stupid, devoured by a campfire

[NoName]

I have done some stupid stuff, but yesterday was really dumb! Luckily only material damage.
strangly I want to share it though, since this is the chatter corner anyway..

When I got my first real (GB scandinavian forest axe) axe years and years ago, I was so happy and ethousiastic that after hours when I got tired the axe bounced and just like an inch did not hit my shin...Lucky but stupid!
Also years ago when I practiced the chest lever grip with carving knife (also tired after hours of working) I forgot to remove my thump out of the way, so big slice in thunp and cut the half into my nail...

But yesterday I was safe but not my kit! I was carving for some hours in my shelter (not to big a design).
I moved the fire of my car rim close to my couch/bed frame (which is Wildwood wisdom style), and worked some more. When I took a well deserved break I manouveredround around the rim (scorced my pants some weeks earlier) but my head bumped the poles of the tipi style roof and lost my balance. Then my ray mears beanie fell of my head (become really baggie over time) into the blazing fire! I got it out after I regained balance but had a major hole in it!
So end fo the story my Ray Mears possum merino beanie is f#@$d and serously enflamed, stupid he! ?

Since I live in the Netherlands I do have wait for some cash and have to order a new one and get it send over, since I super liked it for the colder weeks of the year.

You guys also wrecked some favorite gear over the years? you want to share anyway

 

[GGTBod]

Your beanie hat just has some real character now, i personally feel most attached to any of my clothing or kit that i have mended/repaired at some point

 

[NoName]

I agree!
but the hole was so great I could stick my head through it

Normal holes I can mend. I bought some vintage wool threads on carboard, you know from way back, in every colour of the Rainbow (in second hand stores) indeed really nice to mend stuff.

 

[GGTBod]

Sounds like your beanie hat is now one of those trendy hipster neck tube scarfs

 

[NoName]

lol

but I sacrificed the remaining to the fire gods (since it smelled like a burned body and hair)

 

[Stevie777]

Sounds like a real Oliver and Hardy moment you had yourself there.

Years ago when we was but kids we would spend every other evening in the sticks..At least 5 nights from seven would be spent sitting around a fire until it was time to go home. It was mid to late 80's so unemployment was pretty high.

Those who were unemployed would, during the day, go down to our spot in the sticks and collect the firewood for the evening. The workers would supply the evenings ginger ale and smokes etc.

I was in charge of the fire most of the night, mostly because i was near the wood pile.

At some point someone dropped off a big bunch of kindling sticks next to me which i picked up and stuck on the fire then added the bigger stuff. Come evenings end we were gathering up our stuff and extinguishing the fire i couldn't find my Leather NI padded knuckle gloves.

We looked high, we looked low, we, well i, accused some of stealing them...There they are someone exclaimed...and there they were, tiny little gloves that would have fitted a child,,, burnt to a crisp...Obviously whoever placed the kindling down placed it on top of my lovely gloves and i gathered the lot up and stuck them on the fire.

Also, Does doing a jobby in the hood of your thermal overalls count as Wrecked gear.

 

[John Fenna]

My best fire related accident was when I tried building a smoke tipi out in the woods... using an IPK sheet.
Naturally the fire got a little too lively and the IPK started melting... it is now several small groundsheet "Take-off pads" for when hammocking.
The IPK was replaced by a blanket and my meat was smoked to perfection ... but after all those years the smoke stain is still visible in the wool!

 

[Ruud]

I was invited on a private woodland area which is owned by a friend of mine. He wanted some pointers on building natural shelters.
He had made a lean-to which was top notch, so we decided to get a brew on and make some hamburgers. While he went away to get the ingredients, I stumbled upon a nice straight piece of pine, super-dry, nicely weathered which was propped up against a tree nearby. It was around 4 metres long and was about 15 cm in diameter.

I processed the entire log in managable pieces, made a base-board, dozens of splints and some feathersticks. I waited for my mate to come back to light the fire together.

When he came back, he was thrilled that I found so much dead standing wood... until he saw I just chopped up his perfect ridgepole for his next lean-to. He told me had spent a lot of time getting it out of the woods, out of a big patch of brambles. He showed me the scars to prove it.

I found him another ridgepole the next day but I was really ashamed at first to have made such a fault.

EDIT: Oops, just read that this has to be about kit being ruined...

 

[NoName]

thanks for the comments

indeed some Oliver and Hardy action....

@ Rude: haha poor friend hehe, next time old school forestry marks made by knife on wood (just kidding); firewood, bow wood, contruction wood, carving wood
@ stevie thanks for sharing hope u got some new gloves
@ John fenne; ta! good you mention, so I wont try it

fire devours!

 

[Dreadhead]

I feel your pain! I had a favourite jumper I wore for so long I think I had stitched up 18 holes in total and added leather elbow pads and a leather section around the neck. One day when not thinking clearly I washed it on around 60 degree wash and shrunk it to baby size! I still find it difficult to talk about that jumper...long may it rest in peace

Sent from my SM-T230 using Tapatalk

 

[Harvestman]

I feel your pain! I had a favourite jumper I wore for so long I think I had stitched up 18 holes in total and added leather elbow pads and a leather section around the neck. One day when not thinking clearly I washed it on around 60 degree wash and shrunk it to baby size! I still find it difficult to talk about that jumper...long may it rest in peace

Sent from my SM-T230 using Tapatalk

I picked up a jacket with a 100% wool detachable liner in a charity shop for pence. Very pleased with myself. Wife washed it 'because it came from a charity shop' and shrank the liner to child size. Could have cried.

 

[Dreadhead]

I picked up a jacket with a 100% wool detachable liner in a charity shop for pence. Very pleased with myself. Wife washed it 'because it came from a charity shop' and shrank the liner to child size. Could have cried.

It's so very hard to let go of a bargain wool garment

Sent from my SM-T230 using Tapatalk

 

[dannyk64]

Some would say im clumsey, i prefer the term unlucky.

anyway

A friend of mine has a large woodland outside of nottingham that i have camped at for years now and one day we were all packing up getting ready to leave, I nipped behind a tree to have a leak and as i emerged i notice a rock (slightly bigger than my hand). it was laying in the middle of the track we drive the cars down to leave and so naturally i leant down to pick it up and move it. Now the first maybe 3 seconds nothing seemed a miss untill a searing burning pain spread across my hand.

My favourite gloves had become melted to my hand giving me some pretty nasty burns.

Turns out it was a piece of brick that had sat in the fire for 3 days straight that someone had kicked out of the way as they doused the fire...

 

[Goatboy]

Many moons ago when a mate and I were doing a winter survival weekends with very minimal kit we were layed on opposite sides of a miserable fire that was barely keeping us from hypothermia. I noticed a smile spread across his face, I returned a questioning look before realisation struck that he was smiling because my hair (which was very long back then) had caught alight. Still my frantic running around and his hysterical laughter warmed us both up.
On another occasion when I was cutting and clearing the swathes of rhododendrons (hmm please excuse my spelling tonight) I was dragging a large bundle downhill when I slipped and got caught up in it. I carreened downhill and into the heart of the big fire we had going to burn all the scrub. Again everybody was helpless with laughter as I squirmed trying to free myself. Luckily I was clad in cotton trousers and a wax jacket so the burn damage was minimal, it was mainly my pride that got scorched.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Wayland]

That's nothing.. Try hanging your Laplander on the firewood stack in the evening and finding just the blade in the morning.

Now that felt dumb...

 

[Goatboy]

That's nothing.. Try hanging your Laplander on the firewood stack in the evening and finding just the blade in the morning.

Now that felt dumb...

Ouch! Now that's a sore one.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Wayland]

Especially as I was in the Arctic and the only other heavy cutting tool I had with me was my Trailhawk.

 

[Chris the Cat]

That's nothing.. Try hanging your Laplander on the firewood stack in the evening and finding just the blade in the morning.

Now that felt dumb...

Lol! I remember that buddy!

Hope you are well.

Chris.

 

[Wayland]

Busy, but well mate...

 

[NoName]

haha!
thanks for sharing guys, my pain already subsides, poor Goatboy almost smocked through like a druid put into fire, Dreadhead supershrinked wool, Harvestman can blame his wife at least
but Wayland, that is bad! especially in the arctic! oh man I mean one cannot just carve a new handle... And the heat treatment on the saw teeth also ruined.

About shrinking wool; I found out that the shock when the machine rinses wool with cold water shrinks it. The wool wash programm does not do that also not high cycle.
My wife shrunk a Swanndri Ranger back a size once....she never wears or buys wool...