American Bushman

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing." —Benjamin Franklin

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

In Plain Sight -- Be Creative

The firesteel contest has got me thinking about not only custom handles but also the clever ways those firesteels can be carried.

Here are a few of the methods I've seen, read about, or tried.

1. A small firesteel can be inserted into a hollowed piece of paracord and woven into a hatband.
2. A cork handle can be shaped to fit snugly inside the handlebar on a road or mountain bike.
3. A bit of epoxy and you can mount a firesteel inside the downtube on a camera tripod.
4. Toss a small firesteel into your match case.
5. Make a necklace and turn your firesteel into a bead or charm.
6. Epoxy a small firesteel inside the earpiece of your sunglasses/eyeglasses.

As a firesteel junkie I admit to carrying more than one firesteel most of the time and using these methods makes it less obvious that I'm addicted to mischmetal. :)

Thanks for reading,


B

2 Comments:

At 7:11 PM, Anonymous James in Indy said...

I'm working on a new one too - just need to get the time.

I carry a little 5x7 pouch from Diplomat Gear to the office everyday. I wanted to add a firesteel without looking like the crazy person I am (in case I have to open the pouch in front of a client). So...I'm planning to take off the front portion of a highlighter or a sharpie and using epoxy to insert a firesteel that I can then put a cap on.

 
At 7:54 AM, Anonymous Anders said...

Hi Brian.
I have now tried my 10 item camping challenge...
I went out in the woods friday morning and came back sunday evening.
My list was:
-Backpack
-Sleepingbag
-Tarp
-Fak
-Fire making kit
-Compass, and a map.
-Knife
-Axe
-Kleen Kanteen 40 oz bottle
-Foldacup

And of course clothes and shoes...

It went very well I must say.
The two biggest bennefits as I see them is:
-Lightweight, it was easy to walk 40 km both friday and saturday, on sunday I only walked about 30 km due to that I was lightheaded and week from lack of food.
-You know what you carry, its no need to go through your backpack in search of something. If you havent got it, improvise!

During this weekend my main food was sprucetea and bulrushroot.
I used my KleenKanteenbottle to cook and it worked pretty well. It looks really bad now though and I will have to give it a good cleaning.
The weather during this weekend was a little bit of everything. Temp was about 15-18 C. during daytime and about 0 C. during night. On sunday morning it was a thin layer of ice on the water in my foldacup.

I used all of my gear and everything worked fine. On saturday night i tried to make cordage to use my tarp as a hammock. I failed miserably I must admit so I ended up sleeping on the hard and cold ground both nights.

As a summary it was a very nice weekend and I feel a bit proud of myself for doing this.
Thanks for the inspiration!

Anders from Sweden

 

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