If you are stranded out in the wilderness without an adequate means to defend yourself – no knife and (gulp) no knife — learn to improvise.
Security is one of the most important aspects of survival, as weapons give you the ability to defend yourself and to kill wildlife for food.
Here are three weapons that you can make via improvisation:
Clubs. Clubs are not designed for throwing, but are designed to deliver heavy blows. This is the easiest weapon that you can make via improvisation. A good club will be smaller at the handle and then be larger and weightier on the end.
Get a firm piece of hardwood that is shaped similar to what you want, and then make it weightier on the end by tying a stone firmly with rope or vines. This will allow you to strike with the club with more force and deliver a more hammering blow to an opponent or prey. An alternative to this is to allow a wrapped stone to hang loosely from the end by about five or six inches, essentially making for a small, makeshift mace. This will be much more damaging than a more traditional club as the velocity of the stone is increased.
Knife. In the event that you don’t have a knife with you, you can still make one yourself with stone, bones, glass or metal. If you’re lost out in the wilderness, you’ll have to turn to stone or bone.
You’ll want to take a stone or metal that closely resembles your finished product, and then take another rough stone and rub the edge of it to sharpen it. This potentially will take several hours and much effort, but it can be done. The resulting knife will be crude and rough, yet it should work even if it resembles more of a hacksaw than an actual knife. Make sure that you can have a firm grip on the end without hurting yourself; wrapping vines or rope around the end is a perfect solution.
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Spears. There are several ways you can make spears, but they all require you to use a long pole of green wood. This pole should be anywhere from four to seven feet long, and can also easily double as a walking stick if needed. You can then use the same techniques to make an improvised knife (as discussed above), and then tie it to the end of the spear with leather, rope or vines. The knife should be wrapped as tightly as possible.
An alternative method is to sharpen the end of the spear by shaving the end until it makes a point. Then, lightly char the end of the spear over a fire, without burning it, in order to harden it by getting all of the moisture out of the wood. This will make your spear much more durable and shaper. A third method: Split the end of the spear so that instead of one point, there are anywhere from three to six. Then, sharpen each individual point. This is particularly effective for fishing.
What improvised self-defense tips would you add? Share them in the section below: