Non expensive kit

[belzeebob23]

I have to agree with most people here, cheap kit is not starter kit.
Over the years I have bought expensive kit and cheap kit.
Lets be honest here we all like a bargain,I personal picked up a vaude fleece for a fiver in shelter in Sterling on saturday morning and in the past have managed to pick up allsorts from charity shops and carboot sales
and i must admit i have spent hundreds of pounds on boots and more often than not end up in my twenty pound para boots for walking.
belzeebob

 

[AntoninoRusso123]

if you are after cut price army clothing try www.flecktarn.co.uk
they have some fairly decent clothing on offer and they are not to expensive.

There is also this company who I found in Germany https://www.asmc.de/ the only problem is postage if you only want somthing cheap, but for larger orders there great, most of the kit is brand new un issued stuff.

 

[Silverclaws]

I have had good kit, the best money could buy at the time and it took me ages to get my kit together, but I lost it all due to a marriage break up, (that and £4k worth of Snap on tools). Now I am getting back into this stuff again, I notice the outdoor gear prices even higher than they were in the past, yet in the US things are affordable, which leaves me with the thought I am not going to buy into what is obviously a scam. So, for me, I source all of my gear second hand, I have become good at fleabay sniping, and with that my ethics have changed, for pre owned sits well with my ethics. Military surplus gear I use, I adapt and make some things and obtain other bits where I see it, be it Lidls, Wilkinsons, the charity shops, fleabay and junk shops. No, it is not starter gear for me, but perfectly adequate for my needs, if not, adapt it, customise it to my requirement, make it personal to me.

I am investing my time and money in learning skills, defunct skills from the past, so the idea being I can make or repair what I need when out in the boonies, that to me is bush craft and experience in frugal living which I take on into my normal life.

 

[Paul_B]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned Swedish or Norwegian army trousers? A mate got some from a surplus shop in Morecambe and he swears by them. They are double layer (independant layers with a gap) and are very warm. He only used them in winter after canoeing trips when you need something warm on to defrost yourself quicker. I keep meaning to get a pair as I think they were only about £10. Also good with welding splatter apparently too.

 

[widu13]

if you are after cut price army clothing try www.flecktarn.co.uk
they have some fairly decent clothing on offer and they are not to expensive.

I've looked at them before- I think mine and your idea of not too expensive differs!

 

[eel28]

Browsing you tube, i found this video, as part of a series, which looks useful for inexpensive kit.

Ok so a few adaptations will need to made with the shops, prices etc, but the basic idea is there

hopefully it will be of help to someone.

 

[Jakata]

Aldi do all sorts of cheap kit, its a good idea to have a look round every couple of weeks as they don't stock the same stuff all the time.

 

[No Idea]

I actually have a wardrobe full (well, not full but...) of woolen jumpers of various weights bought from charity shops. Have never paid more than a fiver for any one of them. The only problem with wool is getting it washed, it takes for ever to dry out. And I seem to spend my entire working time getting covered in filth, mud, chainsaw chippings or deer blood. However, if I'm confident I won't get covered head to toe in filth then wool beats fleece hands down everytime.

Wool jumpers are excellent, but they dont stop wind.

If you wear a cotton shirt over the top, it stops the wind and keeps the wool clean while letting you breathe while you work.

Needs to be a biiig shirt.

 

[davidpopely]

Very much agree about re-learning 'old', defunct skills. one day we will wake up and there will be no oil, no petrol, no electricity and (probably first of all) no gas. I don't want to sound alarmist, but I think world governments are putting their heads in the sand on an ongoing basis concerning the finite nature of the world's resources (as well as the futility of building an economic system on a consumerist model, but that's another story!). For us, frugality and skill-learning are the way forward. we're not precious about it (we have laptops etc at the moment) but we do recognise where things are headed...and we'd rather go there now and voluntarily than later and by necessity!

 

[davidpopely]

I've got a fleece and outer shell from Oswald Bailey and I have to say the quality is really poor. Will buy a decent one from (maybe) Blacks or something from army surplus next time. Has anyone else experience of OB (vs Millets, for example)?

 

[Rarky B]

Hey I'm sorry if everyone just wants to discuss clothing but thought it worth mentioning that you can pick up machettes, hachetts, saws etc for about £4 each from Toolstation. I know you pay for what you get with tools but it's good to have a backup if your pride-n-joy breaks on you, and besides, this thread was all about starter kit.

 

[Oarsnpaddle]

I realise this may not be what most people consider "non-expensive", but I have realised that I will buy the best I can find. Meaning, it's usually pretty expensive, but with quality comes price (although a high price in itself does not in any way mean it is necessarily quality).
I probably should have started out with cheap kit this time around, and only slowly eased into it, with an even clearer idea of what I wanted, I have a lot of gear now (more coming next week), and I will have gear for solo tours, for an afternoon row, or short over nighter or even with my better half for whatever length.
Had I known what I know now (that my gf/wife is really not interested at all, but prefer to pretend we're sitting in our living room, even if I'm rowing like a mad man), I wouldn't have bought my lavvu and other "big" stuff liek my Petromax and so on. I do enjoy those things when I'm alone, but I would never had them "necessary".

So, I think that the least expensive kit is less kit. Even if you buy titanium stuff and an expensive winter bag, it can still be kept reasonable by simply buying less of it.

To be honest, I still have a hope that she will get "the bug", as today she talked about "when summer comes, we'll go camping", but I have to say I think it's more of an expression of hope that she will, rather than an actual promise (as usual in this department). Sigh.

In summary, my thoughts on this matter is that it is cheaper in the long run to buy good quality stuff if you know what you will be using and how you will use it, rather than the cheap (quality) stuff.

 

[The Lord Poncho]

I managed to pick up three diamond stones (about 15cm by 5cm) in TK Max the other day for about a fiver the whole lot. Three grits- so called Fine, Medium, Coarse. But actually, they are very coarse, slightly less coarse, and very slightly less coarse. Still, a bargain!

 

[plastic-ninja]

I can't help loving the system of barter and getting new kit is no exception.I made a wedding cake for a family connected to The North Face which we swapped for a 4 season down bag!
Also check "freecycle" in your area as folks literally give stuff away free that they no longer have use for.If you have skills try and swap them for some kit : I did a weeks garden labour for an old guy in town and he gave me a box of tools in return.It's also worth checking out Ebay for stuff that's going silly cheap because of poor descriptions ; more common than you think.You can buy and re-sell or trade up for the good stuff that will last you a long time ; I bought a lot of climbing helmets and harnesses and gradually converted them into some serious kit for example Msr Whisperlite stove with Titan cookset as a swap for two sets of helmet/harness - Arcteryx Bora 35 pack for another set.It just takes a bit of patience and you will get the kit you want without spending a fortune.
On the other hand I have spent enough over the years on various knives to finance a South American coup d'etat so probably saved nothing in the long run!!

 

[FlintSteel]

Thought I'd share my idea to you all, I love cheap kit that performs well !
I was walking down the street the other day, it was dusk, getting quite dark, when I saw a bright flourescent drinks bottle in the distance on the ground. It looked like it was lit up like some kind of aliens drink !
Anyway, as I got closer, I realised the drinks bottle was empty, it was the plastic bottle itself which was giving off the colour.
It was so bright (flourescent yellow/green) that I thought that this could be used as flourescent markers for my camping kit.
The drink bottle in question was the new(ish) Mountain Dew Energy drink (picture attached).
What I did was empty the bottle, cut it up into little strips, and use the little strips as flourescent glow in the dark markers for my zips, my buttons, and things that I want to be able to find should I drop it in the dark / dusk.
They are so bright I have used them for all sorts of things.
Rgds,
FlintSteel

 

[mark j lang]

A quick thumbs up for charity shops. Trick is to vist them all and pop in often, every day in your lunch hour if you can, and visit all of them in any town you pass on holiday. over the last 10 years I have found (never paying more than £10):

4 swandri ranger shirts
1 x swandri bushshirts
2 berghaus 70 litre rucksacs
rohan windproof
berghaus windproof
lowe alpine triplepoint ceramic waterproofs
1 paramo explorer shirt
1 rab down jacket
2 snugpack synthetic duvets jackets
1 icebreaker merino thermal
2 x walking trousers microfibre
2 wax barbour jackets
1 pendleton wool shirt
1 wool guernsey ( i love this and you will have to prize it off me)

amongst other stuff not to mention army surplus bargains

all in all once you get used to the fact that you dont need to own expensive gear you concentrate on the essentials and make do mix and match with charity shops and surplus bargains. I have learnt to be selective and only buy something if its a bargain and i have a use for it, paying cahrity prices means you can experiment and learn valuable lessons.

mark Lang

 

[Spikey DaPikey]

A local charity shop to me has an XL Helly Hanson down jacket in at the mo for £15 !

I have far too many jackets as it is, so its still there

 

[redandshane]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=370487790172&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Not essential kit but handy and at that price I bought one
Here is the good bit; the green bit on the end comes out and you can stuff a tight roll of toilet paper in a small plastic bag in there
There is a comparable "job" specific product on the market which costs a lot more I believe

 

[Grendel]

Great thread being a Newbie myself

 

[alkier]

I find that a good mix of gear helps me on my way, ive got a couple of fairly expensive (£30ish) berghaus microfleeces, that i combine with a crappy hoody ive had since i was about 20, i think it was about £10 from primark. You dont need to have amazingly expensive gear, its just that sometimes you need to pay for quality.
The first axe i bought was a gransfors and it was around £55. Now, ive got friends who skimped on their initial costs and have, over time, spent more money on worse quality items. Whereas my gransfors is as splendid as the day it arrived (with love and affection of course).

If someone is worried about blowing cash on things like clothes for bushcraft when theyre not entirely sure if theyll get their monies worth - why not just buy a couple of high quality/expensive things that you can sport around the city (fleeces, craghopper trousers.etc) and be used while camping. Then just protect the 'better' items with cheaper clothes. As long as you're layering you shouldnt have a problem! I never have really!

As far as tools go though, i spent a fair amount on my axe, good boots, good saw and a fairly good knife - and ive never looked back.

Dont spend money you've not got, but dont buy cheap just because its cheap