Addition of an Ulu?

[deathbydanish]

I did a search and couldn't find any mention of an Ulu topic already so here goes!

As a child I remember that I had some relatives from Alaska visit my family down in Hawaii and one of the more interesting gifts they brought to us was an Ulu. Granted where I lived we didn't really have much use for it outside of the kitchen, personally I thought it made a great pizza cutter!

 

When I look at the hatchet, I often thought maybe when its worn out/broken that it could easily be converted into an Ulu-like tool, it didn't look too far off from it. You'd have to rework the handle and shave some of the head off, but once you are done you should get a fairly decent cutting tool. I know that this tool would overlap with the hunting knife, but I like the idea of being able to harvest worn out/broken tools in this way to avoid waste.

 

[CalNieDaGtarGuy]

I think this would be a great idea, especially if implemented in a way to be used against wolves.

[LloydNoise]

Hey! Welcome to the forums! I like the idea of converting old tools into a combined replacement ones, that would be quite useful in the long term!

[deathbydanish]

On 1/20/2017 at 4:06 PM, CalNieDaGtarGuy said:

I think this would be a great idea, especially if implemented in a way to be used against wolves.

I've also had that thought about using broken arrows as a punch dagger against wolves. I may not have the materials for a shaft, but I can see a broken arrow making a good makeshift self defense weapon in case of a sudden wolf attack.

[CalNieDaGtarGuy]

That seems even better. It would Be very useful assuming that maybe you could stick it in them and leave it there. I feel that would probably kill them much quicker.

[EmotiveScissors]

The Ulu wouldn't be very effective as a weapon, no more effective than your hunting knife, probably less. Where it would excel is in skinning and cleaning animals. I could totally see this being added on if they added seals and or beavers to the game, where the Ulu knife really comes into its own. It could be something like 1/2 or 2/3 time over a hunting knife to clean a small animal or fish. It has a razor sharp edge, which means it would probably require more maintenance than a hunting knife. If used for things like crafting it would wear down quicker than a hunting knife, meaning it would be different enough from a hunting knife to justify adding it to the game. 

Ulu: great for stripping down a raw carcass of an animal: wolf, beaver, seal, salmon. Not particularly good for crafting. High maintenance. Light.

Hunting Knife: great all around knife, requires less maintenance but more time to break down animals. Medium weight.

Improvised Hunting Knife: more durable, but requires even more time to complete tasks. Heavier.

[Kirby]

I think that the hatchet breaking is not as much a question of the handle as it is a question of sharpness. After all: you can repair knifes and hatchets by sharpening them. So getting an unusable piece of metal out of harvesting a broken hatchet sounds realistic. However you could harvest intact hatchets and carry the quality over to the new tool. I think that sounds fair.

[deathbydanish]

10 hours ago, EmotiveScissors said:

The Ulu wouldn't be very effective as a weapon, no more effective than your hunting knife, probably less. Where it would excel is in skinning and cleaning animals. I could totally see this being added on if they added seals and or beavers to the game, where the Ulu knife really comes into its own. It could be something like 1/2 or 2/3 time over a hunting knife to clean a small animal or fish. It has a razor sharp edge, which means it would probably require more maintenance than a hunting knife. If used for things like crafting it would wear down quicker than a hunting knife, meaning it would be different enough from a hunting knife to justify adding it to the game. 

Ulu: great for stripping down a raw carcass of an animal: wolf, beaver, seal, salmon. Not particularly good for crafting. High maintenance. Light.

Hunting Knife: great all around knife, requires less maintenance but more time to break down animals. Medium weight.

Improvised Hunting Knife: more durable, but requires even more time to complete tasks. Heavier.

I'd be good with that, I haven't done much research, but I figure the native peoples that used the Ulu probably used it to field dress seals/sea lions and any other animals they hunted. It wouldn't be too far fetched to see it as the preferred field dressing tool for this game and to have the hunting knife be a generalist in that it still does field dressing, but could be a much better tool for crafting. With regards to the improvised knife, it always looked like a spear head to me, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to lash one to whatever lumber you have around and use that as a spear. At the very least you could use it as a stand off weapon for a wolf, as long as you face them and keep the spear pointed their way they won't attack.