Wednesday, February 23, 2011

FERFAL: ROPE, WIRE AND DUCTAPE

Rope, wire and ductape

One thing I realized over the years is that the more gear you have, it doesn’t mean you’re better prepared. This is in some way similar to backpacking. When I see people on the road with these huge backpacks I tend to doubt about how much experience they have. Truth is, unless you’re climbing some of the most important mountains in the world or some other extreme trip, you dont need that much stuff. Its common knowledge that the more you backpack, the more you start leaving gear behind rather than adding to the stuff you carry.
But there’s a few items that are so functional that you’d be clever to have some with you always. Rope, wire and ductape are such items.
Improvising a shoulder strap and handle, patching mosquito net holes, I even used ductape recently to make a knife sheath (knife sheath on the way :-)  )
Improvised Duct Tape knife Sheath

Wire is another terrific product. From temporarily fixing a loose car’s exhaust, making a hook, fixing the grills mechanism, its just so convenient to have a small roll of wire around.
Rope, specially good one like paracord can have countless uses.
Recently I found this new stuff, at least new to me, this is Technora cord. Its .008“ thick and tolerates 450lbs .
 Technora Ultra Composite Survival Cord Rope (50', 450lbs Breaking Strength)
Technora Ultra Composite Survival Cord Rope (50', 450lbs Breaking Strength)I dont think this replaces the practicality of 550 paracord. With Paracord you have 7 individual strands on the inside and I find that to be very practical.
None the less this cord is incredibly strong for its thickness. I first saw technora rope in the City of Arts and Science in Valencia, Spain. A technora rope on exposition there could hold the weight of 4 persons. That thing was 6mm thick and breaks at 4400lbs. Pretty impressive. Again, still holding onto the good old 550 paracord, but I’ll write about about this cord once I try it out.
As for ductape, hands down Gorilla Tape is the best tape I’ve come across. If anyone tried something better please comment on it.
Gorilla Tape 1.88-Inch by 35-Yard Tape Roll
Gorilla Tape 1.88-Inch by 35-Yard Tape RollAs for wire, ordinary wire, not too thin, not too thick is what has been working best for me for most situations over the years.
Take care folks!

FerFAL
 
http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2011/02/rope-wire-and-ductape.html

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

550 cord, wire, and duct tape.

Got me through many times in the field. From fixing gear, to taping feet to avoid blisters, to pulling humvees out of bogs with copious 550 cord wraps.

Everyone's got to have some.

AP