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Today I review the Hooks Outdoors Buck Saw. A awesome mini version for your next bushcraft adventure.
Hooks Outdoors YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@hooksoutdoors8888/videos
Email to order a saw:
[email protected]
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In today's video we're going to be taking a look at a mini buck saw
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from Hooks Outdoors. Stick around, it's gonna be a good video. So recently I was at the Ohio Bushcraft meet, Central Ohio Bushcraft meet, a couple weeks ago
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and met up with a buddy of mine, Hooks Outdoors. He has a YouTube channel. You need to go check it
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out because he has some very cool stuff that he does. And what I like about his channel is it's a
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small channel but he does a lot of cool creative stuff, always a lot of good ideas. And I really
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love the smaller, you know, do-it-yourself guys on YouTube. They always have such great ideas and
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they deserve a lot more recognition than they actually get compared to all the the mega channels
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that are out there. And one thing that he has come up with, and he's always kind of coming up
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with these cool ideas, is he's built or assembled this mini buck saw kit. And he showed it to me
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and asked me what I thought and I said I was definitely intrigued. So he let me take this one
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home with me so I could get this out and we could test it and show you guys on my channel. Because
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I think it's going to be kind of a neat option for saws. Now of course so many saws out on the
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market, a lot of small folding saws like the Baco and the Silky, which I own. I have several Bacos
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and I've had a Silky before. I have a large Silky Gomboy and I love those saws. They're fantastic
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But buck saws are a very traditional kind of saw and there's some reasons why a buck saw sometimes
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makes more sense than a folding saw. We're going to kind of talk about that a little bit and see
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what you guys think. So let's get into it. Let's take this thing out of the bag and go over the
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components and then we'll put it together and we'll actually do some work with it and see what
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it does. So there's the saw kit. Comes in two options. There's an OD green canvas bag and an
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orange canvas bag. And of course it's got his logo stamped on there, which is that's pretty cool
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So then we open this up. It's got a nice straw string on it
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And we got our first dowel. So that's going to be one of the handles
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There's the second one. There's his logo in there. Like I said, he's putting these together. This is something he developed and he's building
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That's probably the center section. That is probably the center section. What he is using is a Bohac 12-inch replacement blade
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from Nicholson, which is that's a quality company saw blade and he's put split rings on the ends
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Right. And there's that's the the windlass. And the last piece is this. This is the cordage. Now a lot of bow saws that I see
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and of course improvised bow saws, guys will use 550 cord. And 550 cord, of course, is a fantastic
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piece of cordage. It's very multi-purpose, but it has issues. 550 cord has memory. And what that
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means is if you're winding it on something and putting tension on it and leaving it for a long
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period of time or even a short period of time, when you take that off, that cord will actually
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hold the shape and that will be the memory of where how it was used last. And that causes a
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lot of twists and issues with the cord. So what he has done, he's picked a nylon cordage that has
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no memory to it. So it's going to get good tension and it's going to be easy to work with. It's not
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going to tangle. It's not going to knot up. So let's put this thing together and see how it works
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All right, so the first thing we need to do is we need to get our saw blade out. So I think what
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I'll do is, so what we'll do is we'll remove the split ring on one end. Then I can slide out my
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saw blade. Maybe. It's in there pretty good. You're definitely going to want to retain
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the case or maybe make something of your own. Maybe add duct tape to it or whatever
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or create something. That way when you take this apart, you can store it
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And you really have to be careful with these saw blades. I mean, they are sharp and if you are not
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careful, they will slice you open. It's probably advisable to work with a pair of gloves, leather gloves
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So with the center dowel, you can see that it's equal distance from top to bottom. So it doesn't
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matter how that goes in, but you want to make sure that you have, of course, your slots for the
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blade on the same side. Flip that over. Now the blade is not going to stay in the way it is
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because there's no tension put on the dowels. So that's where the windlass comes in
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system comes in
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So it took a little bit. You have to twist the cordage on one side and then insert the windlass
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and then twist the cordage on the other side and then leave it enough that you can get the windlass
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up. Move it, position it up so you can start tightening it, and then when it starts getting
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tight, loosen just a little bit so the thing can slip down and then create that tension point
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But that blade is in there good and tight now. So this is probably as big as you'd want to go. It's almost too big for this. What's happening
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is right now this log, this tree, is it's so heavy it's starting to create a pinch point
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So I'm not going to complete the cut. So a more manageable piece obviously is something like this
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And because it's so short, you can actually use it one-handed. There's a bigger buck so I can't do that
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So
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a Nicholson blade does a pretty decent job
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So
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I just wanted to show this real quick. So this is disassembly, and I wanted to kind of show this
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cord how it doesn't hold the memory, if in fact that's what it's supposed to do. So let's just
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check that out, make sure that's... So I had that really tight. It's not bad, not bad at all
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550 cord would have been just a knotted up mess. It would have been all compressed
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and it'd been hard to unstring that and smooth it out. So the Little Hooks 12-inch saw did
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it did a great job. I mean it's fine. It's a nice little buck saw. And so what are the reasons why
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would you choose a buck saw over a more modern, you know, handled folding saw? Well, the biggest
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reason is that you are able to repair this in the field with wood. So if a dowel breaks, you can
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harvest some wood and then shape it to the size you need. Of course, you can carry extra blades
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very easily. You know, they don't take up a lot of room. They're very lightweight. And then what
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I think is intriguing about this particular saw kit, yes, it's small, and you know, you can't do
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very big pieces of wood. I think if I was to get another dowel that was longer and then get a blade
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that matches that, I could have basically two saws in one, and then that could go in a kit
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And now I have some different options. So if I go out for a longer, you know, winter trip where I
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need a bigger buck saw where I'm actually cutting bigger wood, I could do that. But then if I want
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to use this for my small day pack or my hunting kit or something like that, this little 12-inch
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would get the job done. And of course, the ability to cut one-handed very easily. But then if I need
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more control, more leverage, more strength, more muscle, I can do two-handed. So that is
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the difference between the 12 and then a longer saw. Now these, the construction of this
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the dowels, I believe, are poplar. The cordage, like I said before, is like a nylon cordage that
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doesn't have that memory to it. So there's no inner fibers like a 550, but it's very strong
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I think the windlass system here, the little stick right there, I think that might be
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maple or something like that. What's cool about this is, of course, you can stain this to your
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liking. So if you want to darken this and kind of, you know, customize it, make it your own
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you can do that very easily. And then the price point on these, I think they're the $40 range
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maybe. I can't remember exactly, but I'll put a caption down below. So go down below in the
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description, there will be contact information for Hooks Outdoors and also a link to his channel
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Check that out, support him, support a small business, support a small do-it-yourself YouTuber
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fantastic people always coming up with cool ideas. And also if you feel inclined
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like and subscribe to my channel and check out the Facebook group, getting huge
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and check out preparedwonder.com for articles and photos, videos, and even Prepared Wonder swag
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As always, thank you so much for watching. We'll see you next time on The Prepared Wanderer
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