Right folks; after two and a half years of hoovering up the limitless expertise and advice in here it is time I paid something back.
1000 posts so it must be competition time!
I have thought long and hard about what to offer as a prize; and I hope that somebody likes it. Having never really used it I am putting up my Wilkinson Sword Dartmoor CSK, complete with the original box, all the goodies AND a custom sheath commissioned from Lee. Those of you familiar with his work will know how good a prize the sheath is on its own. The knife and the sheath can be seen here:
Obviously this is only open to over 18s.
So, what have you got to do to win this excellent package?
What I want you to estimate (guess!) is the total number of items I have in my fire kit. Although my user name is Stringmaker, I am now more of a fire starter. I do a lot of sessions with school groups, using a variety of techniques and working with more than one person at a time, so I have duplicates of some things. To help you out, here are the criteria I am using to do my count:
A bow drill set counts as 4 items (bow, drill, hearth and bearing block). I have more than one set and a lot of hearth boards and drills not used yet so you need to count them all.
I have more than one traditional steel striker and more than one piece of percussion stone (not just flint). They are all counted as individual items so how many pieces of flint could I have?
A modern Ferro rod + striker counts as 1 item; how many of those might I have?
I have a lot of different natural tinders; each tinder counts as 1 item.
1 cramp ball counts as 1 item; I have a good few of those.
I do have some modern kit too; so a box of matches counts as 1 item, as do a pack of fire starters, and a bag of cotton wool balls. I have other stuff but to avoid making it too easy I may count them separately...
You should get the idea. To make it easier for me to see the entries (assuming there are any); please use the copy and paste technique to add your guess to the list, preferably in numerical order.
Closing date/time is Monday 22nd April at 17.00 BST
Good Luck!
1000 posts so it must be competition time!
I have thought long and hard about what to offer as a prize; and I hope that somebody likes it. Having never really used it I am putting up my Wilkinson Sword Dartmoor CSK, complete with the original box, all the goodies AND a custom sheath commissioned from Lee. Those of you familiar with his work will know how good a prize the sheath is on its own. The knife and the sheath can be seen here:
Obviously this is only open to over 18s.
So, what have you got to do to win this excellent package?
What I want you to estimate (guess!) is the total number of items I have in my fire kit. Although my user name is Stringmaker, I am now more of a fire starter. I do a lot of sessions with school groups, using a variety of techniques and working with more than one person at a time, so I have duplicates of some things. To help you out, here are the criteria I am using to do my count:
A bow drill set counts as 4 items (bow, drill, hearth and bearing block). I have more than one set and a lot of hearth boards and drills not used yet so you need to count them all.
I have more than one traditional steel striker and more than one piece of percussion stone (not just flint). They are all counted as individual items so how many pieces of flint could I have?
A modern Ferro rod + striker counts as 1 item; how many of those might I have?
I have a lot of different natural tinders; each tinder counts as 1 item.
1 cramp ball counts as 1 item; I have a good few of those.
I do have some modern kit too; so a box of matches counts as 1 item, as do a pack of fire starters, and a bag of cotton wool balls. I have other stuff but to avoid making it too easy I may count them separately...
You should get the idea. To make it easier for me to see the entries (assuming there are any); please use the copy and paste technique to add your guess to the list, preferably in numerical order.
Closing date/time is Monday 22nd April at 17.00 BST
Good Luck!
