www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE
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Joe Price is one of the co-founders of the "Living to Learn" Bushcraft
Community, a member of the Irish Bushcraft Club and an Irish Ambassador
for Mora Knives.
He works in The Camo Shop www.thecamoshop.ie and you can follow the
'Living to Learn' community online:
www.facebook.com/groups/livingtolearn/
BY JOE PRICE
But this month I thought I would share a very simple and quick
way to build a tripod in the field. Tripods are commonly used
for cooking but also can be adapted for raised beds, shelters
and even a centralized camp first aid station. They require
minimal resources but can be time consuming if you just want
to build something really quick and with minimal materials.
This method is from an old boy scouts pioneering manual and
is very effective if you need a singular tripod in a hurry or mul-
tiple tripods for larger camp setups and one I like to use a lot
on day hikes or working with scouts.
• First gather 3 branches of equal length and enough diam-
eters to hold the load you want to suspend from it. If you
want the tripod to stand about chest high aim for branch-
es a foot taller that yourself. This is just to allow for loss of
height when you open it out.
• You want to cut the branches to equal length. If you want
to add some stability to it, if the ground is uneven, add a
point to the end of each leg. This isn't always necessary.
• Once this is done you will need a fixed loop of some strong
cordage like paracord or bailing twine. It should be big
enough to wrap around the tops of your branches like in
the diagram.
• For creating the fixed loop I like to use a 'double fisher-
mans' or a 'necklace knot'.
• Once this is done you can grab a small branch roughly
about 1 foot long and an inch thick and slip this through
the excess cordage twisting it like a tourniquet until there
is enough tension to bind the sticks together.
• You can now stand your tripod up and adjust it to the
height and span you want. At this point it's ok to give it a
final few turns to hold it all in place.
Its good to be back in front of a keyboard again, but before I start
I want to thank everyone who came over to say hello at the An
Cosantóir 10K event in McKee Barracks recently - it was great to
meet the readers of the magazine and share a few words.
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