- Joined
- Feb 28, 2007
- Messages
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Scab8541 elsewhere asked if there was a stainless steel equivalent to the Titanium 750ml Nesting cup.
I thought I'd try my hand at working this up from a stainless steel utensil cannister I found in kitchen supply store. The cannister has a wide lip that was impractical and needed to be cut off. I did that with a dremel and going through a couple of cut-off wheels.
Now, this pot is quite a bit wider than the tighter nesting ones. In fact, I was after something that had a 1L volume because I really hate when I have to boil two pots of water to fill up one nalgene worth of water. This one does that. However, I also wanted something that would fit inside my maxpedition water bottle holder.
It fits in the waterbottle holder, but barely so. Not that difficult to push it in all the way to the bottom, but its a real struggle to pull it out. You could do it, but I decided that my project failed in this regard.
Keeping things simple and not finding an immediate solution for a lid, I just went with a thick foil from the bottom of one of those frozen lazgna trays. I poked two holes in the sides to string up a wire bail. This is a decent little billy and even with the holes, I can fit a full liter of water with room to boil.
This set up is narrow enough to nicely nest inside my twig stove based on the IKEA cannister. I usually nest my twig stove inside my 12cm zebra pot. Comparing my zebra pot set up this one is much lighter. The cannister steel is thinner and obviously less robust. However, this modified billy with crappy lid saves nearly 6 oz from the zebra billy. I can easily nest my standard GSI cup and waterbottle inside this.
So, I haven't given up on the 12cm zebra billy yet, but this modified billy does provide a lighter option when I really do want to shave some weight. The sacrifice is that the pot is less robust, doesn't have as nice a lid and it holds a bit less water (the zebra holds about 1.3 L).
Onto the firekit. Rick Marchand was kind enough to give me one of his wonderful period fire-tins complete with charcloth and cooker tin. This is the one with the integrated lens. Its a great piece of kit and far more water tight than an altoids tin. I haven't yet found a wonderful leather pouch, but I like the idea of putting my firekit on my belt rather than in my pack where I have to shuffle for it.
So I found that one of my spare little point and shoot camera bags will hold both the fire-steel tin kit as well as an altoids tin. I use the altoids to store my bowdrill kit supplies and the period tin to hold the flint and steel kit. Haven't quite gotten around to using this yet, but I intend to this weekend.
Bowdrill kit contents in the Altoids: paracord for bow, head piece made out of beef bone, couple lumps of tinder fungus, some jute for tinder.
Flint & steel kit contents: Marchand Strife Striker Knife, two pieces of flint, a big pile of charcloth (courtesy of Rick) and a charcooker tin).
The strifeknife has a little edge on it that does provide some functionality. You can look at it as a little tin blade and immediate uses come to play for cutting the jute into manageable sizes for building the tinder nest. I had gotten the strife knife from Rick about 2 years ago when I did that article on him forging it at his shop. I need to sharpen it a bit more again.
I thought I'd try my hand at working this up from a stainless steel utensil cannister I found in kitchen supply store. The cannister has a wide lip that was impractical and needed to be cut off. I did that with a dremel and going through a couple of cut-off wheels.
Now, this pot is quite a bit wider than the tighter nesting ones. In fact, I was after something that had a 1L volume because I really hate when I have to boil two pots of water to fill up one nalgene worth of water. This one does that. However, I also wanted something that would fit inside my maxpedition water bottle holder.
It fits in the waterbottle holder, but barely so. Not that difficult to push it in all the way to the bottom, but its a real struggle to pull it out. You could do it, but I decided that my project failed in this regard.
Keeping things simple and not finding an immediate solution for a lid, I just went with a thick foil from the bottom of one of those frozen lazgna trays. I poked two holes in the sides to string up a wire bail. This is a decent little billy and even with the holes, I can fit a full liter of water with room to boil.
This set up is narrow enough to nicely nest inside my twig stove based on the IKEA cannister. I usually nest my twig stove inside my 12cm zebra pot. Comparing my zebra pot set up this one is much lighter. The cannister steel is thinner and obviously less robust. However, this modified billy with crappy lid saves nearly 6 oz from the zebra billy. I can easily nest my standard GSI cup and waterbottle inside this.
So, I haven't given up on the 12cm zebra billy yet, but this modified billy does provide a lighter option when I really do want to shave some weight. The sacrifice is that the pot is less robust, doesn't have as nice a lid and it holds a bit less water (the zebra holds about 1.3 L).
Onto the firekit. Rick Marchand was kind enough to give me one of his wonderful period fire-tins complete with charcloth and cooker tin. This is the one with the integrated lens. Its a great piece of kit and far more water tight than an altoids tin. I haven't yet found a wonderful leather pouch, but I like the idea of putting my firekit on my belt rather than in my pack where I have to shuffle for it.
So I found that one of my spare little point and shoot camera bags will hold both the fire-steel tin kit as well as an altoids tin. I use the altoids to store my bowdrill kit supplies and the period tin to hold the flint and steel kit. Haven't quite gotten around to using this yet, but I intend to this weekend.
Bowdrill kit contents in the Altoids: paracord for bow, head piece made out of beef bone, couple lumps of tinder fungus, some jute for tinder.
Flint & steel kit contents: Marchand Strife Striker Knife, two pieces of flint, a big pile of charcloth (courtesy of Rick) and a charcooker tin).
The strifeknife has a little edge on it that does provide some functionality. You can look at it as a little tin blade and immediate uses come to play for cutting the jute into manageable sizes for building the tinder nest. I had gotten the strife knife from Rick about 2 years ago when I did that article on him forging it at his shop. I need to sharpen it a bit more again.
:thumbup: