Uploaded January 2019 | Updated September 2026, 4 hours ago
This is a very basic blacksmithing project to make a simple set of hardware for quickly rigging a tripod for campfire cooking. There are many campfire tripod videos on youtube, and they mostly fall into two styles. One is a fully metal version with iron stakes with rings on the top for forming a tripod with a chain or trammel hook for the cooking pots. The other is a bushcraft style that uses three cordage lashed poles and a length of cord for holding the cooking pots.
The rig set I am making in this video was inspired by watching a wonderful Japanese anime film called Bakemono no Ko. In the film, there is a wonderful scene (amongst many wonderful scenes, such a great movie) where Kyuuta and Hyakushuubou are sitting outside their tent in the evening and talking by the fire. They are boiling water for tea on a simple tripod set, which is three wooden poles lashed/tied together with a small chain. And suspended from the chain by a small S-hook there is their tea kettle.
I had seen quite a few blacksmith project versions of the cooking tripods, but I was never interested in making one as their seemed to be so much metal in the stakes. For an item I wasn't likely to use all that often it seemed like a waste of material. But this chain rigging system in the film was to me a nice combination of a small blacksmithing project that would combine with easily found poles in the woods on the occasions we might want to boil some water out there.
The materials I used in this project were simply some old small gauge chain and a few lengths of 1/4" round bar for making the S-hooks. Most of the metal shaping I did in this project could probably be accomplished by working the metal cold, if you don't have a forge. Ultimately I decided that my grab hook idea for making the chain loop did not work very well, so it probably isn't worth the trouble of doing that, just open up one end of the chain out into a ring to use in making a slip loop. The S-hooks will fit in any link in the chain so there is plenty of options for adjusting your pots up and down to get to the right heat range.
This is a very basic blacksmithing project to make a simple set of hardware for quickly rigging a tripod for campfire cooking. There are many campfire tripod videos on youtube, and they mostly fall into two styles. One is a fully metal version with iron stakes with rings on the top for forming a tripod with a chain or trammel hook for the cooking pots. The other is a bushcraft style that uses three cordage lashed poles and a length of cord for holding the cooking pots.
The rig set I am making in this video was inspired by watching a wonderful Japanese anime film called Bakemono no Ko. In the film, there is a wonderful scene (amongst many wonderful scenes, such a great movie) where Kyuuta and Hyakushuubou are sitting outside their tent in the evening and talking by the fire. They are boiling water for tea on a simple tripod set, which is three wooden poles lashed/tied together with a small chain. And suspended from the chain by a small S-hook there is their tea kettle.
I had seen quite a few blacksmith project versions of the cooking tripods, but I was never interested in making one as their seemed to be so much metal in the stakes. For an item I wasn't likely to use all that often it seemed like a waste of material. But this chain rigging system in the film was to me a nice combination of a small blacksmithing project that would combine with easily found poles in the woods on the occasions we might want to boil some water out there.
The materials I used in this project were simply some old small gauge chain and a few lengths of 1/4" round bar for making the S-hooks. Most of the metal shaping I did in this project could probably be accomplished by working the metal cold, if you don't have a forge. Ultimately I decided that my grab hook idea for making the chain loop did not work very well, so it probably isn't worth the trouble of doing that, just open up one end of the chain out into a ring to use in making a slip loop. The S-hooks will fit in any link in the chain so there is plenty of options for adjusting your pots up and down to get to the right heat range.
