Thursday, July 23, 2009

Praxis: "Kit Up!" -- "Rocket Fuel" and other great tips.

My thanks to Took for directing me to this site, called Kit Up! From the main page:

Kit Up is the stuff you weren't issued but that you couldn't have done without during your military life. Kit Up can be a device, software, book, DVD, or a resource like a website, chat room, or blog. We want to know about the items that made things bearable during a deployment or that allowed you to accomplish your mission. Maybe your gear even saved your life. Kit Up can be new or old, expensive or cheap. It just needs to have mattered to you. And if you used an item that you think works better than what's posted here, we want to hear about that too. Warfighters: Tell us about your gear.


Here is an example of the stuff found at this great little site:



Rocket Fuel
June 10, 2009
Eric Daniel


Submitted by Amtho

Also try the waterless hand cleaner gel that every grunt should be carrying. I love playing with that stuff. It puts out a blue/clear flame (read extremely hot) and it is a gel, so handles well. Put that in the middle of your tinder and you are good to go.

ED – Amtho, you are a genius. I gave this a go, and as you described, it functioned as advertised. In experimenting I found that trying to ignite a blob of this stuff is a bit problematic; while you could light it with a match, it didn’t light very well with my sparker. Once I soaked a cotton ball with it though, it sparked right up. In fact, when used in conjunction with my old WWII-era ration heater, all I have to do is repack the tin and keep it saturated with Purell, which, as you say, can be found everywhere. In fact, this has become my new tactical fuel of choice (I’ll use the trioxane until my supply is exhausted, but I don’t see myself buying any more.)


Officially, the only Purell product I tested this with was their "stock" sanitizer, which listed Ethyl Alcohol as the only active ingredient (62%). While I'm sure their other products might work just as well (except for maybe the foaming stuff) when in doubt I'd recommend you read the label first to see what you're burning. Purell is available at most convenience and drug stores.

Check out Purell hand sanitizer here: http://www.purell.com/page.jhtml?id=/purell/products/prd_hand_sanitizer.inc

6 comments:

GrayMan said...

another thing that is nice, petroleum jelly, take a cottonball and dip it in petroleum jelly and rub it in good and alls you have to do when you want a fire is to pull the cottonball apart thus creating airpockets. another added advantage to this tinder source is that its water proof and can also be used on your lips if they are chapped as well as other body parts for various reasons.

Jay Stang said...

Non Dairy Creamer (like in MRE's) is also extremely flammable! Awesome!

MPA dragon said...

dryer lint - crazy flamable - great for using with a 'sparker' if you are 'roughing' it..

Anonymous said...

"Kit Up":
The thing that made all my active duty time "hurry up and wait" periods, deployments & FTXs bearable, was a good book, whatever I was interested in at the time; scripture, sci-fi, educational, whatever. Just pull it out of the backpack, unwrap it from the plastic bag & start reading. Easy to put away again when time to move out.

Now that AFTER I'm retired & occasionally go camping, as well as the books, I also carry an old mo-gas infantry (one burner) stove, a battered aluminium coffee pot & a supply of loose jasmine tea, to make thing livable. The water & mug are already a given, yes?

Nothing like a daily ritual, a mug of tea & a quiet time to read, to start the day & make life bearable.

B Woodman
SSG (Ret) US Army
III

Tangalor said...

petroleum jelly and cotton balls/dryer lint: Melt petroleum jelly over a stove or in the microwave, dip cotton ball/dryer lint in and saturate. Remove and let sit 30 minutes to 1 hour.

This technique will ensure that it is completely saturated with petroleum jelly, and will burn far longer than one that is just dipped in.

This puppy will burn HOT for 10 minutes or more. I clocked one that burned for 13.54 minutes.

The trick to lighting it is to 'fluff' a part of it when ready to ignite, and use your firesteel on the fluffed part. Extremely effective.

Anonymous said...

I never travel without my "P38" can opener. Came with the old C-Rations.

Retired USAF TSGT, U.S. ARMY SP-5