve used each at backcountry hunting camps, and some have even kept me from freezing to death. Add these skills to your mental toolkit and practice them at home before striking off into the wilderness.

1) Splitting Logs With a Small Axe or Knife

Small axes don’t seem as though they could split a big log, but it’s easy if you know what you’re doing. First, you want to bury the axe blade toward the edge of the log, not the middle. The axe head should be so deep that you can pick the log and axe up by the axe handle.

Next, hoist the log over your shoulder while still holding onto the axe handle. Drive the log and axe down onto your chopping block in one motion, dropping the two on the back of the axe head first. The weight of the log should be enough to split the whole thing.

If you find yourself in the woods without a chopping block, find a sturdy dead tree lying on the ground. Lean-cut firewood about 5 inches in diameter on the fallen tree with one end of the wood on the ground. Then, step around the tree onto the opposite side of the firewood. Spread your legs and swing down with the axe while bending at the knees. Drive the axe into the side of the firewood log to split it.

If you only have a knife, you can still split small logs using the baton technique. Place the blade of the knife on one end of the wood as the wood rests on a hard surface. Then, get another short piece of wood about 2 inches thick and baton the blade into the log. You want the blade to be longer than the width of the wood you’re trying to split so you can continue batoning the blade until it’s all the way through.

2) Cut Kindling

Dry kindling can be a hard thing to find in the woods, especially in wet environments. But most dead-standing trees are full of dry wood at their centers. Using the techniques above, split bigger logs into more manageable pieces and reserve the driest parts for kindling.

With an axe, you can break these pieces down even further. The worst way to do this is to use one hand to hold the wood while you bring the axe down to split it. Instead, you can use one of two techniques and keep all five of your fingers. One is to hold the kindling you want to split with another piece of kindling. The other is to lay the kindling down sideways on a fallen log with the blade of the axe resting on the kindling. Lift the axe and kindling together, then bring it down hard on the log to split it.

If you need to make kindling with your knife, just use the baton method described above. It’s easy to control to get very small pieces of firewood.

3) Make a Draw Knife

You can turn any bushcraft knife into a draw knife for scraping bark or putting points on sticks. Start by sawing a round log about 2 inches in diameter into a 4-inch section. Find a hard, flat surface like a rock or a larger log and hammer the point of your knife into the small 4-inch log with a big stick. You now have a blade with two handles. Just make sure that the blade’s point is firmly in the wood and don’t apply too much pressure to your homemade handle; otherwise, it might slip, and you could cut yourself.

4) Start a Fire

With a pile of kindling and firewood, you need a way to start a fire. The best I’ve found without access to paper and matches is to use my knife and a ferrocerium rod. The blade of the knife can be used to scrape the rod and get a spark, but a knife with a squared-off spine is better. It will let you strike out sparks without dulling your knife.

Sparks won’t catch large pieces of wood or sticks on fire. That’s why you need to make some tinder, and your knife is the perfect tool for the job. Make what’s called a feather stick by pushing a sharp knife down the edge of a split piece of kindling. Make extremely shallow cuts in the wood so that it curls into “feathers.” Once you have a pile of curls, take the squared-off spine of the blade and scrape the raw edge of the kindling, producing fine wood dust. This dust will take a spark better than the wood curls.

When striking a spark from a ferro rod, don’t move the knife blade. When moving the blade, it’s easy to brush against the pile of tinder, scattering it all over the place. Instead, pull the ferro rod back against the knife’s spine. It will be much more controlled this way and will let you start a fire faster.

5) Navigate the Woods

Learning map and compass skills or using a GPS are both great for getting around off-grid. But you might end up in a situation where you don’t have either. If you’re going to do some exploring away from camp, or you’re lost and absolutely need to move (it’s always best to stay put when you’re lost), you can use a knife or axe to help find your way back to camp.

Using the broad edge of either blade, shave the bark from a tree at about eye level to make a blaze. Make blazes on the side of the tree you’re coming from and the side of the tree in the direction you're headed. You’ll know it’s time to make a new blaze when you can barely see the last one you made.

By noting your direction of travel with your blazes, you can find your way to and from camp in otherwise featureless terrain. This technique might also give rescuers some clues as to where you are if you’re lost in the woods.

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