Complete budget kit.
- Thread starter Rhapsody
- Start date
-
Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.
OK guys I agree that bushcraft is not about taking all the flash kit. I was camping in europe and we got all the way to spain only to stay on a fairly big site with a caravan next to us watching 'Who wats to be a millionaire' with a satellite dish bigger than my tent.
The way I saw this thread is that we were trying to suggest ways to allow people to get out and about without spending loads on flash kit. Look at the posts people suggesting free ways to carry water, cheap mora knives and bashas.
If we started a thread saying 'if you are brand new to bushcraft and don't have much money go and spend a week in the outdoors in the winter with a fire steel and a blanket' it would be modded for the dangerous advice it would clearly be.
It is the aim to get to a stage where you can live outdoors with minimal kit but beginners can't do that, it would be dangerous. The idea was suggest ways to learn without spending lots of money and in safety.
Bill
The way I saw this thread is that we were trying to suggest ways to allow people to get out and about without spending loads on flash kit. Look at the posts people suggesting free ways to carry water, cheap mora knives and bashas.
If we started a thread saying 'if you are brand new to bushcraft and don't have much money go and spend a week in the outdoors in the winter with a fire steel and a blanket' it would be modded for the dangerous advice it would clearly be.
It is the aim to get to a stage where you can live outdoors with minimal kit but beginners can't do that, it would be dangerous. The idea was suggest ways to learn without spending lots of money and in safety.
Bill
Gary said:
I think bushcraft more and more are starting to look like some kind of advanced camping were people sit around a fire and make spoons. Sometyime it feels like you will have to be a millionaire to buy all the kit a bushcrafter should have. Comfort does not come with expensive kit it comes with knowledge. You can sleep really comfortable in nature if you what and how to do it. You don´t even need to build some kind of advanced shelter or make a big fire, sleeping under a tree and using the clothes on your body correctly you will have sleep very well for a night.
I feel it´s time for bushcraft revoulotion, time to stop shopping all these things and time to start go out in the forest kike kids do, with a lot of imagination and just enjoy everything that is out in the forest.
Fair enough Bill, and I apologise as I am to blame for taking it off topic.
However maybe the problem is one of prospective - What is a good budget kit for camping to practice bushcraft? ,aybe would be a better answer - maybe? :?:
And heres another thought - going by the kit lists suggestions and bearing in mind the laws of the land - whats the difference between Bushcraft and camping (light weight or otherwise), especially with regards to kit.
Viking posted the above as I posted this but that is a good point Johan! And heres another thought, if you were into 'the craft' but had never heard of Mearsy and had never had any media exposure what so ever (and that includes this site) what kit would you have? More importantly would that kit be better or worse for nothing having seen 'world of survival' or similar?
I think your right btw Johan - 'primitive living, a step beyond Bushcraft!!'
However maybe the problem is one of prospective - What is a good budget kit for camping to practice bushcraft? ,aybe would be a better answer - maybe? :?:
And heres another thought - going by the kit lists suggestions and bearing in mind the laws of the land - whats the difference between Bushcraft and camping (light weight or otherwise), especially with regards to kit.
Viking posted the above as I posted this but that is a good point Johan! And heres another thought, if you were into 'the craft' but had never heard of Mearsy and had never had any media exposure what so ever (and that includes this site) what kit would you have? More importantly would that kit be better or worse for nothing having seen 'world of survival' or similar?
I think your right btw Johan - 'primitive living, a step beyond Bushcraft!!'
tenbears10 said:
Why start with a week, why not try a day first, then spend a night. You will learn a lot this way and when you need clothes and kit for a week in the arctic you will probably have that much knowledge to buy the right kit. Instead of start buying things start seeing, hearing and feel, because that were it all starts.
bambodoggy
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Gary said:
For goodness sake don't anyone ever mention this to my wife true as it is....I'm having a hard enough time getting her to come out with me into the woods as it is!!!! :rolmao: :rolmao: :rolmao:
Managed stage one this weekend....got her to join me walking the hound in the local woods...usually she'll only come if we're just nipping to the local park.
Stage two is a dusk walk ending just in the dark and so on until I turn her into a bushbabe!!!
Gary and Johan,
I agree with what you are saying and that is one of the reasons I'm coming to Vildmark with you guys, so I can learn and do away with some of the kit I currently feel I need to get by warm and dry (or at least not dangerously cold and wet).
It will be interesting to see what people bring to Ashdown and Sweden with them. I know I for one will bring too much stuff, it is a disease. I take too much if I go to my mates house for the weekend.
I think your point about camping to practice bushcraft is a good one and possibly a better description of what this thread is suggesting kit for. Maybe you can't call it bushcraft if you sleep in a tent (even a cheap one) :?:
Bill
I agree with what you are saying and that is one of the reasons I'm coming to Vildmark with you guys, so I can learn and do away with some of the kit I currently feel I need to get by warm and dry (or at least not dangerously cold and wet).
It will be interesting to see what people bring to Ashdown and Sweden with them. I know I for one will bring too much stuff, it is a disease. I take too much if I go to my mates house for the weekend.
I think your point about camping to practice bushcraft is a good one and possibly a better description of what this thread is suggesting kit for. Maybe you can't call it bushcraft if you sleep in a tent (even a cheap one) :?:
Bill
tenbears10 said:
******, that mean I have the leave the kitchen sink at home now!! :rolmao:
As for carrying to much - we are all guilt of that Bill, interestingly enough I try to whittle my gear down as much as possible and yet sometimes even carrying a daysack with a waterbootle and a folding saw strikes me as carrying to much? Again too much is a metter of prespective and ability - one tempers the other!
Paganwolf
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
tenbears10 said:
My wallet will be open and waiting for you
glad you managed to get the frying pans matey, PM me how much i owe you :biggthump
bambodoggy
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
tenbears10 said:
Hope I've got the right idea for Ashdown....I was going to bring quite a few things that I thought people might want to play with...my nightvision scope or at least monocular....my gortex double hooped bivvi and that sort of stuff.
I'll be crashing under my basha (as it's my fav way to dossdown) but expensive kit has it's place and I figured if anyone wants to have a go before they buy and I have it for them to use then...why not.
Please don't think I need all the stuff I was planning to bring (ok...not that much really)....I'm bringing it to play with..... hope that's the right idea?
bambodoggy said:Hope I've got the right idea for Ashdown....I was going to bring quite a few things that I thought people might want to play with...my nightvision scope or at least monocular....my gortex double hooped bivvi and that sort of stuff.
I'll be crashing under my basha (as it's my fav way to dossdown) but expensive kit has it's place and I figured if anyone wants to have a go before they buy and I have it for them to use then...why not.
Please don't think I need all the stuff I was planning to bring (ok...not that much really)....I'm bringing it to play with..... hope that's the right idea?
Bambam thats is the right idea mate.
The ashdown thing is a social, and as JP put it, kit fondle as well as a get together of like minded folk. That said its not a bring and buy sale so no commercialism will be allowed.Bill PM Paganwolf how much I owe you too!! (might work!!)
Ok back to cheap kit. sorry for mentioning Ashdown in the thread.
ack: how much to look like this?
Bill
ack: how much to look like this?Bill
bambodoggy
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Cool as....wasn't planning to sell anything ):
Bill....I think the surgery to pay for having your head reshaped and turned yellow make it too expensive!!! lol :rolmao:
): Bill....I think the surgery to pay for having your head reshaped and turned yellow make it too expensive!!! lol :rolmao:
As a new comer to bushcraft i have noticed this and i really don't mean to offend anyone here just to remind people what its like starting out. some times it gets a bit clicky and snoby with the i only need a tooth pick and a bit of string to live any-ware
and these are sometimes the same people on other threads recommending all sorts of things or even selling it if you feel they don't need it don't sell it and exploit new comers you cant come over as the spirited at one with the world one minute and then patronise people who think they might need a bit more help and kit, that you probable sold to them the next. it would have been more useful if you just said what you thought was a good cheep beginners kit with bits they could add or take away as there skills developed or there knowledge grew from kind non patronising people who wanted to help and not just tell us how wonderful they are.
and these are sometimes the same people on other threads recommending all sorts of things or even selling it if you feel they don't need it don't sell it and exploit new comers you cant come over as the spirited at one with the world one minute and then patronise people who think they might need a bit more help and kit, that you probable sold to them the next. it would have been more useful if you just said what you thought was a good cheep beginners kit with bits they could add or take away as there skills developed or there knowledge grew from kind non patronising people who wanted to help and not just tell us how wonderful they are.
Bushcraft kit isn't just taking a firesteel because you can't be bothered to make a bowdrill with your only piece of equipment (a knife) every time you go out (I certainly can't I'm afraid). It's also about things like clothing - I just couldn't do bushcraft in my street clothes, just the same as I couldn't take my girlfriend out to dinner in my bushcrafty clothes. I'd get cold, they'd rip etc etc.
I think that bushcraft is a state of being comfortable in the outdoors - if people like kit (I like kit) and it takes them into the outdoors then I think that kit is a good thing (as long as someone is not trying to carry more than they can and looks at their 100lb pack in disgust). What I've noticed is that as I carry less essentials I carry more luxuries and I don't care what others say. Each to their own.mal said:
Beginners will no doubt need different kit to those who've been outdoors many times and I certainly wouldn't recommend that anyone carry less (or more) than they are comfortable with. If one person needs a lot of kit and another needs only a pocketknife then I think that's fine. The kit is just a tool to facilitate people getting into the outdoors.
The outdoors is not a competition and bushcraftUK is certainly not about people endangering themselves because they either feel that they have to abandon kit because to carry it is "not bushcraft".
When I started out I had a Swiss Army Knife, an old canvas tarp, a couple of wool blankets, a tin to cook in, a bottle to carry water in (old lemonade) and a few odds and ends like matches and string. This was thrown into a canvas satchel. It cost me next to nothing and I had a great time.
The main thing to do is enjoy the outdoors!
mal said:
Mal, nobody is being patronizing. There are no right or wrong answers here, the kit you carry is the kit you carry some carry more some carry less - no one has all the answers.
Much of bushcraft is about ideals - the ideal is to carry as little as possible and we all strive to reach this end but that said (as James pointed out) fires are illegal so we all have to carry a stove, making a primitive shelter is hard work and ecologically destructive so we generally sleep under a hootchie or tent but ideally we would all like to do otherwise - as mentioned above the question should have been ;What is the complete budget kit for practicing bushcraft.'
As for people selling stuff ect - most people (if asked) will advise you as to what they think you need - but that is only thier advise and if you doubt that advise ask someone with no vested intrest for a second opinion.
If you were to read every thread and buy every item spoken about on this forum you would soon have a house full of gear and more knives than the royal armouries medievil section. Gear maketh not the man and you should always temper your buying with common sense.
Of course, I would imagine, all of us on here have bought things we didnt need before that in a away is also part of the learning curve after all how can you know a good knife unless you have owned a few bad ones, even when attending a course you should remember that the information you are given on kit is only that which works for your instructor it might not necessarily be what works for you.
Unfortunately there are no answers - there is no perfect kit.
