- Joined
- Mar 22, 2006
- Messages
- 5,944
Thanks guys.. Just an update, I left the transpiration bag I put up the other day up for 24 hours. I obtained abpprox 7 hours of green, but palatable water, if i can i'll post a pic when i get back from my trip
-
The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Water Contest
- Thread starter Rotte
- Start date
If Pit can drink his own urine I can darn sure eat a cactus.
I approached this as “where am I most likely to find myself in this situation?” For me this would be hunting between Mexico and Montana. If I can afford Canada or Alaska one day then I will take a different approach. The two items I have consistently located in my environment are cactus and rocks. The metal pan is standing in for a large flat rock for this post.
I had two ideas I wanted to experiment with for viability. Both proved to be poor methods to obtain water and left me seeking other ideas. I wanted a minimalist approach as I am confident I can locate enough water in the places I hunt, cattle ranches or local creeks, to get me home. Every time I go out where I am in new territory I always have a minimum of 2 days worth of water.
First methods was to cut open a cactus and try to absorb the fluid out with what I would most likely have on me, clothing. I used a paper towel as it would be the easiest to see the wetness and I didn’t want to cut off the top of my socks. If you know what I am speaking off then you have hunted after a long night of Mexican food in Acuna, MX. This method failed miserably as the paper towel became damp, but that was it.
Next, I tried to scrap the pulp from the cactus and grind the fluid out into the pan (rock in the field) and absorb it for there. Again, failure. I would have to grind up 6 or more cactus leaves to make this produce any viable water. Both the time, potential spines and reward are not likely worth the effort required.
I did discover you can take pieces from the inside of the cactus and suck on them to produce some fluid. They even sell cactus juice in the grocery stores down here and I know of a few old ranch hand cooks who can make cactus jelly. I tried a few pieces and sucked on it for 5 or so minutes. I did obtain some moisture, but in the end all I ended up with is a numb tongue.
This a great thread and I learned alot from the other post. Most importantly, I learned drink the Miller 64 I from the box I cut the cactus on.
Thanks for the opportunity.
PS. I did have a third idea if I was stranded with the truck. This happened once before and it was a 13 mile walk back to the camp which was 26 miles from the nearest paved road. I noticed a ton of dew on the hood this morning. In areas with high humidity the metal of the vehcile holds a good 2 0z of water.
I approached this as “where am I most likely to find myself in this situation?” For me this would be hunting between Mexico and Montana. If I can afford Canada or Alaska one day then I will take a different approach. The two items I have consistently located in my environment are cactus and rocks. The metal pan is standing in for a large flat rock for this post.
I had two ideas I wanted to experiment with for viability. Both proved to be poor methods to obtain water and left me seeking other ideas. I wanted a minimalist approach as I am confident I can locate enough water in the places I hunt, cattle ranches or local creeks, to get me home. Every time I go out where I am in new territory I always have a minimum of 2 days worth of water.
First methods was to cut open a cactus and try to absorb the fluid out with what I would most likely have on me, clothing. I used a paper towel as it would be the easiest to see the wetness and I didn’t want to cut off the top of my socks. If you know what I am speaking off then you have hunted after a long night of Mexican food in Acuna, MX. This method failed miserably as the paper towel became damp, but that was it.
Next, I tried to scrap the pulp from the cactus and grind the fluid out into the pan (rock in the field) and absorb it for there. Again, failure. I would have to grind up 6 or more cactus leaves to make this produce any viable water. Both the time, potential spines and reward are not likely worth the effort required.
I did discover you can take pieces from the inside of the cactus and suck on them to produce some fluid. They even sell cactus juice in the grocery stores down here and I know of a few old ranch hand cooks who can make cactus jelly. I tried a few pieces and sucked on it for 5 or so minutes. I did obtain some moisture, but in the end all I ended up with is a numb tongue.
This a great thread and I learned alot from the other post. Most importantly, I learned drink the Miller 64 I from the box I cut the cactus on.
Thanks for the opportunity.
PS. I did have a third idea if I was stranded with the truck. This happened once before and it was a 13 mile walk back to the camp which was 26 miles from the nearest paved road. I noticed a ton of dew on the hood this morning. In areas with high humidity the metal of the vehcile holds a good 2 0z of water.
Last edited:
I had an idea last night that I'm unable to try myself. But if somebody was looking for an idea I'd like to see how productive it is.
I'd heard about a man stranded in the desert with a broken down jeep in ww2. He managed to collect condensation off of steel jerry cans with the lids off them. The gasoline evaporates, cools the can in doing so, and condensation forms outside. Probably wiped them down with a rag then squeezed it out. So i started trying to think of otherways to pull water out of the air.
Well, air conditioners do. Actually they pull a surprising amount of water out of the air. There is probably a way to make an air conditioner work by hand power to collect water. Except trying to convert it would probably kill you. Here is the idea though. A cars air conditioner, like all others, has a water drain. If you have a car with a broken transmission in the middle of a desert how productive is it to idle the car, and collect water from the air conditioner drain? This is probibly largely dependent on humidity, so prefurably a person in a dry climate will try this. The reason I thought of this was because I was driving through kamloops on a particularly hot and humid day. I stopped for lunch, and when i got back there was a concerning stream of fluid running out from under the car. Suck my head under the car and realized where it was coming from. easily 125ml of water had dripped out over 30 minutes while the car was turned off.
The drain on most cars is underneath the car around the dashboard area. you should be sure to be drawing air from outside the car, not recycling the air from inside the car.
Although the water will be drinkable, it probably contains some leeched metals and oil. Best not to drink it.
I'd heard about a man stranded in the desert with a broken down jeep in ww2. He managed to collect condensation off of steel jerry cans with the lids off them. The gasoline evaporates, cools the can in doing so, and condensation forms outside. Probably wiped them down with a rag then squeezed it out. So i started trying to think of otherways to pull water out of the air.
Well, air conditioners do. Actually they pull a surprising amount of water out of the air. There is probably a way to make an air conditioner work by hand power to collect water. Except trying to convert it would probably kill you. Here is the idea though. A cars air conditioner, like all others, has a water drain. If you have a car with a broken transmission in the middle of a desert how productive is it to idle the car, and collect water from the air conditioner drain? This is probibly largely dependent on humidity, so prefurably a person in a dry climate will try this. The reason I thought of this was because I was driving through kamloops on a particularly hot and humid day. I stopped for lunch, and when i got back there was a concerning stream of fluid running out from under the car. Suck my head under the car and realized where it was coming from. easily 125ml of water had dripped out over 30 minutes while the car was turned off.
The drain on most cars is underneath the car around the dashboard area. you should be sure to be drawing air from outside the car, not recycling the air from inside the car.
Although the water will be drinkable, it probably contains some leeched metals and oil. Best not to drink it.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2012
- Messages
- 9
First off I want to thank Rotte for putting on this contest and offering up a great prize! It's very generous of you and got a few people outside practicing their water procurement survival skills.
So I spent the last 2 days making several attempts at collecting drinkable water and here are the results...
Solar Foliage Still
I attempted to make a solar foliage still since I figured that this would be a method that did not require much physical effort or time. It would be great if you were in survival mode since it would allow you to conserve energy for other tasks. I took a ziplock bag and filled it with greens. I made sure to collect those which looked like they had a fair amount of water in them. I then put the vegitation into the bag with a stone in one corner to weight down one end and allow water to collect there. I put the bag out in the sun at 1:00pm and collected it around 7:00pm. I found that I had only collected about 2 teaspoons of water. It appeared to be working well and probably would have worked much better if I had got it outside right away in the morning.
Solar Still (9/3/12)
My second attempt involved digging a hole in the ground and making a solar still that way. I stated by choosing a location that was about 20 feet away from a small creek. I then dug a hole in the ground, placed my container in the middle, put some green vegetation around the bottom of the hole to help collect water moisture. I then covered the hole with a plastic garbage bag and sealed all of the edges with dirt to trap the moisture inside. I placed a rock directly above the container so that the moisture could collect on the plastic and run down it to the point where the rock was then drip into the container. I set this up around 8:30 in the morning then went to collect it around 7:00pm. I was pretty disappointed when I went to uncover it. I didn't find any water collected at all. I wasn't expecting a whole lot but I found nothing. I'm guessing that it was due to the fact that it was mostly cloudy with only occasional breaks of sun. The inside of the still probably wasn't able to get warm enough. In addition it probably would have worked better if I had used clear plastic so that it would allow the sun to enter into the still better. I guess I know what I can try to do to make it better next time.
Transpiration
Since my solar foliage still seemed to work I through that I would try to collect water via transpiration. I found a tree branch by the water since I figured that it would be able to transpire better if it was in a moist environment. I took a plastic shopping bag, placed it over the branch, put a rock inside for the water to collect by, and tied it tightly closed with a cord. I placed it outside around 8:30am and went to collect it around 7:00pm. I found that there was no usable water inside the bag. The bag had a few spots that were damp but other than that nothing. Looking back at it I suspect that it might have had something to do with the tree I selected and the fact that the trees around here are beginning to lose their leaves. Either that or it was due to the lack of sunshine since I did this one on the same day as the solar still.
Water filtration / boiling
Often times when you are in the woods you can find small puddles, ponds, or creeks but the water that you find is undrinkable. In order to make it safe you can filter and boil it. I made an improvised filter out of an old water bottle. I cut holes into the cap, placed rocks at the bottom of the container, sand in the middle, then rocks on the top again. This worked great for filtering. It cleaned out all of the bugs/algae/debris from the water. There was a very small amount of sand that came through the filter but it was an insignificant amount. Other than that the water came through very clean. Once I had my filtered water I put it in a pot and saved it until night when I had a campfire. I heated the pot over the fire until it boiled and kept it boiling for about 7 minutes, which I figured was enough time to kill all of the bacteria. Once the water cooled I had safe, usable drinking water.
Thanks again for putting on this contest, I had a great time doing it and learned quite a bit. This was my first time attempting to collect water as if I was in a survival situation. I found that it is quite a bit harder than I expected and that filtering and boiling water is probably the best thing to do since it yields larger quantities and doesn't depend on the weather as much.
So I spent the last 2 days making several attempts at collecting drinkable water and here are the results...
Solar Foliage Still
I attempted to make a solar foliage still since I figured that this would be a method that did not require much physical effort or time. It would be great if you were in survival mode since it would allow you to conserve energy for other tasks. I took a ziplock bag and filled it with greens. I made sure to collect those which looked like they had a fair amount of water in them. I then put the vegitation into the bag with a stone in one corner to weight down one end and allow water to collect there. I put the bag out in the sun at 1:00pm and collected it around 7:00pm. I found that I had only collected about 2 teaspoons of water. It appeared to be working well and probably would have worked much better if I had got it outside right away in the morning.
Solar Still (9/3/12)
My second attempt involved digging a hole in the ground and making a solar still that way. I stated by choosing a location that was about 20 feet away from a small creek. I then dug a hole in the ground, placed my container in the middle, put some green vegetation around the bottom of the hole to help collect water moisture. I then covered the hole with a plastic garbage bag and sealed all of the edges with dirt to trap the moisture inside. I placed a rock directly above the container so that the moisture could collect on the plastic and run down it to the point where the rock was then drip into the container. I set this up around 8:30 in the morning then went to collect it around 7:00pm. I was pretty disappointed when I went to uncover it. I didn't find any water collected at all. I wasn't expecting a whole lot but I found nothing. I'm guessing that it was due to the fact that it was mostly cloudy with only occasional breaks of sun. The inside of the still probably wasn't able to get warm enough. In addition it probably would have worked better if I had used clear plastic so that it would allow the sun to enter into the still better. I guess I know what I can try to do to make it better next time.
Transpiration
Since my solar foliage still seemed to work I through that I would try to collect water via transpiration. I found a tree branch by the water since I figured that it would be able to transpire better if it was in a moist environment. I took a plastic shopping bag, placed it over the branch, put a rock inside for the water to collect by, and tied it tightly closed with a cord. I placed it outside around 8:30am and went to collect it around 7:00pm. I found that there was no usable water inside the bag. The bag had a few spots that were damp but other than that nothing. Looking back at it I suspect that it might have had something to do with the tree I selected and the fact that the trees around here are beginning to lose their leaves. Either that or it was due to the lack of sunshine since I did this one on the same day as the solar still.
Water filtration / boiling
Often times when you are in the woods you can find small puddles, ponds, or creeks but the water that you find is undrinkable. In order to make it safe you can filter and boil it. I made an improvised filter out of an old water bottle. I cut holes into the cap, placed rocks at the bottom of the container, sand in the middle, then rocks on the top again. This worked great for filtering. It cleaned out all of the bugs/algae/debris from the water. There was a very small amount of sand that came through the filter but it was an insignificant amount. Other than that the water came through very clean. Once I had my filtered water I put it in a pot and saved it until night when I had a campfire. I heated the pot over the fire until it boiled and kept it boiling for about 7 minutes, which I figured was enough time to kill all of the bacteria. Once the water cooled I had safe, usable drinking water.
Thanks again for putting on this contest, I had a great time doing it and learned quite a bit. This was my first time attempting to collect water as if I was in a survival situation. I found that it is quite a bit harder than I expected and that filtering and boiling water is probably the best thing to do since it yields larger quantities and doesn't depend on the weather as much.
If Pit can drink his own urine I can darn sure eat a cactus.
I approached this as “where am I most likely to find myself in this situation?” For me this would be hunting between Mexico and Montana. If I can afford Canada or Alaska one day then I will take a different approach. The two items I have consistently located in my environment are cactus and rocks. The metal pan is standing in for a large flat rock for this post.
I had two ideas I wanted to experiment with for viability. Both proved to be poor methods to obtain water and left me seeking other ideas. I wanted a minimalist approach as I am confident I can locate enough water in the places I hunt, cattle ranches or local creeks, to get me home. Every time I go out where I am in new territory I always have a minimum of 2 days worth of water.
First methods was to cut open a cactus and try to absorb the fluid out with what I would most likely have on me, clothing. I used a paper towel as it would be the easiest to see the wetness and I didn’t want to cut off the top of my socks. If you know what I am speaking off then you have hunted after a long night of Mexican food in Acuna, MX. This method failed miserably as the paper towel became damp, but that was it.
Next, I tried to scrap the pulp from the cactus and grind the fluid out into the pan (rock in the field) and absorb it for there. Again, failure. I would have to grind up 6 or more cactus leaves to make this produce any viable water. Both the time, potential spines and reward are not likely worth the effort required.
I did discover you can take pieces from the inside of the cactus and suck on them to produce some fluid. They even sell cactus juice in the grocery stores down here and I know of a few old ranch hand cooks who can make cactus jelly. I tried a few pieces and sucked on it for 5 or so minutes. I did obtain some moisture, but in the end all I ended up with is a numb tongue.
This a great thread and I learned alot from the other post. Most importantly, I learned drink the Miller 64 I from the box I cut the cactus on.
Thanks for the opportunity.
PS. I did have a third idea if I was stranded with the truck. This happened once before and it was a 13 mile walk back to the camp which was 26 miles from the nearest paved road. I noticed a ton of dew on the hood this morning. In areas with high humidity the metal of the vehcile holds a good 2 0z of water.
RWT Have you tried putting in a plastic bag or stuffing it in a plastic bottle, Also i believe cactus is edible check out this wiki article too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cactus#Early_history
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2012
- Messages
- 9
The weatherman told us that there was a chance of rain by us last night so I made some preparations to collect rainwater. This was probably the easiest way to procure water but is pretty much all luck. I figured that the best way to collect rainwater would be to utilize the surface area of our house. We have a metal roof on our house and recently cleaned the gutters so I just put a bucket under the downspout before night. I woke up in the morning to find about 3 inches of water in the bottom of the five gallon bucket.
I also realized that the ground was still wet so I figured that I would take a cloth, try to collect some of the water, and ring it out over a cup. This technique could be used after a rain or to collect dew in the morning. I found a fair amount of water on the windshield of our car, our grill cover, and all over the taller grass (the shorter grass didn't seem to have nearly as much moisture on it). I collected water and rung the rag out 5 times. I was able to recover about 1/6 of a cup of murky water but could have collected much more if I had the need to. The longer I collected water the more dirt that was deposited into the cup. It was dirty water but drinkable none the less.
I also realized that the ground was still wet so I figured that I would take a cloth, try to collect some of the water, and ring it out over a cup. This technique could be used after a rain or to collect dew in the morning. I found a fair amount of water on the windshield of our car, our grill cover, and all over the taller grass (the shorter grass didn't seem to have nearly as much moisture on it). I collected water and rung the rag out 5 times. I was able to recover about 1/6 of a cup of murky water but could have collected much more if I had the need to. The longer I collected water the more dirt that was deposited into the cup. It was dirty water but drinkable none the less.
Alright. Made a desalination still. Two of them actually.
Drilled out the top of a tin can and inserted my camelpack drinking straw into it.
Next I filled it up with water and added a couple tablespoons of koser salt and sealed it up.
Wrapped a wet towel around the tube to act as a condeser.
Figured I'd try to make another very simple one. Just to try something else out and see what works best.
about 5 minutes later we have water! we also have a flaw. Those rocks that are weighing down the can arnt wet. Showing the bigest flaw with this still.
The water catch is also heated up, and the water inside it is evaporating. The water drips onto the hot rocks, and evaporates. Not as fast as it collects water however.
The most important part of this still seemed to be keeping the condenser (lid) cool. I used a damp paper towel, and every few minutes took it off, recooled it with more water and put it back.
after just 15 minutes it had collected about 1/8th cup of water. Looks murky because I didn't rinse the rocks off for some reason.
This is the water collected from the can still after 20 minutes. It didn't work nearly as well. The steam didn't seem to want to enter the tube. Even though I thought I did a pretty good job sealing it up it leaked out everywhere.
Here is a diagram of what I think an ideal desalination still would be. Solves the problem of the collector evaporating, and greatly improves the condenser.
Drilled out the top of a tin can and inserted my camelpack drinking straw into it.
Next I filled it up with water and added a couple tablespoons of koser salt and sealed it up.
Wrapped a wet towel around the tube to act as a condeser.
Figured I'd try to make another very simple one. Just to try something else out and see what works best.
about 5 minutes later we have water! we also have a flaw. Those rocks that are weighing down the can arnt wet. Showing the bigest flaw with this still.
The water catch is also heated up, and the water inside it is evaporating. The water drips onto the hot rocks, and evaporates. Not as fast as it collects water however.
The most important part of this still seemed to be keeping the condenser (lid) cool. I used a damp paper towel, and every few minutes took it off, recooled it with more water and put it back.
after just 15 minutes it had collected about 1/8th cup of water. Looks murky because I didn't rinse the rocks off for some reason.
This is the water collected from the can still after 20 minutes. It didn't work nearly as well. The steam didn't seem to want to enter the tube. Even though I thought I did a pretty good job sealing it up it leaked out everywhere.
Here is a diagram of what I think an ideal desalination still would be. Solves the problem of the collector evaporating, and greatly improves the condenser.
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2006
- Messages
- 5,944
Nice guys..awesome stuff, great info.. Munky, Nice still.
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2008
- Messages
- 3,214
I really enjoyed this contest and seeing some of the great entries. It demonstrates how difficult some of these techniques can be. I hadn't though of the de-salination still. Good work. I don't want to think about Pitdog's urine still--I'm a little traumatized--but it does illustrate how resourceful one can be. Hope you guys had some fun with this. I'll post a winner in a second....
Last edited:
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2008
- Messages
- 3,214
OK, I used the random number generator at Random.org and the list of successful entries. Congratulations to...
RescueRiley
His second entry with the transpiration bag won him the contest. (How did Mr Green not win by sheer force of numbers???)
Congratulations RR, send me a pm with a shipping address and I'll ship you the ESEE kit w/R6. Nicely done.
RescueRiley
His second entry with the transpiration bag won him the contest. (How did Mr Green not win by sheer force of numbers???)
Congratulations RR, send me a pm with a shipping address and I'll ship you the ESEE kit w/R6. Nicely done.
Congratulations Riley, on defeating the sinister Mr Green.
And thank you to Rotte for putting up this contest, and a very nice gift. It was interesting to see what yielded useful results.
You always see these diagrams in survival manuals, but I've never seen figures on water production.
Though living in a coastal temperate rain forest I think I'll keep looking a creek before trying to distill my urine.
And thank you to Rotte for putting up this contest, and a very nice gift. It was interesting to see what yielded useful results.
You always see these diagrams in survival manuals, but I've never seen figures on water production.
Though living in a coastal temperate rain forest I think I'll keep looking a creek before trying to distill my urine.
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2012
- Messages
- 9
Congrats RescueRiley! Hope you enjoy the prize 
Thanks again for putting on the contest Rotte, it was fun!
Thanks again for putting on the contest Rotte, it was fun!
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2006
- Messages
- 5,944
Wow... Thank you So Much.. THis was an unexpected surprise, I'll be sure to pay it forward shortly.
And Thank you everyone else for sharing your knowledge and skill. I learned allot.
And Thank you everyone else for sharing your knowledge and skill. I learned allot.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2006
- Messages
- 5,944
THis was also a reinder to me that I needed to update my gold status again.. Just did
Rotte once my status updates I'll pm you. Thank you so much for your chance and for your generosity.
Best regards.
Rotte once my status updates I'll pm you. Thank you so much for your chance and for your generosity.
Best regards.
Mistwalker
Gold Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2007
- Messages
- 19,035
Since we have been having so many tropical storms I thought I'd try a new experiment. There is so much fungi in this area that I thought I would see how much water I could collect using these cup shaped mushrooms.
We have a lot of rain fall, so the theory is solid, but I really don't think the experiment could be considered a success. for the most part the mushrooms don't catch much water...
Some are slightly defective and spill part of the water they do collect...
and others are completely defective and don't collect any real amount of water at all...
Besides that after the last few drinks the colors don't seem quite right, the animals are acting all funny, and the blurry vision is making it increasingly difficult to locate the mushrooms that have water in them...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In all seriousness man, great thread and great project. I had hoped to actually get involved in this with a water collection system made of palm leaves or something since we have been having so much rain. Not for the knife, but because water is such an important aspect of survival. But I just haven't had time. I've just had too much work to do during day light hours. Hell even if I had tried the internet is so slow here it takes three days to upload enough pics for a normal photo post, if I were trying to do anything I was serious about I might end up chucking the computer out the window, so...I opted instead to have a little fun (it was your suggestion
)
Congrats John!
We have a lot of rain fall, so the theory is solid, but I really don't think the experiment could be considered a success. for the most part the mushrooms don't catch much water...
Some are slightly defective and spill part of the water they do collect...
and others are completely defective and don't collect any real amount of water at all...
Besides that after the last few drinks the colors don't seem quite right, the animals are acting all funny, and the blurry vision is making it increasingly difficult to locate the mushrooms that have water in them...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In all seriousness man, great thread and great project. I had hoped to actually get involved in this with a water collection system made of palm leaves or something since we have been having so much rain. Not for the knife, but because water is such an important aspect of survival. But I just haven't had time. I've just had too much work to do during day light hours. Hell even if I had tried the internet is so slow here it takes three days to upload enough pics for a normal photo post, if I were trying to do anything I was serious about I might end up chucking the computer out the window, so...I opted instead to have a little fun (it was your suggestion
)Congrats John!
- Joined
- May 19, 2007
- Messages
- 7,745
good show! thanks for the motivation to give a few skills a try.