ONE SHOVEL TO RULE THEM ALL! - I Build a Survival Shelter with a Shovel

Welcome back to the channel guys. Thanks for tuning in. I'm out in the woods today. I'm going to spend a few hours out here building a shelter with a shovel. It's more shovel talk with Joe. You can start to see the ground. Amazing. So it's zero degrees Celsius out today, at least it is this morning, and spring's coming, like I was saying. Spring's on its way. Actually, I found some open melt water down here, which is really the icing on the cake. cake really proves spring's just around the corner snow's melting and then ice that the water's not freezing up I mean these are always interesting to find them little spruce nests they just grow all weird this is just one little burl well maybe it was a little canker or sore on the tree and I just shot out all these little which is not normal be good kindling though all I'm doing right now is walking around the woods looking for a suitable spot to make like a survival type shelter using just this shovel. If I'm looking around, I'm seeing lots of things like this, just downed evergreens. They'll be good to use for thatching. They're all over the forest floor. That's just, whoa, whoopsies, but that's just thatching, all right? I actually need a legit framework, ridge pole, all that fun stuff, so yeah. I'm gonna walk around for a bit, and I'll let you know once I find it. This looks okay. This does not look too shabby at all. I have my little water bottle up here. think this this could work if I clear off all these dead branches make some rib work in the back some bows might just do the trick let's get this shovel out and look at what we're really getting into look at what we're working so you guys know I'm not very gear oriented on my channel I don't do very many gear videos I use gear but I don't do like a dedicated gear video the company EST Gear messaged me emailed me want me to test out their EST shovel and I did a lot of research into it and I said yeah actually that looks like a pretty decent shovel let's try it out and who knows it might be good it might not be I'm not usually one for foldable shovels if you watch the one of my videos in the past I think when I was starting to build the fort or sorry the hut at my house before Scout passed I had a little foldable shovel in it it just disintegrated on dirt so foldable shovels collapsible shovels in my mind don't have a good reputation but when I got that when I researched this I got this I was playing around with it at home the things solid legit so let's check it out comes with a carrying case as you saw me put it on whatever you throw in your backpack you throw your shoulder whatever you want so many planes anyways there's four tubes and the shovel head that the first tube here inside this tube is part of the handle right inside here you've got a compass you've got a fire steel you've got a whistle on the fire steel so that's kind of cool the compass goes right on there too and then that's the end of the handle so we'll get that back on oh oh look at that little screwdriver forgot about that guy little screwdriver in there too I don't understand how many planes could possibly fly overhead okay one thing I don't like is a little rattly as I say that it stops anyways I've not used this at all yet I've just put it together at home once so this is the first for me oh inside here you got a little plug with sawback blade the third part of the handle tube is just the handle and the fourth tube what about the fourth tube then the fourth tube goes on to the shovel blade itself shovel has a little nylon guard on it which is kind of helpful you want to put the big silver ring down first it kind of connects onto the uh the folder part for you keep it nice and secure now you can have it like that or obviously you can go into pick mode and have it locked like that with this I found at home I wanted to I had to tighten it a whole lot just so it didn't slip but once I had it tightened on there it was good um she's on tightening it all down and as you can see it's a decent size sturdy um it's made of like aircraft aluminum it's got a saw on the blade itself to side a rope cutter a bottle opener a measuring tape um some ratchet holes what else I'm sure there's things I'm missing there's lots there's some foam grip on it too pretty cool let's get this put away and then we'll start to build the shelter it is nifty like in all honesty like the tools on this are not going to be as good as a specific tool by itself it's not as good as an axe just this little axe blade here this part for the saw is not gonna be good as a dedicated saw but if you're looking for one tool option man like this thing's pretty got it pretty well got it covered pretty well let's check out this potential shelter so you can see there's not much room between the top and the bottom but that's good for survival you don't want a lot of room and this is still connected here so as long as I don't mess with it too much it should be safe so we got to get rid of all these limbs oh oh that was not good oh I jabbed in the chest with a stick I punched through the snow Okay, careful. Anyway, this um, this is the axe blade part This is the saw blade part when you use this part first to see which which works better But we'll switch it up and see it's not fun I think it's solid flip it around and use the saw blade part just to hit it with well That doesn't doesn't do a bad job I clean up a lot on the bottom side because that's what I would do if I was sleeping out in it so I didn't poke myself or my eye, potentially rip a sleeping bag or something along those lines. Just a good idea to get all the twigs out. Okay, well, we all know shovels work as shovels. The snow is this deep. I don't know, do I need to shovel this snow away to show you? To show you that the shovel works like a shovel? You know what's good about this? Punching through crusty snow quite easily. Not even that this snow is that crusty, just in general I'm saying, for next year. Okay, this is perfect. Plenty of room, almost down to the ground. Ended up packing the snow a bit down didn't get right down, but I don't know probably another Honestly probably another foot down. But anyways, this is perfectly fine now I got to get some rib work and some bows probably build a small little fire in front, too Yeah, shovels going good so far. I haven't really done much with it. Just kind of cut those Branches off some of them were pretty thick but she's holding up good. I have had to tighten the head once or twice They did say when they told me that there's still revisions to this shovel they're still uh um working on little finite details because i don't believe it's it's ready to come out until may they're not releasing a product until may so but anyways let's go uh look for a downed um conifer so i don't have to kill one for no reason and yeah we'll get some branches and some boughs and keep on building get my wet cold butt off this wet cold ground All right, I found one top broke off of somewhere around here I'll probably just carry this back as a one piece. So it's nice and easy. Yeah, perfect time to test the saw out. I Want this I want a lot of boughs front, but the bottom part is stuck into the snow It'll be hard to get out So if I just cut it here and use the top I think that'll be sufficient and this up a bit I've got a spot to saw I'll try right here So I don't know if this saw is specifically for hardwood, but I think it's getting gummed up the sap on this greenwood it's doing a job. That's for sure. I think it'd be faster to chop it put a decent notch Maybe a half an inch thick already in it. Oh, and it is getting pinched here, too Okay, it's almost through we saw it the rest of the way. I'm gonna get my my aim down with the shovel Well, not only does this shovel have 18 uses I keep post hole in the I'm on the ground now up to my knee I keep using it as like a walking stick to get over those post holes well a little leverage you know a little leverage all right I've got a decent amount of boughs now might be enough might need a little bit more but what I do need to do is start getting some ribs for the back some more ribs I actually can cut that one in half because it's way too long I got about halfway through on that side probably just flip it and do the same thing so I don't have to try to go all the way through there are little tricks you got to use with this thing for sure cut around three sides let's see how easy it breaks now perfect okay nothing wrong with that at all just got to use your head you know I mean instead of trying to go all the way through this with that saw saw on both sides saw on three sides and then break no biggie all right perfect so if I get these bows off of the tops of these limbs I can use like the tree I can use that part for more ribs so I think that's what I'm gonna do use that shovel and slice off all these bows I decided to take off a bunch of the handle so that it's more manageable when I'm swinging it like an axe here so I just got the one front uh first tube on and hopefully that'll give me more um you know I mean it was too too unwieldy with the big long handle for this at least oh man it's slippery yeah that's getting good good uh penetration much better that's good that it's versatile like that I can use the long handle if I need or a short handle nice love it when a plan comes together face ba murdoch chief was it chief all right okay so the axe side penetrates much more than the saw side Wow that's not too shabby seriously again you just gotta be smart turn in the tree the whole time to knock away material they're trying to just go straight through it man that's not bad seriously yeah it's looking pretty good good actually just got a few boughs here to sit on for a minute simulate a bed this is a survival shelter and tuck myself way back in here and I'm past the ridgeline if I wanted I could overhang branches or I could put them in the front at least halfway have a little fire in front what would really set this this shelter like primo would be a reflector blanket right on the back which you can those space blankets can go in your pocket they're so small yeah actually you could probably roll one up and put it inside that shovel handle I definitely you could yeah so plenty of room to lay down plenty room to be protected from the elements then when it comes to have a little warming fire or cooking fire melting snow fire sit on the outside of it have your little fire right here not too shabby not too shabby for all built in like I don't know this probably took me in two hours maybe it could have been done a lot quicker if I wasn't filming for sure but then with just a shovel just one shovel one tool one shovel to rule them all so obviously that is not a mattress that is just a couple of boughs on the ground that would not suffice but this shelter is pretty decent i'm sure there's spots i could find that with some light coming through but nothing that's jumping out of me right off the hop it would definitely protect me from snow i would want to put a little bit more on for rain that would be a rough night well Well, that's pretty interesting. I'm pretty happy with that shovel pretty pleased with the EST shovel Let's build a little small fire in front and show you what that little blade can do. Too shabby Alright, so let's get a good length so I can split it. Here comes the real test. Shaving off some pieces of this It's fine enough to get a spark to catch them and take. Yeah, I got to collect these somewhere I could use birch bark. There's no fun in that. Alright, gonna test this stuff out. Got a bunch more. Look at those That's not bad curls, man. I've never sharpened this or anything either Definitely do even the shovel part you can sharpen better than that open in the shovel 101 Bet you I could throw this and stick it into a tree to Shovel that is now just to see if we get some super fine stuff. Let's try and do this use the serrated part and just scrape Oh, yeah, it's making like I'll show you here. It's real fine hairy stuff. That would be ideal we're starting fires so these got a little wet sitting on that shovel but let's give her a shot see how it goes testing this fire steel works okay the got these tiny tiny little twigs to put on first as I knew that was gonna be a weak flame come on you know you want to grow you know you want to be a fire oh we might be losing it like oh there she goes saved saved by the pencil lead twigs I always want five times the prep pretty these are the split pieces I used to make the shavings from it's really the only reason i needed to split it to get some shavings i could have um like i said use birch bark you could use twigs but then i'm not using the full potential of the shovel kit little shovel kit well what do you guys think i think it's okay i think it's uh the best shovel that i've used the saw is more useful for making notches and then breaking then then sawing all the way through but that's fine too as long as you know that going in a drake meme i gotta figure out how to put this away properly it might take me a minute anyway that'll come with time we're using it so overall i think it's pretty cool nifty uh tool and if you like that kind of stuff you can go check out estgear.com for more information so i hope you guys enjoyed the video something a little bit different than what i've been doing i'm pleased to do something different i hope you guys enjoy it as well or i'm gonna get out of here go home and edit the video before we do that let's go take this bad boy over to a dead tree and try and throw it in like a hawk style I think that'll be the ultimate fun thing to do with this