Fiskars Axe or a Gerber ?

Fiskars say that the handle is a virtually unbreakable FiberComp^® fiberglass handle, and the head locks in a permanent, wiggle-free position.

 

Well I knew our axes were strong, and I have to say that in all the years that myself and TG have had them, they're as good as the day they were new.

 

Now the reason for this post is to spread a little known tip when buying one of these axes.

 

Fiskars and Wilkinson Sword, are one in the same.  So if you see one of these little orange gems with Wilkinson Sword or Fiskars on the handle then buy it.

 

The main tip comes here.......the Gerber axe sells for a shed load more than my Fiskars which only cost me £17.99 about five or so years ago, and at the time then the Gerber equivalent axe cost closer to £50.  Now a few of you know this but not everyone, so here goes......a Gerber axe is realy a Fiskars axe that's got a black handle and a badge that reads Gerber.  So save yourself some money and go to the gardening store to buy a Fiskars rather than an exspensive outdoor store that's selling the same axe in a different jacket !

 

Water in a meths burner !

I just recieved this response to one of my videos......

Now here's the WARNING......I'm not endorsing this as a tried and tested method because I've not had a chance yet to test it myself, but I am interested in anyones comments with regards to this and have they used this method and does it work and what sort of results did you get.

 

Good video. a small tip: I've found that adding a TINY amount of water to the meths in the burner doesn't affect it's efficiency, but certainly prevents the base of the pans getting "sooty", so to speak!

 

My stove setup for use in a tent

This is now the only cooker that I use when I'm camping in a tent.

I've done away with the big heavy twin burner cooker and large gas bottle and gone for this little cooker that I had knocking about in the back of the car for brews and meals when out on the road.

 

Now I know the benefits of a twin burner with grill as I'm sure TG will tell me, but that's fine in his HUGE bungalow tent, but for smaller tents like my dome and tunnel tent, then one of these little gas stoves that fit into a compact case the size of a cordless drill box is the way forward for me.

 

You can see from the picture that I've taken an old curver plastic storage box and cut out the one side and then flipped the box over and cable tied an old wire rack where the box wall once was.  I've also blue tacked my cooker splash guard around the inside of the box to reflect the heat and to save me having problems with the box melting !

 

It's proved to be a great setup.  The cooker is fast and stable to have in a tent, the gas lasts for ages and the cans of gas are nice and cheap. The heat output is good so it also doubles as a tent heater.  The splash box I made not only gives me somewhere to store the pots but also keeps stuff from splashing onto the inner walls of my tent.

 

I used this cooker on a frosty week up in The Lake District and only used two and a bit cans of gas, which I was surprised about.  It's nice, clean and boils water fast.  This will always be the cooker of choice for tent cooking in future, and if I find I need another burner then it's only £14 to buy another one of these cookers.

 

Yes I have small gas cookers and meths burners, but who wants to burn meths in a tent, the smell and sooty pots is a bitch and then the chance of spilling it is not something I want to think about, and as for small gas cookers, well they're liable to tipping over wich is not so bad outdoors but for in a tent it's a HUGE problem.

 

I pull the cooker from this box and put it back into it's case and toss it in the back of the car for year round use so It's been a good investment.  I also like the Piezo ignition.

 

Anyway, here it is in it's splash guard box.

Rare footage of JB from HAE on a water run in Maine

Guestbook Closure

For sometime now we've made all our posts here so I've closed our

Free Radicals Guestbook

 

A link to all of our old Guestbook entries will go here soon...

 

Thanks to smartgb.com for our ever working FREE guestbook.

 

 

*** New Photos ***

I've been digging around and added 114 photos to our folder.

Some old and some not so.......

 

They're over there --------> in the "Radical Expedition Photographs"

Just click on the slideshow to see them all full size

 

The SnowClaw

I brought one of these back from my Canada trip, it was a gift from Her Indoors :-)

It's the cats whiskers for Backcountry Hikers.

People have them hung off packs and tossed in the backs of cars.

 

Have a look at the website and then take a look at the video.

 

My first thoughts were how usefull one of these would be on the mountain treks, but the more you look at it the more uses it has........shovel, fracture splint, snow anchor, glissade, pack support.....and at 6.1oz it's going to feature on the back of my pack on hikes, if not only for its use as a splint or a pack support to protect the contents of my pack, it's a great bit of kit and well worthy of hanging off the back of my pack.

 

Website

http://www.snowclaw.com/

 

Video

http://www.snowclaw.com/video.htm

 

 

R.I.P. My Trusted Friends

Sadly on the day of the 14th February 2010, after many years of trusted service, my warm dry cumfy boots have been invaded by maggots and have been put to rest.

 

Leason be learned, never leave your boots in the shed with a pair of used garden gloves on them, because you never know who or what's going to crawl into them !

 

Goodby my boots, you served me well :-(

 

 

Some of the guys at Sty Head

Mikey Dread, Van Cleef, Hawk, Mad Micky & Topgear

Memory-Maps Adventurer 2800 GPS

Is this a poor cheeky clone of the rather splendid Satmap unit, or will it perform !

http://www.memory-map.co.uk/adventurer/index.html

 

Satmap Active 10

http://www.satmap.com/about.php