Culinary God in Wilderness
Chapter 226 - 175: Hand-crafting a Bamboo Knife and Exploring the Forest at Night
The process of shaping the bamboo knife was much simpler than the stone axe. It took him only half an hour to grind one side of the front half of the bamboo piece into a beveled blade. It was a double-beveled edge, with the sharpest point right in the center.
The first round of sharpening didn’t need to be too fine; just creating a rough outline was enough.
For the second round of fine sharpening, he needed to find a stone with a relatively less coarse surface to act like sandpaper, slowly grinding the blade’s surface until it was smooth.
「Another half hour passed.」
A decent-looking bamboo knife was born.
He even made a point to adjust the way the bark was wrapped around the handle. He flattened the originally twisted bark and wound it around flat, layer by layer, much like the grip of a badminton racket.
This wrapping method made the grip feel steadier and smoother, which helped with power delivery when swinging the knife.
He couldn’t wait to swing the bamboo knife a few times. As he swung it, the blade made a WHOOSH WHOOSH sound as it cut through the air.
He took aim at the bamboo tube he had brought along. Gripping the knife with both hands, he raised it high above his head, pinned the tube with his foot to keep it from rolling, and brought it down with a fierce chop.
CRACK!
With a crisp sound, the bamboo tube was actually split in two by the single strike.
[Successfully crafted a bamboo knife on the coast of Panama. Happiness +1]
While bamboo’s natural properties make it easy to split, it still requires a weapon harder than itself to do so.
To think that a piece of bamboo taken from the same plant, with just some rough sharpening, could achieve such a remarkable effect. Lin Chen excitedly set down the bamboo knife and picked up one half of the split tube.
He casually picked up a stone and scratched the rough shape of an axe onto the surface of the bamboo piece.
He wanted to make the bamboo axe from a single piece. After all, if the blade and handle were made separately, bamboo’s properties meant that the recoil from chopping would cause the entire handle to split.
Even tying it with bark rope would be useless; it would still split.
’To make this easier, I’ll forget about aesthetics. I’ll make a square axe. That means I’ll need to cut away the excess parts above and below the axe head.’
He used the same method as before: first chiseling with the stone axe, then cutting with his combat knife. He marked out a roughly twenty-centimeter section on the bamboo piece to serve as the axe head, intending to cut away the entire strip below it.
The handle also had to be able to withstand the force, so it couldn’t be too small. Otherwise, the handle might snap before the blade even dulled, which would be ridiculous.
By the time he finished shaping the bamboo axe, the sky was already growing dark.
He returned to the shelter with his remaining materials and two new weapons. He held the bamboo axe in his right hand and used his left to prop a half-tube of bamboo on the ground. He then set the axe blade against the cross-section and gave it a light tap.
Without any real effort, a finger-thick strip of bamboo split all the way to the end.
To ensure the overall sturdiness of the bamboo axe, he had intentionally left the handle wide—almost the width of his palm—making it impossible for it to snap during chopping.
Though called an axe, its shape was actually more like a flag.
It couldn’t be helped. With limited tools, he was sticking to the principle of "function over form." Aesthetics would have to wait.
He split the entire half-tube of bamboo into strips of uniform thickness. Weaving them together in a criss-cross, over-and-under traditional pattern, he quickly fashioned a bamboo basket over half a meter deep.
’With this thing, whether I’m out gathering fruit or catching seafood, I won’t have to worry about having nowhere to put it all. A full load would let me carry at least seven or eight times more than I can now in a single trip.’
Just one wasn’t enough. He needed at least two or three more in the shelter for stockpiling.
If he placed things directly on the ground, the shelter’s earthen floor would inevitably attract insects and ants. The fresh scent of bamboo would help mask things a little.
He decided to skip dinner. While it was still light out, he dug the charcoal out of the ash pile and relit it.
The fire would serve two purposes: drying the branches and bamboo he had collected, and providing light. He planned to finish weaving the baskets tonight.
With practice, he had long since become a skilled craftsman. He barely needed to pay attention; his body could complete the entire weaving process automatically.
’Let’s see... I have tools now, and baskets. If it rains tomorrow, I’ll head to the beach at low tide to gather some seafood. Just enough to fill my stomach will be fine.’
’If the weather is clear, securing food is the priority. I’ll need to stock up on more coconuts. Then, I need to cut down more bamboo. This stuff is not only for making all sorts of tools, but it can also reinforce the shelter, provide protection from wind, rain, and cold, and be used to store water.’
Though Light Wood was also a good building material, he felt that getting some Guada Bamboo was more convenient for now.
Later, he could try chopping down some Light Wood to use as firewood. Its unique, honeycomb-like hollow trunk structure held almost no water. Even if it got wet, it would air-dry quickly, saving a lot of time.
This structure also made it easy to chop down, as it wasn’t as hard as most other woods.
As he sat at the entrance of his shelter weaving baskets, he also tried using a coconut crab’s pincer to grip a piece of bamboo.
It could make an indent, but he didn’t know if it was due to his own lack of grip strength or some other reason. In any case, that’s as far as it went.
After all, humans can’t crack a coconut with their bare hands, and the pincer wasn’t as sharp as he’d imagined.
As he wove, he got bored and started staring at the stream of live comments on his wristwatch, interacting with the viewers from time to time.
At a certain moment, the tone of the flickering, scrolling comments suddenly changed.