How to Make a Primitive Pencil

Learn how to make a pencil from nothing but twigs, a tin, and a fire.
This is a short chapter from our film Survival HD with Kirsten Rechnitz, how to survive in Harsh Environments.

Transcription -
Kirsten Rechnitz:
[00:00:00] There are a lot of great things to do with the fire beyond just taking care for a thermal regulation keeping your core body temperature where it needs to be. [00:00:08] If it's cold outside make sure you stay warm. [00:00:11] One of the things I'd like to show you is what one can do with an old Altoids can carry things that should be waterproof inside of this perhaps and my survival kit like medicine. [00:00:23] The other thing you can do. [00:00:25] Is take some small twigs that fit inside of this. [00:00:32] And what we're going to do is create little pencils little pieces of charcoal and we can use this for a lot of different reasons right to write messages in an emergency to make marks on our map. [00:00:49] So put a few of these in and of course you can do this with straight up charcoal. [00:00:56] But the benefit of doing it this way is that you actually have a thinner line you you're not working with a fat stub of old charcoal. [00:01:05] So it's pretty simple. [00:01:06] I've got my pieces of stick inside of here and I'm just going to throw it into the fire and cover it with some coals and let it chill out for a while. [00:01:25] The last thing I want to show you in our sort of fire segments and cool things you can do with the fire is what I did with that Altoids can with those small twigs that I put inside of it. [00:01:36] So it took a couple of sticks dug it out of the coals placed down on the ground. [00:01:41] Cool off a moment before actually touching this metal container. [00:01:44] Right now it's cool. [00:01:47] So I opened it up. [00:01:55] What you see is that I have seen it's not very good in the light. [00:02:00] You can see that I have these charcoal pencils and so maybe I'm leaving a note for some one or maybe I'm marking on a map but I have a nice sharp edge to do so. [00:02:16] So I've made a pencil and I can write a note. [00:02:18] Help. [00:02:19] I'm heading south towards what I think is water. [00:02:24] Today is blank date. [00:02:25] If you know it. [00:02:28] And then you want to give details. [00:02:30] How old are you. [00:02:31] You male or female. [00:02:32] What's your foot size what kind of foot gear do you have on if somebody is tracking your foot and you're the type of shoe that you have color your hair color your eyes anything you can think of. [00:02:43] And if you're in a good mood you can also tell them what they should bring you in the rescue like I want an ice cream bar by the time you guys pick me up in that helicopter. [00:02:50] So positive attitude guys survival situations is what is all about. [00:02:55] Don't give up. [00:02:56] Keep going. [00:02:58] If your plan doesn't work. [00:02:59] Think of something new. [00:03:00] Try again and stay positive. [00:03:01] If you want to live then you're going to keep working. [00:03:04] When you resolve to stop this is when you've chosen to stop surviving. [00:03:10] So humor is a huge part of keeping on out here.