My Sensei prepped everything but the rawhides where wet, as far as how tight, just as good as you can get it with your hands. It tightens up more when it drys.
Finally got around to something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. After carrying my pack around yesterday in 90F/80% humidity I was..motivated into action. In the south, the swamp is life. It’s a never ending cornucopia of tasty plants and animals right in front of you, like a grocery store with mosquitoes. and like all good southern rebel scum, I’m down for some fishing. But I definitely want to trim some ounces out of my rig where I can. Using little scraps of one of these leftover flexible mats to condense my pack fishing kit. Her is the new one all packed into this cool little “altoids tin” I got a while back. Shown next to the original kit that I’ve been carrying around for 15 dang years!
I guess I started a little tradition while back, when I get a new knife I carve one of these toadstools to test the blade. I put them in our plant containers.... I will have to start giving them away though, wife has caught on ha ha.
Decided to treat myself, cant decide which color I like more. The darker one seems to match the axe better, the lighter one matches terrain.
Flame blackened and oiled the micarta scales on my Boker El Gigante Arbolito Bowie now the scales really look like the antlers of the ORYX Antelope (gemsbok) note: do this outside, not in a shop or garage or house. The burning micarta fumes are very toxic
Made a tiny batch of waxed cotton rounds to add to the tinder tin (Gen 2 Delrin waterproof container from CountyComm) 5 in the bottom of the container (note the perfect fit), topped with 50 TinderQuiks, then another 4 waxed cotton rounds in the lid. One spark from the FerroRod lit a TinderQuik and the small flames rapidly lit the cotton rounds . Flame about 2.5" diameter X 10" tall. I use the waxed cotton rounds a lot , mostly in my MKettle boiler - two cotton rounds will boil water. the container of tinder fits PERFECTLY in the base of the MKettle. a package of the cotton rounds has 6 x 100 (600 total), and costs $15 CAD. Works out to be 3 cents per firestarter. (Wax is free - scrounged , found etc)
