RAT Fire Kit

R.A.T. said:
I just sent nick-nack a message about this. Most likely his idea pre-dates ours since his prototype was made before ours according to the posting dates (so it just stands to reason that thought popped in his mind before it did ours). The last thing we want to do is step on anyone's intellectual property, especially with everything that has happened (and is happening) to us right now with the fight for our name. So, I emailed nick-nack asking for his blessings on us going forward with manufacturing this. If he doesn't want us to, then we won't.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, HornyToad. Regardless of what happens it is a cool idea.

Jeff
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Once more, proof of the class act that is R.A.T. :thumbup:

Doc
 
1_BIG_BUNKER said:
The other thing I would do is cut a groove around the body so you could dummy cord the cap to the body with some braided twine without compromising the waterproof body. You will still be able to remove the cap from the body to use as a striker if needed. It will also make it much more difficult for the cap to actually completely unscrew over time if you keep the dummy cord short enough. Kind of like a plastic G.I. canteen cap.

You are only adding one step in the manufacturing of the handle, and that is cutting a groove while it is on the lathe.
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I think this idea makes a lot of sense.

I'd also scrap the magnesium and just go with the ferro rod.

On the rods....is there a way to replace them? If you go with the smaller 3/16" rod it would be nice to be able to replace it.
 
Guys,

It is SO refreshing to have people develop products from real field experience.

Hats off here to Jeff and Mike. :thumbup:
 
I'm going to have to go out on a limb here and admit that I thought of something similar. Although, by no means whatsoever did I have any intention of taking it any further that the piece I am making for myself. I don't even want to consider it as intellectual property that I have any right to. I have been curing a piece of bamboo out in the garage for months now for the purpose of creating a handle for a ferro rod I scavenged from a melted blast-match. I am going to use a cork to cap the handle and store some tinderquick tabs in it. I drew inspiration for the idea from Japanese knife designs that use fully enclosed bamboo sheaths and feature a cap and that idea is combined with the cord lock idea of Inro style pill boxes. I plan on getting a bigger piece of bamboo from a stand on the north side of Knoxville. The extra space around the knife would hold a few essentials, such as hooks and flies, kevlar dental floss, wet/dry sandpaper, and whatever else I think of. The blade (mora 2000 although I am trying to save to buy the new IZULA which ought to be lighter) will be encased between two hidden pieces of plastic that will keep things from rattling and being slashed. Now that R.A.T. Cutlery is coming out with this very groovy tool, maybe I should consider making the tube sheath out of anodized aluminum!

Edit: I am wondering why the handle has to have a separate cap. Wouldn't it be better to have threads on the butt of the ferro rod and only one hole in the aluminum housing? It would probably be easier and cheaper to manufacture that way as well. You could go a step further and make the handle length twice as long, put threads on both sides of the ferro so that it may be enclosed in the handle along with whatever one chooses to store in the half of the handle not being used by the protected ferro. Gee whillakers Bat Man! You could even create a rod that is one half ferro rod and one half diamond hone. separate the two with threads and the handle will protect the hone and the contents with equal facility. What do you think?
 
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tenkara,

Again, the idea is good enough that I'm sure a lot of folks have thought about it before us. We even epoxied A piece of 1/2" CPVC pipe on to a piece of ferro and made a simple one of these before we did the prototype. As far as threading Ferocerium goes, while it's a good idea I don't think that's going to work well due to the composition of the ferro material.

After reading all the posts we will probably go with a piece of 3/8" ferro rod and epoxy it into a blind hole in the capsule since that is the most economical way of doing this. And you'll wear out the capsule before you wear out a piece of 3/8" Ferro. ;)

Now, the real trick to do on this while thing would be to put a 20mm button compass protected inside the cap. Then you would have some gross navigation covered without adding any size or much weight to the device.

Working on another deal and as soon as we have it prototyped we'll post it up.
 
Pure genius! I too like the idea of making it with a big fat ferro rod. I'd buy at least three. Any thoughts on what the striker would be?
 
R.A.T. said:
Again, the idea is good enough that I'm sure a lot of folks have thought about it before us. We even epoxied A piece of 1/2" CPVC pipe on to a piece of ferro and made a simple one of these before we did the prototype. As far as threading Ferocerium goes, while it's a good idea I don't think that's going to work well due to the composition of the ferro material.
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I agree - it's one of those things countless people have thought of. I think my plastic version was posted before the spy capsule version - I had the idea ages ago but made it for a competition in another forum. I don't claim anything on it; I'm sure there were many predecessors!

The only difference here is that someone has the commercial sense to develop and market it - wish I had!

R.A.T. said:
After reading all the posts we will probably go with a piece of 3/8" ferro rod and epoxy it into a blind hole in the capsule since that is the most economical way of doing this. And you'll wear out the capsule before you wear out a piece of 3/8" Ferro. ;)
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Sounds good.

R.A.T. said:
Now, the real trick to do on this while thing would be to put a 20mm button compass protected inside the cap. Then you would have some gross navigation covered without adding any size or much weight to the device.
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I really like that idea - could use a smaller compass though, say 15mm? just to help keep the size manageable.

R.A.T. said:
Working on another deal and as soon as we have it prototyped we'll post it up.
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Can't wait!
 
Here is another idea I just made up.
One large spy capsule.
https://edcdepot.com/merchantmanager/product_info.php?products_id=174
One large swedish firesteel (minus the handle).
Put them together in some way. Done.
I do really like the idea, and I guess you could fit a small compass in a container like the large spy capsule. The way is not to drill the "hole" in the large capsul too deep, to leave 1/4" or so for a blind hole, or even better a threaded firesteel. It can be done with lots of water and slow speed. I have drilled through alot of firesteels, the thing is to do it slowly not to start the sparks going. I put the firesteel under water and drilled with a cordless on slow.
One way to get a scraper is to get the edges on the part with the lanyard quite "sharp".

Anyway, your idea is really cool. It might be a gizmo that can be printed with company logos and handed out as gifts, like those Maglites and stuff you sometimes get for christmas. I already see one potential customer. The tourist college in Ed, Sweden (www.utsikten.info) When they have their open house before applications come in they could hand them out to interested students. They also have this project with students running starting projects and small businesses. Some kids from that school invented that green "multidisc" that you can get for your Trangia stove.

Your prototype almost looks like a CMG Infinity.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6005570#post6005570
Get in contact with those who make the "body" and attach the firesteel where the LED goes :) Done.
 
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Man I hope you get the OK to go ahead on these! The more I look the more I need a few of these. Yes, need, not want!
 
DOC-CANADA said:
Once more, proof of the class act that is R.A.T. :thumbup:

Doc
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Double :thumbup::thumbup:

I agree with Doc...the stand-up, ethical behavior such as this is going to make me order that RC-4 and Izula just out of principal! For those that didn't catch it...it's call honor and integrity, and the RAT Team deserves kudos!

ROCK6
 
The RAT Team does have honor and integrity, but....

I see a big difference between someone trying to bring to market a product that is a copy of someone else's product that they have already brought to market, and someone trying to develop a product that turns out to be similar to something someone else made for himself and has no thought of bringing it to market. In fact I believe nick-nack showed his device to this forum as a suggestion as what each of us could do.

I see no reason for the RAT Team to slow their development of this device over this issue. I hope they proceed (and I think they will) with the development as it seems to have generated a lot of interest in their target audience.

I would hope that nick-nack would weigh in on this subject and put it to rest. Apparently he is from Australia so is in a different time zone.

HornyToad
 
Another possible addition that was already tried by somebody here on bladeforums is to have a metal striker attached to the inside of the cap. There would still be room for tinder and you wouldn't have to worry about carrying around a hunk of hacksaw blade.

-- FLIX
 
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1_BIG_BUNKER said:
The other thing I would do is cut a groove around the body so you could dummy cord the cap to the body with some braided twine without compromising the waterproof body. You will still be able to remove the cap from the body to use as a striker if needed. It will also make it much more difficult for the cap to actually completely unscrew over time if you keep the dummy cord short enough. Kind of like a plastic G.I. canteen cap.

You are only adding one step in the manufacturing of the handle, and that is cutting a groove while it is on the lathe.
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This modification would also provide friction / grip for one hand while striking. A slight texture on the body would help with this aspect as well. Much like 1 Big Bunker has stated...as long as the waterproof housing is chucked up in the lathe, you may as well add the texture.
 
HornyToad said:
I see a big difference between someone trying to bring to market a product that is a copy of someone else's product that they have already brought to market, and someone trying to develop a product that turns out to be similar to something someone else made for himself and has no thought of bringing it to market. In fact I believe nick-nack showed his device to this forum as a suggestion as what each of us could do.
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I agree with that, but with everything we have been through (and are going through), intellectual property rights are something that are extremely important to us.

Haven't heard back from nick-nack but I hope we do.
 
Working on another deal and as soon as we have it prototyped we'll post it up.
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Man - Please do. I was a little interested with the first design, but when you started talking the button compass my eyes lit up :)

sp
 
Looks like our final design will be a 1 inch O.D. on the capsule with extremal grooves to dummy-cord the cap (from a suggestion here), the inside of the cap will have a flatspace so the user can glue in a 20mm (or smaller) button compass. And it will have a 3/8" Ferro rod with no magnesium. We're going to have to epoxy the ferro rod in place so we have to do some testing on that to make sure it it's secure. Right now it looks like we will anodize these a green color as the first color we introduce.
 
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