Totin' Chip

The Totin' Chip is a Scouting America certification that gives a Scout the right to carry and use woods tools: a pocketknife, a saw and an ax. To earn it, you show a leader that you can handle, care for and use each one safely — and you take on a short set of promises about how you behave with them around other people. It can be taken away again.

It matters in three ways. On a Troop 23 outing, a Scout without a Totin' Chip does not carry a woods tool, and uses one only under an instructor's eye while he is earning the chip. On service projects, including Eagle projects, Scouting America's tool-use guidelines let a Scout use a pocketknife or wood-carving knife only once he has earned it. And cuts are the most common injury Scouting America sees at its summer camps, most of them from a woodworking tool like a pocketknife.

This is the guide Troop 23 teaches from. It starts with keeping the people around you safe, then takes the knife, the saw and the ax in turn — how to choose each one, use it, sharpen it and look after it — then covers what to do if someone gets cut and the promises that come with the card. Each section names the requirement it covers. Read it before the campout — the session itself is for doing. It also comes as a printable copy, together with the sign-off sheet and the instructor guide. Its partner for fire is the Firem'n Chit.

Your Safety Circle

Before you open a blade or pick up a saw or an ax, check your safety circle. Hold the closed tool at arm's length and turn slowly all the way around, then raise it above your head. Nobody should be inside that circle, and nothing the tool could catch — a branch overhead, a guy line, a tent. If someone steps into your circle while you are working, stop until they are out of it. An ax needs more room: other people stay at least 10 feet away from anyone swinging one.

A tool is a tool, not a toy. No throwing, no flipping, no tricks, no tool in your hand while you are fooling around, and a knife or an ax is never used as a hammer or a pry bar. That is requirement 3, and it is shown over the whole session, not in a single moment.

If a knife slips out of your hand, step back and let it fall. Never try to catch a falling blade.

And one habit for every tool: when you hand it to someone, you do not let go until they say "Thank you." That word means they have a firm grip on it.

Requirements 3 and 4.

The Axe Yard

Saw and ax work at a campsite happens in an axe yard: a patch of ground roped off with stakes and cord, cleared of brush, with room to swing. Only the person working is inside. Anyone else asks before stepping in, and waits if told to.

Tools that are not in use lie sheathed on a tarp inside the yard — never in the grass. Scouting America asks for the blades of axes and saws to be covered whenever they are not cutting, on the way to the work site too, and for leather gloves and eye protection for anyone using an ax or a saw. When you finish, rake the chips and bark out of the yard and put the tools away clean.

Requirement 4.

Which Tool for Which Job

Tenderfoot requirement 3d asks a Scout to describe when each tool should be used. The short answer:

• Pocketknife — small, careful work: cutting rope or cord, whittling a tent stake, shaving tinder for a fire, opening a can, trimming a bandage.
• Saw — cutting wood across: firewood to length, a limb, a fallen tree across a trail. For most outdoor woodcutting the saw is the right tool, and it cuts through a log faster than an ax.
• Ax — splitting wood along the grain into kindling and fuel, and heavier jobs such as clearing fallen trees and trail work.
• No tool at all — often the best choice. Leave No Trace asks for small wood, no thicker than an adult's wrist, that you can break by hand. And when the troop brings its own firewood, the woods tools can stay at home.

Tenderfoot 3d and Totin' Chip requirement 2.

The Pocketknife

Scouting America does not tell you which knife to buy. Its safety guide "neither encourages nor bans fixed-blade knives," sets no limit on blade length, and notes that many councils and camps set limits of their own. What we suggest is a simple folding knife:

• One or two cutting blades, about three to four inches long. More tools make a knife heavier and bulkier, not better.
• A blade that locks open if you will ever press on it. A folding blade without a lock can close on your fingers — never press on the back of a blade that does not lock.
• The right steel for you. Stainless steel resists rust. Carbon steel is easier to sharpen and takes a keener edge, but it rusts if it is put away wet.
• A plain edge. A serrated edge needs a special tool to sharpen.
• A lanyard hole, so the knife can be tied on and is harder to lose.

The parts worth knowing by name: the blade, with its sharp edge, its point and its thick unsharpened back, the spine; the tang, the end of the blade inside the handle, which turns on the pivot; the spring or the lock that holds the blade open or shut; and the handle, built from metal liners covered by scales, sometimes with metal bolsters at its ends. The short unsharpened part where the edge meets the handle is the kick: it keeps the edge off the inside of the handle when the knife is closed.

Knives are not allowed on school grounds and cannot be taken aboard a commercial flight — Scouting America reminds Scouts of both.

Requirement 2.

Opening, Cutting and Closing

1. Open it. Hold the handle firmly in one hand. With the thumb and forefinger of the other hand, pinch the blade and pull it all the way out until it clicks into place. Keep your fingers off the edge.
2. Check the lock. On a locking knife, make sure the lock has caught before you cut.
3. Cut away from yourself and away from anyone near you, with the wood braced and your free hand behind the blade, never in its path. When you carve, sit with your feet on the ground, and never carve in your lap.
4. Close it as soon as you stop cutting. Release the lock, keep your hand and fingers out of the path of the blade, and fold it shut.

Three cuts do most of the work. A rough cut takes large slices off the wood, pushing away from you. A push cut gives more control: you push on the back of the blade with your thumb. A stop cut is a straight cut into the wood that a push cut then meets, so a slice ends exactly where you want it. Carve with the grain, take thin slices, and rest when your hands get tired — wood carvers keep their sessions to about twenty minutes.

• Never pry with the point, and never strike the knife with anything — a blade snaps.
• Close the blade before you hand the knife to anyone.

Requirements 2 and 4.

Keeping a Knife Clean

A clean knife opens easily and stays sharp longer. After cutting food, or when a blade starts to stick:

1. Wash the knife in warm water with a little dish soap. Open and close the blades as you wash, and clean around the hinges with a soft brush or a toothpick.
2. Rinse it, close it and let it dry completely.
3. Put one small drop of light, food-safe oil where each blade turns, then open and close it a few times. Wipe off what is left over: oil left on the knife collects dirt.
4. Store it closed, in a dry place.

Never put a pocketknife in the dishwasher, and never use machine oil on a knife you cut food with. Oil it at least twice a year even when it looks clean.

Requirement 2.

Sharpening a Pocketknife

A sharp knife is safer than a dull one. A dull edge needs more force, and more force is what makes a blade slip. Sharpen as soon as cutting starts to feel like hard work: a little sharpening often takes less time than a lot now and then.

What you need

A sharpening stone, a towel to keep it from sliding, and whatever the stone is meant to be used with — water for a water stone, oil for an oil stone, water or nothing for a diamond plate. Once a stone has had oil on it, keep using oil. A combination stone, coarse on one side and fine on the other, does the job: the coarse side takes out nicks, the fine side finishes the edge.

Hold the angle

Lay the blade flat on the stone, then raise the spine a little. Knife makers recommend anything from about 15 to 30 degrees, and they do not all measure it the same way; what matters most is holding the same angle on every stroke. Three ways to find it without a protractor:

• Two pennies. On a Scout or Swiss Army–style knife, resting the spine on two stacked pennies gives about the right angle.
• One blade width. Raise the spine about one blade's width off the stone.
• The marker test. Color the bevel — the narrow ground strip along the edge — with a black marker and take a few strokes. If ink stays on the upper part of the bevel, you are holding the spine too high; if it stays along the very edge, too low. When the strip comes off evenly, you have the angle.

The stroke

1. Wet or oil the stone and set it on the towel. Keep the fingers of your free hand behind the blade or below the top of the stone.
2. Push the blade along the stone edge first, as if you were slicing a thin layer off the top of it, sweeping from the heel of the blade to the tip so the whole edge touches the stone. Use light pressure, and keep the tip on the stone at the end of the stroke.
3. Count your strokes — five to ten — then turn the blade over and give the other side the same number. To keep pushing away from you on the second side, switch hands; or draw the blade toward you with your fingers kept below the top of the stone.
4. Keep going until you can feel a burr: a very fine lip of metal along the edge. Feel for it on the side that was facing up, sliding a fingertip gently from the spine off the edge — never along it. The burr cuts like the edge itself.
5. Take the burr off with a few very light strokes, one on each side in turn, and finish on the fine side of the stone. A few strokes on a leather strap, edge trailing, polish it.

Is it sharp?

Look straight down at the edge under a bright light. A dull edge reflects a thin line of light; a sharp one shows none. Then slice a sheet of paper: a sharp knife glides through, a dull one snags or tears. Never test an edge on your skin.

Never put a knife on a power grinder — the heat ruins the steel's temper. A small pull-through or pocket sharpener is fine for a touch-up in camp, but a stone gives a better edge. To watch the stroke, Scout Life has a 50-second video on sharpening a pocketknife on a whetstone.

Requirement 2 and Tenderfoot 3d.

The Fuzz Stick

With a sharp knife, make a fuzz stick. Take a dry, straight stick and shave long, thin curls down it, cutting away from you and stopping each curl before it comes off, so the curls stay on the stick in a bunch. It is the best tinder there is, and the knife skill the Firem'n Chit needs.

Once the fuzz stick comes easily, whittle a tent stake: point one end with rough and push cuts, and use stop cuts to make a notch near the top for the guy line.

Requirement 2.

The Saw

Camp saws come in two kinds. A folding saw folds its blade into the handle like a pocketknife; it is light, handy on smaller branches, and the one to take backpacking. A bow saw holds a thin blade tight in a curved metal frame and slides through wood easily, though its frame makes it less nimble. Blades differ too. A peg-tooth blade is for dry wood; wet sawdust clogs it. A raker blade, whose rakers clear the sawdust out of the cut, is for green wood. Match the teeth to the wood: big teeth drag on small branches, small teeth are slow on a log.

• Support the wood on something solid — a sawbuck, a log, the chopping block — not on the ground. Kneeling on one knee beside it can steady you. Hold the wood firmly with your free hand, well away from the blade's path.
• Use long, smooth strokes and as much of the blade as you can, and let the weight of the saw pull it into the wood. Forcing it makes it bind, and can break the blade.
• If the cut closes on the blade, the wood is pressing on it: a log held up at both ends and cut in the middle sags and pinches the saw. Cut where the piece hangs past its support, so the cut opens as you go. If the saw sticks, lift the weight of the wood off it — never wrench the handle.
• Keep the teeth out of the dirt — soil and stones dull them fast. Slip a piece of bark under the log, and finish the cut gently with the end of the blade.
• On a folding saw, check that the blade has locked open before you cut. Many folding saws cut on the pull stroke, toward you, so let the pull do the work.
• Two Scouts on one bow saw each pull only, in turn. Neither pushes, and neither holds back.

Requirement 2.

Cutting a Limb

A limb comes off a standing tree only with permission and for a good reason. On service projects Scouting America does not allow youth to work four feet or more above the ground.

A small limb that you can hold up with your free hand is cut in one go while you support it. A heavier one is cut in three steps, so that its weight cannot tear a strip of bark down the trunk as it falls:

1. About a foot or more out from the trunk, saw a shallow notch up into the underside of the limb.
2. A little farther out, saw down from the top until the limb drops off.
3. Cut off the short stub that is left, just outside the branch collar — the swollen ring where the limb grows out of the trunk. Never cut flush with the trunk: a flush cut injures the tree and lets decay in.

Requirements 2 and 6.

Caring for a Saw

• Cover the teeth whenever the saw is not cutting, including while you carry it. A length of old garden hose, slit open, makes a guard for a bow saw.
• Carry a saw at your side with the blade pointing down and turned away from you. Pass it with the blade turned away from both of you.
• After use, wipe off sap and dirt, let the blade dry, and rub it with a lightly oiled rag so it does not rust.
• A bow saw cuts straight only with its blade under high tension. Release the tension when you put it away.
• Replace a dull blade rather than sharpening it — most camp saw blades have hardened teeth that a file will not cut. A blade without hardened teeth can be sharpened with a saw file, but that is slow, skilled work. A dull blade makes sawing hazardous, so carry a spare.

Requirement 2.

The Ax

Scouts use two sizes. A hatchet is a small ax for one hand, with a head under about 2 pounds on a handle under about 20 inches. A camp ax is held in both hands: a 2¼-pound head on a 26-inch handle makes a good light one, and a handle that reaches from the ground to your hip fits you. Start with the lighter tool and work up. Scouting America's age guidelines keep axes for Scouts BSA members and older — not Cub Scouts.

The parts: the head, with the sharp bit and its edge on one side and the blunt poll on the other. The flat sides of the head are its cheeks; the handle runs through the eye and is held tight there by a wedge. The handle widens into the shoulder just under the head, and your hands work between the shoulder and the throat just above the knob at its end. The upper corner of the edge is the toe, the lower corner the heel.

Check it before you use it

• The head sits tight on the handle.
• The handle has no cracks.
• The edge is sharp and free of chips. A dull ax glances off the wood instead of biting into it.
• The head has no cracks, especially around the eye, and the poll is not mushroomed from being used as a hammer.

If anything is wrong, the ax is not used until a leader has put it right. And never use the poll to pound steel wedges.

Requirement 2.

Splitting Wood

Split on a chopping block — a wide, flat round of log about knee-high — never on rock or concrete, and never let the edge go into the ground. Check that no stone or metal is hidden in or under the wood.

1. Clear your space. Hold the ax by the head and turn slowly with the handle at arm's length, then raise it over your head: nothing should touch it, and nobody comes within 10 feet. Gloves and eye protection go on.
2. Set the piece upright on the far side of the block, so that a miss hits the block instead of carrying on toward your legs. Never hold it with your hand or steady it with your foot.
3. Stand square, feet apart and firm, knees a little bent, and look for a crack in the end of the wood to aim at.
4. Swing for accuracy, not power. Raise the ax with both hands and let its weight bring it down; you guide it, you do not force it. As you finish the stroke, keep the ax head from dropping below the level of your hands — then even a glancing blow cannot reach your feet.
5. If the piece sticks on the blade, do not yank the ax or lever it sideways. Work the handle gently up and down to free it, or lift the piece off and stand it up again — and never swing with wood stuck on the ax.

For small sticks there is a safer way, the contact method. Rest the edge on the end of the stick, lift both together, and bring them down onto the block as one; then twist the ax to open the split.

Never chop when you are tired — fatigue is a common cause of accidents. And in freezing weather, warm a cold ax head under your arm before you chop: cold steel is brittle.

Requirement 2.

Limbing a Fallen Tree

To clear the branches off a fallen tree, stand on the far side of the trunk from the branch you are cutting, so that the trunk is between you and the ax, and never straddle it. Work from the thick end of the trunk toward the top, and cut each branch from its underside, not down into the fork where it joins the trunk. Use a camp ax for this, not a hatchet: a hatchet's handle is too short to swing accurately.

Requirement 2.

Sharpening an Ax

A sharp ax is a safe ax: it bites into the wood instead of glancing off it. Sharpening one takes a file, gloves and patience, and in Troop 23 it is done by a Scout who has been shown how. Never put an ax on a power grinder — the heat ruins the steel.

1. Protect your hands. Wear leather gloves, and push a guard onto the file — a 3-inch square of leather or plywood — so your knuckles cannot slide onto the edge.
2. Hold the ax still. Brace the head on the ground between two wooden pegs and a log about six inches thick, or clamp it to a bench. A second Scout can steady the handle.
3. File into the edge. Use an 8- or 10-inch mill bastard file. Push it from the edge toward the middle of the head — it cuts only on the push — and lift it off the metal on the way back.
4. Keep the shape. Work back two to three inches from the edge in a fan shape, keeping the cheek slightly rounded and the two corners a little thicker. Follow the shape the ax already has.
5. Do both sides. File until a burr forms along the far side of the edge, then turn the ax over and give the second side about the same number of strokes, until the burr turns back.
6. Finish with a stone. A round ax stone, worked in small circles, smooths the edge — dry or with water or oil, whichever the stone is made for. Use one with a groove for your fingers, so your fingertips stay clear of the edge.
7. Check it. Look straight down at the edge with the light behind you: a sharp edge shows no line of light. Keep filing until the edge seems to disappear.

Scout Life's step-by-step on sharpening an ax has an animation of the file stroke worth watching before you try it.

Requirement 2 and Tenderfoot 3d.

Carrying, Passing and Storing

Carry the ax sheathed, holding the handle just below the head, with the edge turned out away from your body and your arm hanging at your side. On a slope, carry it on the downhill side. If you trip, throw it clear of you. Never carry an ax on your shoulder.

To pass it, keep the sheath on. Hold the handle near the knob, with the head down and the edge turned away from both of you, so the other person can take hold of the handle. Let go only after they say "Thank you." A saw is passed with its blade turned away from both of you, and a knife is passed closed.

When you are done, the ax goes back into its sheath and back with the troop gear. It is never left lying around camp, and never leaned against anything with its edge bare. Wipe the head dry and give it a light coat of oil; rub a little linseed oil into a wooden handle now and then; and store it indoors, somewhere dry but not hot. Left outside for long, a handle warps in the heat and a head rusts in the damp.

Requirements 2 and 4.

If Someone Gets Cut

Most knife cuts are minor, and a Scout who knows what to do keeps them that way. Stop work and get a leader, then:

1. Keep the injured Scout calm, and raise the cut above the level of the heart if you can.
2. Press on it. Put on first-aid gloves if you have them, press a clean pad or cloth firmly on the cut, and hold it for a full 10 to 15 minutes without lifting it to look. If it is still bleeding, start again: another 10 to 15 minutes.
3. Clean it once the bleeding has stopped, rinsing the cut well with clean water to wash the dirt out. Skip iodine, rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide: they damage the tissue.
4. Cover it with a dressing that will not stick to the wound.

The leader takes over and gets medical help if the bleeding has not stopped after two rounds of pressure, or if the hand or foot beyond the cut turns cold or pale, goes numb, or will not move normally. Any injury that needs more than simple Scout first aid is reported to the council. Treating simple cuts and scrapes is part of Tenderfoot requirement 4a.

Tenderfoot 4a.

Never at a Person

"I will not use or point a knife in a threatening manner."

This requirement is different from the others. It is a promise about how you behave with a knife around people, and it cannot be demonstrated the way a cut can. A knife is never pointed or waved at anyone — not in an argument, not as a joke. You say this one in your own words at the session, and leaders watch for it on that campout and on every one after.

Scouting America's public Totin' Chip page and its printed sign-off sheet list six requirements and leave this one out. Scoutbook, where the chip is recorded, has it, so we teach it, and Troop 23's own cards carry it.

Requirement 5.

Trees, Property and the Outdoor Code

Cut living or dead trees only with permission and for a good reason. At a campsite, firewood comes from dead and down wood, where the camp allows gathering it; standing trees, alive or dead, are never cut for firewood, and a standing tree is cut at all only after asking a leader, who checks with the camp or the owner. Never carve on trees, picnic tables or shelters.

Requirement 7 is the Outdoor Code: "As an American, I will do my best to be clean in my outdoor manners, be careful with fire, be considerate in the outdoors, and be conservation-minded." With a knife or an ax in your hand that means: clean up your chips, leave the trees standing, keep your tools off other people's things, and use only the wood you need. You will be asked to say the code and tell what one line of it means.

Requirements 6 and 7.

How You Earn It

The chip is taught on a campout, in an axe yard, with the troop's own tools, by an adult leader or by a Scout who holds the card. Every Scout handles every tool. Bring your handbook, and have the knife, saw and ax pages read before you arrive.

There is no written test. You show each requirement by doing it, and the instructor asks you questions out loud as you work — the same list every time, written out with answers, so every Scout is checked against the same thing. The list is in the instructor guide.

Each requirement is initialed as you show it. The card is issued when all seven are done: a Scoutmaster or Assistant Scoutmaster and the Advancement Chair sign it, and it is recorded in Scoutbook. Anything not finished on one campout is finished on the next — what is signed stays signed. Carry the card in your uniform pocket whenever you use a woods tool — Scouting America's knife safety checklist starts with exactly that. The Totin' Chip emblem is worn on the right uniform pocket as a temporary patch.

Scouting America's own text says only that the Totin' Rights can be taken away; how is left to each troop. In Troop 23 a corner comes off the card for each safety slip. With all four corners gone, the card goes back to the Scoutmaster and you show the requirements again before you use a woods tool on a troop outing. The rule is printed on the back of our cards.

What comes next: the Paul Bunyan Woodsman award builds on the chip. It asks a Scout to know first aid for injuries from woods tools, to hold the Totin' Chip, and to help another Scout or a patrol earn theirs.

Tenderfoot 3d and the Firem'n Chit

The same demonstrations cover a Tenderfoot requirement, which is signed separately:

• 3d. Demonstrate proper care, sharpening, and use of the knife, saw, and ax. Describe when each should be used.

The sharpening sections above are the "sharpening" part, and Which Tool for Which Job is the "describe when" part. And the knife leads straight to the fire: Second Class requirement 2b asks a Scout to prepare tinder, kindling and fuel wood with a pocketknife, and a saw or ax if needed. That fire is the Firem'n Chit. The rest of each rank is on our rank pages, and the other awards a Scout can earn are on Awards.

The Seven Requirements, Word for Word

This is the wording in Scoutbook, where Scouting America records the Totin' Chip.

"This certification grants a Scout the right to carry and use woods tools. The Scout must show their Scout leader, or someone designated by their leader, that the Scout understands their responsibility to do the following:"

1. Read and understand woods tools use and safety rules from the Scouts BSA handbooks.
2. Demonstrate proper handling, care, and use of the pocket knife, ax, and saw.
3. Use knife, ax, and saw as tools, not playthings.
4. Respect all safety rules to protect others.
5. I will not use or point a knife in a threatening manner.
6. Respect property. Cut living and dead trees only with permission and good reason.
7. Subscribe to the Outdoor Code.

"The Scout's 'Totin' Rights' can be taken away if they fail in their responsibility."

Where each one is covered in this guide: 1 — the whole guide, and the woods tools pages of your handbook; 2 — every section on the knife, the saw and the ax; 3 and 4 — Your Safety Circle, The Axe Yard and Carrying, Passing and Storing; 5 — Never at a Person; 6 and 7 — Trees, Property and the Outdoor Code, and Cutting a Limb. The scouting.org page lists six of these; requirement 5 is the one it does not have.