Hammock Camping (Kit review part 1)

Supplier: http://www.ddhammocks.co.uk
Model: Camping hammock
Colour: Green
Cost: £24
Weight: 700g
Dimensions: 2.4m x 1.3 flat, 30cm x 8cm (stuff sack)
Limits: 150KG - 6'5"


Right having heard about all the good things about a hammock on various forums and being an impressionable young man, not to mention a gear freak, I decided on trying a hammock out for myself. A lot of people recommending the ddhammocks site as being A)Very good B)Light and most important of all cheap too :-)

I ordered on Thursday afternoon, was posted Friday morning and an email was sent to my order address confirming it was posted. Very efficient. So a good start, was impressed.

The parcel arrived Monday morning much to my excitement and I eagerly ripped into the packaging. First thing I noticed was that the bag had the wrong details printer, being mostly in Thai so I read the note enclosed which said that the bag indeed was incorrect and that they were hoping to change at some point in the future, just waiting for next shipment.

The Hammock itself is dark green in colour and large enough to house a sleeping bag on it as well as in it. Its construction is double layer nylon weave with a zip up one side so you can actually enclose yourself fully inside of it in your very own cocoon. Both ends have rope threaded through it that bunches up to give the hammock its proper shape. The rope itself is nylon green weave a little frayed at the ends, but easily sealed with a little heat so not a problem. (I always seem to be modifying kit in some way or another.) The ropes which turn end up double ended on each end can then be tied to the nearest vertical object such as a tree or in my test case the racking in the warehouse. Weight is 700g with ropes (which is pretty good I'm lead to believe) size being 2.4m by 1.3. It does seem big at first but once you set it up it seems OK.

Now for the set up. Having wondered my way into the ware house in search of a nice section of Racking strong enough to carry my modest weight (yer yer) I tied both ends on to a suitable section using a mooring hitch at first only to ditch it in favour of a better (IMHO) set-up, of which I have no idea what its called. I made sure the height was roughly bottom height from the floor at first and proceeded to carefully, sit back on the hammock until the ropes were taught and settled. This turned out to leave me approx 1 inch from the floor... useful. SO up I got and redid one side so the hammock was at a good height again. Then I sat down again into it.

First impressions..... very comfy, I swung my legs round and laid back. Very comfy. Shoes were off and put on a convenient shelf near me and I settled in. I noticed the sides were quite high so I could get a sleeping bag on it and not be worried about rolling off one side.

I must admit I dozed off a few times during this stressful, intense test session!

Summary: A very simple comfy set up, though I will need to try actually sleeping on it for a night with sleeping bag and roll mat. Also I may modify the strapping to I can have just the one rope tying off instead of the double one. Should be easy to achieve using a Krab on either end. Also drip lines would need to be added so when it rains water does not run down the ropes soaking the hammock.

Can't wait to try it out.

ferrol

New Stove experiment

Been quite a while since my last post, have been very busy not had too much chance to play really, managed a couple of climbing session but nothing serious. Recently I got a chance to have a go at making a wood burning stove from basically a cutlery holder. The idea being I can use this where is may not be quite as safe or convenient to have a open fire whilst still giving me the option of getting a brew going if needed.

The cutlery holder was a bog standard one bought from a crappy but famous Swedish furniture store. I simply cut a square flap in the front which would allow me to feed wood into it and added two steel tent pegs to hold anything that may slip down the inside rim. As you can see the stove is made of Stainless steel and has plenty of hole in it for air. Just needed to test it now.


And the weekend after I managed to get into the Peak district and do some climbing, so I grabbed the chance to test it. Armed with my crusader cup and a brew kit I had a play. I used the standard method of starting a fire with birch bark and a firesteel then put some pre-cut wood in it. (Used my Axe before hand to do that as it was a nice excuse to chop something up :-) ) As you can see I managed to get two cups of hot water out of it, making a coffee and hot chocolate as well. It even managed to roost a few Marsh Mellows with the remaining heat. Fantastic!

Am pretty pleased with it in all, simple and elegant way to make a brew without any of the dangers of an open fire. If I change it slightly I'd like it to of been slightly shorter so the cup or pot would be closer to the embers. But as it is it does a nice job at funneling the heat up anyway.

ferrol

Meeting a hero...

Been a while as I've been kinda busy, but recently I've managed to meet someone I admire greatly, one Mr Ray Mears.

Yes that's right, Ray Mears, the UK's leading survival and bush craft expert, someone I've watched and learnt from through his DVD's and Book for a long while now. Have always wanted to meet him and see what he is like in real life.

The venue was Tumbridge Wells south of the UK, about 5-6 hours driving solid, (south of London) He was doing a talk on various Photo's he has taken over the years. Well it was quite an adventure getting down, what with traffic through London, getting there an hour late and missing a good chunk of Rays talk. Also having my car attacked by some madman in a red van with a stick for no reason what so ever, while I might add traveling at 70 mph (now that was surreal!).

Got down in time to still catch a good section of his talk and then the question and answers bit at the end, finally a book signing in the bar. That is where I met him in person. Its hard not to sound like a complete fool when talking about him, I've always admired this man, so meeting him was pretty special I think.

Impressions of him in real life. A genuinely nice man who loves his bushcraft, his life and is very passionate about them all. He even goes on to say what makes him different is that he likes to do bushcraft instead of talking about it. Amen to that.


Well I got one of his books signed and also got to have a brief chat to him. As you can see with the very grainy picture. Was happy none the less.

ferrol

New sharpening technique?

Just a short one :-)

Knife sharpening is a subject that I do enjoy reading about and playing with new techniques. I normally just use 2 Japanese whetstones, 1000 and a 6000 one. Stropping was just something I'd heard of people doing, well that soon changed.

Normally I get a basic edge with the 1000 stone then I'd move to the 6000 for a nice mirror finish. After reading about stropping with a leather belt and having watched it on Ray Mears Extra's on one of his DVD's. I thought stropping was just an unnessasary act done by knife sharpeners as a final ceremony.

After a particualr intense session I decided to give it ago for the hell of it.

Stropping is the act of drawing the blade bevel away from you on a piece of leather to remove any bur's from the edge. It removes the bur and gives a better more stable edge, less minute fractures.

After doing this for about 25 strops I tested it on the usual piece of paper and it sliced through effortlessly. Even tried it on my arm seeing if it would shave some hair. Well it did. I was impressed. From now on I shall be stropping my blade.

Also I don't really think I need to use the 1000 as much as it just really shapes the edge, while the 6000 does the sharpening. Just a thought.

ferrol

Night in the woods

My first proper night out in the woods by myself, sure I've solo'd on mountains many times backpacking my way in the National parks. But this was my official first time in woods as a Bushcrafter. I was looking for a nice set of woods and I think I found it. The weather was set to be windy and rainy, I seem to have picked a fine night to do it!

Right gear wise I won't go into too much that I shall save later for a future post. I brought the basics Tarp, Bivvy bag, sleeping bag, water, food, fire making equipment of course and other items I thought I may find useful.

The site I found was very peaty so I couldn't build a fire on raw ground (underground fire risk). Luckily there were plenty of rocks near so I dug down a little and made nice rock bed for the fire. Next the tarp went up and fire wood was gathered for my dinner to be cooked on and the all important brew! Ended up just sitting the cup on the coals to heat me dinner and water, should of really made a hanger for it. (Note: If you look carefully you can just make out the cup on the left.)

The amount of firewood I actually went through was very surprising, I ended up gathering a lot more, but seen as I didn't have much main fuel near by and no axe I was limited to medium sized wood. It was enough to cook my dinner but not enough for a cup of tea, so I had to fall back on to the fuel tablets I brought as backup(Lucky) By this time I'd settled so didn't really fancy getting up again, plus it was pitch black.

The bivvy bag was out, mat inside and sleeping bag in ready, was time to write my journal. As it was dark I needed light so I thought it would be a good time to test the candle lantern. It performed brilliantly, nice warm light, subtle but enough to read and write with. And unaffected by wind and rain too. It was a bright moon at night, not quite full as yet but bright enough to throw silver light through the trees all about me. It was a very beautiful site, amazing how something so simple can stir such emotions. Just to think you'd never see any sights like this in the urban environment, the sky is normally bleached out by city lights. I think you lose a lot with when nature is pushed far away and excluded.

By this time the fire was out and smouldering, and I was happily writing away, it was getting cold and the temperature was dropping, wind started blowing too..was that movement? I decided to get the fire going again. After collecting what I needed I had a nice fire burning and it made a vast improvement to my morale. Amazing how fire can do this. The only fault I could find was that it was very smoky, as most of the wood I found was damp on the outside so I ended up smelling smoky. I shoved the rest of the wood I gathered on and climbed into my bag to sleep.

I slept well, it did rain but all I heard was the gentle pitter-patter on my tarp, I was glad I'd brought it instead of just bivvying. When I woke I reluctantly got out of my warm bag and got the stove running for a nice brew.

It was now time to go. Up came the rocks and I watered down the fire just to be safe. Next I made sure there was no trace of be ever being there, did my second litter sweep just in case I missed anything and walk out back to civilization. I was happy. Wondering when and where my next adventure would be.

What did I learn and what would I do differently?
Well I'd cut a lot more firewood, bring an Axe (which I haven't got yet) and I'd like to finish the stay without smelling like a smoked haddock! Perhaps a book to read and relax with? Oh and make the effort to make a pot hanger for me fire. That little extra effort would really be worth it.

Anyway, next up will be the gear I brought.

ferrol

New gear and experiments

Christmas yielded a impressive amount of new kit for me to play with and try out. Its also a good opportunity to get some testing/play done. I firstly wanted to get a proper fire going as it had been a long time since I did one with just traditional setups, no firelighters, no liquid fire starters, no matches or lighters either. Just Flint n' steel.

From the start I set myself some goals I wanted to try out the crusader cup and get a brew off it as well as play with a pot hanger type setup. This was in the back yard so no really big fires. I opted for a Stainless Steel tray as I didn't want to scorch the path or grass around the yard.
Rules were, Start fire using traditional methods, and boil enough water to make a brew. No cheating.

Pot hanger setup was simple, I had seen it a couple of times in pictures and on a RayMears DVD as well. So I had a good idea on what I wanted. A pot hanger consisting of just 3 sticks one with notches in it so I could adjust the height from the fire. (Heat control) , a Y shaped one and a long one to keep the pot hanger on. Underneath the fire would be created.... duh.

Luckily I had gathered to natural materials the previous week that I collect for the purpose of starting a nice fire. Had loads of small matchstick sized twigs, then pencil sized then bigger. Birch bark was used to catch sparks form the flint which took straight away. More bark had been already prepared so I quickly got it all burning and the twigs went on. The fire was going :-)

The cup with its handle was next, and after a little while I had it all cooking nicely. Something about a fire on a cold night that does more than warm you. I could watch a fire going all night, very hypnotic. The main fuel I had (which turned out to be only just enough) was going and the water was heating up nicely. After a period of time passed (I kinda lost track) my water was ready and I made myself the first brew ever using this method. And do you know what it was the best cuppa I'd had for a long time. Maybe it was the teabag, maybe it was setup and actually going from nothing to having hot water from natural fire? either way it was a pretty sweet cup. Beats the kettle anyday.

Lessons learnt? Need an axe for chopping wood for Prep :-) , also better to get more fuel than you really need, just in case. I only just had enough (no big fuel anyway).

Sucessful night I'd say, was very pleased I managed to get a fire going and try out the Crusader cup at the sametime.

Just another step closer.

ferrol

Christmas, new gear to get away from it all with?

OK officially its Christmas or past now, I was a lot more feastive than I thought I'd be originally. Even managed to bag the traditional climb Christmas day called (Surprisingly enough) Christmas crack. We even managed to get first climb in which means it was our duty to write a nice card to the rest of the days climbers. Its quite an event, loads of people descent on the crag and a jolly time is had, mince pies, Sherry even the odd fancy dress. Did the climb placed a card, some chocolate and a snowman toy on varoious parts of the climb for other CC climbers. Was a very busy day. After which it was on to the Family dinner and the usual hussle/bussle.

Got new gear too, things I requested, Crusader cup, billy pot n candle lantern too, like the idea of the candle lantern very much, more natural light. An old idea in a newish product, it even retracks in on itself to be more compact. Brilliant.



After all the dinners were had and the noise had died down I decided to have a quick surf of the net to see what everyone else is doing. And do you know what? I read other blogs and bushcraft postings and notice a lot of people looking forward to getting away from things for a while to get peace n quiet! Guess I'm not alone in these thoughts then. Well I got a nice solo trip planned new years eve-ish sometime, gonna find some nice woods some place and spend the night out. After all I have new gear to try out :-)

For anyone reading this: Have a goood new year! Happy Wandering.

ferrol