Review: SARGlobalTool Moon-Glow

Here's a fun little piece that i picked up earlier this year. The SARGlobalTool Moon-Glow. 

What is it is a disk of glow-in-the-dark plastic, with a secondary disk on each side, one of SOLAS 3M high intensity reflective tape, the other of mirror-polished stainless steel. A split ring lets you feed it through a necklace to lay flat. It comes with a bead-chain, but I put mine onto one of the boot-lace cords i wear with my other do-dads and gateaus around my neck. 

How does it work?

The manufacture is solid and smooth. I've been wearing it around my neck since August 2011, and i cant recall it ever snagging, pulling hairs or jamming me in the sternum. 

I learned about signalling mirrors when just a boy, when my fascination with survivalism began whilst in the UK, which was fueled by the incongruous post-WW2 centric young-boy play that occurred in the school yard there. (Remember that the UK hadn't really had much warfighting since then, right up until the Falklands , which occurred whilst I was living there). Anyways. Signalling mirrors are great. Silent, power-free and shatterproof (in the case of polished steel). I flew inter-continentally a lot in those days, and even from that age, i had a stash of just-in-case kit. Of course, in the 80's, you could carry a Swiss Army Knife on a plane and rarely would anyone bat an eyelid. Not to mention, reflecting sunlight at things and people has been a cheep way to amuse ones-self since the time of Archimedes . 

The flip side of this disk carries the SOLAS 3M high intensity reflective tape, which is a very cool material. Certainly my idea of good "please find me, I'm lost" use in a preparedness item. Spencer of SARGlobalTools has taken some great shots of this in various settings, which I found to be a deal-maker for me. The nature of the disk lends itself to use-when-you-need it that would be appealing to those who go into harms way and don't want to be spotted, more so than a foot long strip across the back of a bike courier, Firey or Ambo. I liked it because I can have it on me at all times. Several months of continuous wear has lifted the edges of the tape a touch, but not severely. In fact, the only time I take it off is when I'm at kendo. Or if i take it off for my baby to gnaw on, or for the three year old to play with the glowwie.

Which brings me to the third component. The glowing disk. I've also always had a love-affair with glow-in-the-dark things. My bedrooms have usually had stars on the roof since I can first remember. Sci-Fi loving parents put me on the path, something I am happy to pass along to my own children. So, here is the disk after being around my neck, under my shirt, and taken out to photograph, then taken into a dark room. Just that amount of exposure is sufficient to cast an appreciable glow, sufficient to locate me, or it, in a dark room for considerable time. Walking around my house at night it can be spotted by my housemates, which is good, because I am otherwise very quiet. Walking inside from bright moonlight is also sufficient.

In near total darkness, it's glow is perceptible in reflections off glass after many hours of being in bed, which is very useful when babies start crying at 4am, I can assure you. However, to get the most exciting and lasting results from it, it (like any glow-in-the-dark material) needs a good charging from a strong light source. Australian daytime will do that, as will bright lighting, but my favorite, for true geek-factor, is beaming it with my UV pen-laser. When fully charged up, the disk is so bright that I can read by it very happily. At lower levels, it would be easy enough to make out landmarks on road-maps. 

I liked these so much I've been back in touch with Spencer, and am buying several more.

SAR Global Tool