I have the very great pleasure to introduce (some) of you to my old friend Tony. Tony and I have a combined passion for Japanese weapons arts, which is how we met, and subsequently realized we share some other exciting interests as well. I am only too pleased to bring you the first article Tony has to offer......
#$%^ That Works
Some time ago I offered my good friend Josh at Apocalypse Equipped a
couple of articles. And due to being slack and an urban hippie I have
not managed to get this done for him until now. Below is the first of
these articles.
For some back ground I have travelled a lot and climbed the odd
mountain and done the odd wilderness expedition. While zombies may be off my radar I have been in places where natural
disasters had just hit or hit not long after I have been there it
which is more luck than good management.
So in an apocalypse situation you just
want @#$% that works. It needs to possibly have been lying around for
a couple of years untouched and you need to know that...
- You can pick it up and run and when you need it and it will just work.
And
- It is field serviceable with a minimum of tools.
For me the best example I have of this
is my MSR XGK Shaker Jet II stove.
I was reminded of this a couple of
months ago we headed to the desert for a friends festival and one of
the things on the list was cooking. I grabbed this stove out of my
back shed filled it with mower fuel. Primed it and as you can see
below viola first time it fired up and worked like a dream.
I first bought this shaker jet back in
1996 (some of the readers here are younger than this stove) in that
time it has worked, worked and worked some more for me. It has had
parts replaced over that time but the bottle and main unit are as is.
Advantages.
It is light at 500grams plus fuel
Rugged – works after being crammed
into packs, on the back of yaks dropped, banged and just generally
disrespected.
Field Serviceable – Pulled apart at
7000 meters at 20 below with the tools provided striped and put back
together.
Versatile – I have run this
successfully on diesel, petrol and white gas (and that was dirty
dirty diesel)
Disadvantages.
Like its name says it sounds like a
jet. You are not hiding from anyone using this stove.
It can burn a bit hot if you don’t
know how to use it. (tip below)
Has taken my eyebrows off a couple of
times priming it when I first got it.
The stove works off a simple principle
of heating the liquid before it gets to the jet by passing the tube
through the flame this vaporises the fuel allowing it come out as a
gas. Obviously it needs to be primed and this should be practiced
but once mastered you can do it with your eyes closed or a set of
gloves on.
The shaker part refers to a small
needle inside the unit that can be shaken up and down that breaks up
any residue that might block the unit which allows for the use of
very dirty fuel.
Packs down extremely small and with so
many other MSR items is well made.
It can boil a litre of water in under 2
minutes and it can turn out some fine food including a nice salami,
bean and risonni pasta that we did in the desert. The tip(as promised
above) with not burning everything it is to drop a old can top on top
of the cross beam of the stove body to act as a diffuser. Makes it
less efficient but more versatile for cooking.
So after water and shelter this would
be my next item on any list when it has hit the fan and as we
discovered in the desert where it had not hit the fan but we where 50
very long KM’s from anywhere like civilisation that water and
shelter then food and warmth where on the list.
This model has been superseded by the
XGK EX
which I have read and heard good things about. At $250 it is bit rich
to just have lying around I admit. But as I said if I have to run for
the hills or the power goes out for a week in the snow (as happened
to a friend of mine) then this is one of the pieces of kit I
definitely want around. If Josh lets me in the next couple of months
I will put up a post on how to build a super efficient lightweight
stove using some old cans.
Till
then happy zombie hunting the urban hippie
www.iamnotanurbanhippie.com
