gear

Helle knife before final sanding.

I always wanted a nice knife. Something better than the cheapy knives that are offered for $9.99 in that store that you always shop at. But I never could justify… or convince my wife that $100 for a knife was worth it. So I decided to start up a hobby: knife making.

Well strictly speaking, it isn’t knife making. It is making the handle for the knife. But to me that was the place to start. I did a bunch of research and decided on Helle. I haven’t been disappointed.

Helle is a Norwegian knife making company and they distribute through various companies around the world. I buy mine from Dryad bows.

The concept is fairly simple: Drill a hole down the center of a piece of wood and then slide it over the tang of the knife. Now, to make it fancy you’ll want to alternate woods or add leather, bone, metal or something to make your knife unique.

materials for my first knife: wood, leather, tagua (vegetable ivory), leather, tagua, leather, repeat…

Choose a good epoxy, let it dry and then all you do is carve and sand the handle to your liking. It is a good project and for $25 you have a nice knife that is unique. (Helle also sells premade knives with the same blade for $90+).

I’m in south america and in every country that I’ve been, I’ve picked up a piece of wood or other material that I can use in making a knife. For example, my current knife uses tagua, leather, and peruvian olive wood (the spanish brought olive trees over in the 1600s). In bolivia I picked up some small pieces of quina quina which I will probably work on back home this summer.

Whether you want a one off knife, want to start a hobby, or maybe even a business, its a great project that you can do with only a few tools (I used a hand drill, saw and file for my first one).



Credit: James Davies (used with permission)

 For a while I’ve been looking at putting together a survival kit. Well, a good first aid kit was my idea, but James Davies thought of more than that. He started a 1 man business that offers kits for almost every (if not all) survival situations, including first aid.

Why would you expand them? Well, because you have the option of buying individual pieces off the website so you can customize what you carry (why go for the razor blade or small saw blade, when you could carry CRT’s portable Ritter knife or the UST Sabercut saw?). If you think you can do better, then why don’t you just buy the pods and make up your own kit? This feature really is nice. Unlike so many suvival products, you have control what you buy and aren’t obligated to pay for things you don’t want. Not that you wouldn’t want what’s in these kits! If all you want to do is make use of the pods themself (or gear inside for that matter), buy the sizes you wnat, the connectors you want and then go bargain hunting based on your own needs!

Anyway, take a look at the site: http://www.gearpods.com/ and see if you can find something you’d use in your car, kayak, quad, backpack or even just at home.

If you want to take a look at the youtube channel, you can see several different reviews, including some guys who have gone out with just the gear pods kits. http://www.youtube.com/gearpods

Although I’m sure they are busy, fell free to drop them an email if you have a question. Their response has been quick and friendly. One of the added benefits of a small business.

Just a heads up on a fellow blogger’s give away. Jason Klass (Gear Talk with Jason Klass) is giving away a firesteel on his blog. You only have until tomorrow, February 27th at 5PM MST to get in on the giveaway.

Just post a response to This blog posting describing your favourite and most effective firestarting technique. He’ll choose 2 winners tomorrow. After that he will post the winners on his blog and then you have 72 hours to claim your prize.

Take a look around at his site and associate backpackflyfishing website.

Use:
What can you use this for? boiling water. Thats about it. If you are looking to do more, look somewhere else, the high efficiency wood stove, the trangia set or the alcohol burner are better choices, but for something compact, light and cheap (available for $10 online… mine was cheaper).

Will I use? This summer I intend to take several different stoves with me to try them out on the trail and see what I like. I think this is going to be for shorter trips where I’m not in a rush and can’t use my high efficiency wood stove.

For those of us who are light or ultralight backpackers or even those who grumble on the trail thinking, “why on earth did I bring so much stuff”. Erik the Black has something that might help.

Erik is an ultralight backpacker with several books to his name (including “ultralight backpacking” and “How to hike the pacific crest trail”) so someone that talks from experience.

Anyway, he put together a spreadsheet download it here. It allows you to enter your gear by category including cost and weight and then presents you with your totals for each by category. What I like most about it is that it shows the totals as a pie chart. I’m not a huge fan of pie, but the chart shows what categories are weighing you down the most, or breaking your budget.

I would recommend it for those of us who want to start ultralight backpacking and haven’t bought the gear. It will give you an idea of how much you will be spending and where you should be looking to save money ($10 sacks are light, but add up quickly). You might look for cheaper alternatives (look for a good price on sil nylon at a fabric store and make your own bags, sleeping, tent or pack).

It will really help planning your budget and keep you looking for things that you can leave behind.
Go to his blog: at blackwoodpress.com (Link takes you right to the post) and take a look at his video on how to use the spreadsheet. Even if you don’t have Microsoft excel, try it with openoffice, a free alternative.

Check out the video here.

Here’s a video review of the esbit style stove:

Please note that esbit makes tablets that are much better than the two I’ve tried.

I’m always looking for DIY information for making your own gear. There are some great ideas that work as well as (if not better than) their costly name brand counterparts.

One of the sites that gave me the idea for a super light and cheap backpacking tent is backpacking.net’s homemade gear page.

http://www.backpacking.net/makegear.html

I’m hoping to use the “Jones tent II” as a base to make my own variation of a 2 persons backpacking tent.

The instructions are generally thorough and include diagrams with measurements.

Enjoy. If you do use the site or have used similar guides to make your own gear, I’d love to hear it.

Alright, for those of you who live in areas where wood heating is common, you know the benefit of a good, efficient wood stove. Well… all those who pay heating bills (be it electric, gas, wood or pellet or ???) appreciate an efficient stove. Even backpacking we appreciate it. That’s what floats our boat.

There is an old saying, “White man builds big fire, stands back. Indian builds little fire, huddles close”.  The point is, you want to get the job done, and while the more pyrotechnical minded like big fires, the less work, the better.

Now if you combine those principles (efficiency, price and purpose) you have the high efficiency wood backpacking stove. Think of it as a wood stove with an afterburner… yes like a jet, but no, not that fast. You add extra air at the top of the fire to burn any left over gasses. With only a handful of twigs you can boil a few cups of water and in the end, there is hardly anything leftover, just a bit of charcoal. And all you need is 2 tin cans!

In reality its purpose is to cook food. at 3200M (10 500 feet) I have boiled 2 cups of water in 8 minutes and 4 (1 liter) in 13.5.

What are the benefits?
For longer trips you don’t have to bring your own fuel, making it lighter than conventional stoves, especially on long trips.
It needs hardly any fuel (1 handful). Much less wood than a conventional fire.

What are the downsides?
Slightly longer to boil water than with an alcohol stove.
Slightly heavier than an alcohol stove.
It relies on finding dry fuel.
Take a look at the video for a how to:

My wife’s Neck Cooler

It isn’t carroted, clotted, or carotted. It’s Carotid. It doesn’t have anything to with bugs bunny or how much your husband saved on that ring, it just carries blood to your head. Well, oxygenated blood, and i guess that makes it important. In fact if you want to prevent your body from overheating, better than pouring water on your head, you should cool down that artery.

Thats why it feels good to put a wet cloth on your neck. It doesn’t just ease sunburn, it cools down the blood that enters your head. And that can save your life.

The worst enemy in summer is heatstroke. That’s when your temperature reaches more than 40.6 degrees. It can kill you. You don’t want to mess around with heatstroke, so always keep your body temperature regulated, keep drinking water and don’t over exercise in the heat.

To help, why not make a neck warmer to keep your neck cool for long periods of time. My mum actually brought this neck cooler to my attention. It uses is silica gel in a small kneck scarf that you soak in water.

Here is the how to:

Things you need:

• Cotton cloth about 1 meter/yard long and 5 inches wide.
• 1/2 tsp of silica gel
• sewing machine or needle and thread

What to do with them.

1. Fold the material in half (inside out) to make it only 2.5″ wide (but still a meter long).
2. Sew one end shut.
3. sew along whole length of the open side.
4. turn the fabrica inside out like a sock so that the pattern is clearly visible.
5. 1/3 of the length in, measuring from the sewn end, sew at least twice along the width of the cloth. This will create the start of the silica pouch.
6. Pour in the 1/2 tsp of silica gel down the open end of the scarf.
7. 1/3 of the length, measuring from the open end, sew at least twice along the width of the cloth. This will close the silica pouch.
8. Sew the open end closed.

Soak in water for 1 – 2 hours or until the silica has filled the pouch. Then tie it around your neck. It will stay moist and cool for hours. Then, when your done, dry it out in the sun and save it for next time.

Beware: Don’t eat the silica gel. While silica gel is not actually toxic, it is sometimes combined with toxic chemicals. Read the wiki.

Here’s a quick video of me making the potstand for the alcohol backpacking stove that I documented earlier.

Hiking in the Monashees, BC, near Valley of the Moon

I remember several times on hikes drinking straight from the source: a creek (or even better a spring) without a second thought. We didn’t get sick. But not everyone gets away with that, or better said, not everyone has access to such clean sources of water.

The Problem:

SteriPen’s Adventurer UV Water Purifier

So what can you do about it? You’ve got several options from simple boiling all the way to fancy (and more costly) portable UV based devices. Plus everything in between.

*Inspectapedia has a chart with different temperatures that need to be maintained and for how long to ensure clean water (see links below).

Filter

A new and cool solution are UV pens. They use UV light, stirred around for a minute and a half or so to purify the drinking water. Probably the fastest and safest choice, it seems a bit costly ($50+ depending on the model) but with a lifetime of 8000 uses, you will save a lot on fuel and time on the trail. It works out to around 1 penny a use. *Do research on the steripen, there have been mixed reviews about quality and durability!

Have you had a chance to use more than one of these? Which is your favourite and why?

This video was made by a Trail Ambassador for Gossamer Gear (they review and test gear for Gossamer Gear). In the video he goes on a 3 day trip with his daughter to the Elysian Fields. Nice balance of scenery and informative talk about his gear.

Also, checkout his video camera: ContourHD 1080p Full HD Helmet Camera

I found it nice to see that he has taken his kids backpacking since they were 7.

As he says, “… I started taking my kids out by car camping and they would play in the area. Then it was car camping with little day hikes. They did their first overnight backpacks at about 7, though many kids go out much younger. My daughter has turned out to be a great hiking partner, and the times spent are invaluable.”

Maybe I can convince some friends to try the trail with me.