Outdoors Show at the NEC

This weekend I'm off to the Outdoor show at the NEC. Just been looking through the website and spotted the squeezebox stove as discussed on this forum a while back. Its in the CoLab stand with its inventor good old Cap'n. An interesting design and I am sure a lot of us here would like to see another enterprising OMer do well.

I for one will be paying a visit since holding something in your hands is so much better than reading about it and seeing the pictures.

Here! Here! That's why I thought to mention it.

BTW I reckon R_Mac and Chris Frizzell at outdoorsgrub need a mention for their wood burning stove and online food retail site respectively. All regular and knowledgable OM contributors. I have a lot of repsect for people getting out there and making a go of it through their good ideas and the sweat of their brow. I reckon both R_Mac and the Cap'n have plenty of cut fingers in the product development stages of their creations. Blood and sweat went into those stoves I bet.

No, vote for me instead!

 Before anyone starts worrying, any rivalry between me and CP is entirely friendly and I am not in any way shape or form going to push him under a bus/poison him with dodgy spag bol* while he's kipping over at mine for the show, honest!

 (*Or at least, not intentionally!)

Wingnut - What did you come up with? I just wondered so I can vote for you if I think it is better than everything else on the CoLab thingy.

Cap'n - you are being reticent, keeping silent and not trying to influence people into voting for you. Is that it?

If anyone out there has an inventive streak I have my orders for stuff to be invented: -

Meths stoves that boil quicker and work in cold windy conditions without any fiddly bits and can take wood.

Gas stove that can convert into burning meths or even wood.

Earplugs that are cheap, work, comfortable to wear while sleeping and self cleaning.

Modular tents that can be a two skin, single skin, tarp and nest, tarp and floor, tarp and bivvy, just tarp and just bivvy depending on which parts are taken. Must also be 4 season when a two skin tent and at maximum weight be 1.5kg or less as a solo tent for 1.8kg for a two man.

Many more but I keep forgetting them. One thing though is rucsac manufacturers and test houses coming up with a standard test and rating for comfort and extreme loading for sacks. I want to know what weight is comfortable for a new sack and what I can get away with if performance is the most important factor for extreme use such as first ascents Alpine style (not that I would ever do that).

I've two entries in the final this year - a modular crack for climbing walls and a sleep system/midge shelter/restraint-from-occupying-the-entire-tent-in-a-starfish-position for small campers.

The former is an attempt to improve opportunities to practice jamming at climbing walls (where cracks are usually either poor or non-existant): the latter is a sort of transition between travel cots and adult-style camping for children who are still a bit too young to quite get why camping's fun on its own.

Saw the jam thing. Might get my vote that one. Depends what else is there and what the Cap'n's invention handles like. Will we be able to get our hands on the stuff or is it securely held away from us club-fisted "normals". Mind you, I never liked jamming when I used to climb so maybe not.

Wingnut - Can you have a look to see what you can come up with for my list above? Sounds like you might be able to solve them.

I'm also looking for a UL burner for kerosene. I wonder if you can make a kerosene burner that is as simple and almost as light as the can stove? Just that I have access to free kerosene (better not ask) but don't want to carry heavy multifuel stoves. I reckon a 100 to 200g stove would be good enough for me.

Earplugs - maybe try a gun shop? Quite a few target shooters use a sort of moulded earplug rather than external muffs for ear defence these days, they'd be a monumental distraction if they weren't comfortable and since they're a soft plastic rather than foam (they're intended to be repeatedly reusable) any unwanted earwax can be cleaned off easily. Not amazingly cheap, but last donkey's years so might work out to be good value?

Rucksack comfort/weight scale - bit hard to put a number on "comfort", harder to do than for sleeping-bags imho as have to deal with more variables?

 Modular tent - I think you already have the basic concept there, now just need to build one!

Jamming crack - would be prohibitively expensive to build an entire crack (not to mention the insurance), but should hopefully have some very rough prototype holds along to fondle.

> Cap'n - you are being reticent, keeping silent and not trying to influence people into voting for you. Is that it?

Rushing around like a blue-ar*ed fly, trying to get everything ready.  And, to cap it all, work has got a bit manic at the moment, too.

36" plotter currently spitting out the last of my three posters.  First one got a bit cut off, so some remedial work is needed, but others seem to be okay.  Stand is painted and awaiting packing, then to be assembled at the Show.

Very stressed.

I don't know what Wingnut's doing posting here; she can't have any spare time either...  Get back to work, girl...

Kate, from time to time you find them in almost completely unused flight sets in charity shops! The full bags of contents almost completely unused that is!Not suggesting you'd want earplugs that have been in other folks ears there first of course!lol.

Metric Kate wrote (see)

Earplugs? I use the Boots squishy high-density foam ones (if that's not a contradiction in terms). They're orange. They're slightly too big for my ears, but more or less ok size-wise and pretty good for keeping out the sound of snores, farts, wildlife etc. that one experiences when camping. Virgin Atlantic squishy high-density foam earplugs are perfectly sized and as effective as the Boots one. Unfortunately they're rather expensive as you only get one pair in each VA 'diddy-bag'!!

Earplugs that are cheap, work, comfortable to wear while sleeping and self cleaning. - Wrote TTG.

Nope! It be your ears themselves that be self cleaning! One has to self clean them out every so oftn with thin rolled up bits of tissue! NB - Warning - Do not use cotton buds as it may perforate your eardrum!

Earplugs - The most effective for me by far are the wax ones - from boots or most chemists. You get quite a few in a box and dispose of after use. Work a treat at festivals etc.

Earplugs - The most effective for me by far are the wax ones - from boots or most chemists. You get quite a few in a box and dispose of after use. Work a treat at festivals etc.

captain paranoia wrote (see)

I don't know what Wingnut's doing posting here; she can't have any spare time either...  Get back to work, girl...

Trevor D Gamble wrote (see)

Earplugs that are cheap, work, comfortable to wear while sleeping and self cleaning. - Wrote TTG.

Nope! It be your ears themselves that be self cleaning! One has to self clean them out every so oftn with thin rolled up bits of tissue! NB - Warning - Do not use cotton buds as it may perforate your eardrum!

LOL. I have clean ears myself BTW just that after over a week out in the sticks I found out that earplugs tend to find what I missed in the strict cleaning regime I employ when out in the hills.

I use those Lifventure ones with the thick and thin ends, orange and yellow in colour. YOu get 3 pairs in a little plastic box. They work well but after many years of winter whitewater paddling my earholes are very small so the thin end of them take longer to get into the ear and stick out of the ear a lot. They also get painful after a while so I have to spend the last few hours of sleep without them. This means i miss out on the last few hours of sleep in a windy tent or noisy hostel, etc.

I should get one of those flat ended H&S types you get at work as they are shorter, but they are a bit fatter than the ones I use.

There's a cheapish make (named after a big cat I think) that conform to your ear and also actually goes in further than most plugs giving a better sound protection effect.