There’s nothing particularly complicated about the way Trappa approaches the outdoors.
He grew up around knives, axes and country life. His grandfather taught him to use a half axe when he was young, and whittling was always there in one form or another.
These days, he finds himself carving more often. Not as a formal craft, but because he enjoys making useful things by hand.
In northern New South Wales, that means working with some fairly unforgiving timber. Red gum in particular has become a regular part of it.
A knife that gets used
Trappa first came across Wilora through the Heaford.
It quickly became part of his everyday kit. He carries it cross-draw and has used it for everything from camp utensils and chopsticks to fishing lures and blanks cut from Australian hardwood.
The hatchet followed much the same path.
It gets used for shaping timber, roughing out pieces and working through red gum — gradually learning what the edge can take and how the tool behaves in the hand.
“I’m pretty much one way or the other using the Heaford knife and hatchet daily. There’s always a job for them.”
A different kind of knife
The Brumby has found its place too.
Compared with the Heaford, it’s less about fine carving and more about being a tough, general-purpose bushcraft knife.
Trappa noticed that fairly quickly.
“Brumby is a very appropriate name. It’s elegant, compact and obviously tough.”
Its Sandvik 14C28N blade has since been put through notching, hardwood and heavier camp work. The Heaford remains the finer carver. The Brumby is the knife he describes as the kind you’d be comfortable having on your hip in the bush.
Different tools, different jobs.
Bushcraft without much fuss
Fishing, camping, carving and finding another piece of timber to work on are all part of Trappa’s time outdoors.
He shares some of those projects with other bushcraft enthusiasts too — usually the same way they happen in real life: a piece of wood, a well-used knife and whatever he decided to make that day.
That’s what Field Stories is about.
Not equipment arranged for a photograph, but where it ends up, what people make with it, and the familiarity that comes from using the same tools again and again.
We’ll be interested to see what Trappa makes next.