Folding bow saw

I went down a rabbit hole in the last month as I started to plan a winter camping trip with the kiddos. I think it started at 4 season tarps, continued to canvas tents, then to hot tenting (people put little wood burning stoves inside a canvas tent – mostly Canadians) and went to too making and this obscure corner of YouTube around “bushcraft”, which I never knew existed. From what I can tell, it’s modern men who fantasize about living like neolithic soloist in the “boreal” forests (it’s got to be boreal… the videos always mention that point).

My cursory analysis is that it’s a backlash against technology and being always connected … and scratches an itch about living in a sod hut in the forest hunting small game… or something. I’m not knocking it – it’s making me want to try my hand at subsistence farming in the boreal forest… somewhere.

Here’s a folding bow saw (for cutting firewood? I guess?). It’s hickory and finished with boiled linseed oil. The pieces fit together with a mortise and tenon on the long arm and the blade folds into a saw kerf in the handle.

I know I’m going to feel like a real frontiersman when I pull it out of my pack on a backpacking trip (I don’t even make campfires when I backpack).

Before I rounded it off and cut the curve on the cross brace: