I think I am going to move away from my mini kit and concentrate on something a little bigger. Here is my story? Has anyone come to the same decision I did?

OK, so there I was, in an emergency that required me to light a fire for my wife and I to sit by on a cool evening the other night. So I figured I had a few minutes to get it going, I would grab my mini PSK and give it another test in the back yard. So I went into the woods to get some tender and kindling. I scraped a cedar tree for some bark and grabbed a bunch of dead braches from the same tree and several around it and headed back to my deck to my chiminea. I had a log or two that I split for the evening and stripped a large chunk of bark off for a platform for my tender and kindling. I prepped my tender pile by crushing and grinding half of my bark as fine as I could make it and left the rest surrounding ?powder? with some tiny twigs to get a small fire going that I would transfer into my chiminea.

Well now to meat of the post. I opened my otterbox as a breeze picked up, blowing my Tinderquick pieces across my deck <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />. Mind you, I was squatting on my deck, and thankfully it was dry so I just picked them back up and stuffed them in my pocket so I wouldn?t lose them. Then I went digging for my BSA Hotspark. I got the flint out, but the striker was on the bottom of the box, so as I dug it out, I dropped it on the deck, and like magic, it was swallowed up by the crack between two boards <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />. Additionally, as I was digging it out, my four pieces of ?Write-Rain? paper flew out in the breeze as well. Not a very good start for my time with my wife, who was shaking her head at me through the window.

I did get a fire started, but only after having to use a piece of tenderquick and my Spyderco Native to make a spark big enough to get the piece ignited, but that is another story I am too ashamed of to mention.

This experience had me thinking, what if it had been raining? What if the wind had been blowing a little harder? What if my hands had been colder? My little kit would have been very difficult to use with much success at all. I worked very hard to find small items to outfit my kit and conserve space for stuff like wire, tinderquick, a button compass (which I discovered had an air bubble in it), and a pinch light, yet, I would have lost some of the most important pieces in there if I had spilled the thing over!

What is my bottom line on this little experience? I think I am going to move away from my mini-kit and concentrate on my larger kit. I am always carrying my pack with me almost everywhere, and my minimum carry is good enough for the first night out of doors in most places I go on a routine basis.

So I ask this esteemed group: why struggle with your huge mitts in a tiny little case when you have a large one with adult sized items in it?

Garrett

You've just demonstrated that a kit without practice is worth a lot less. Learn from your experience & improve. If you think a bigger kit will help you resolve some of the issues you've encountered, then got for it. It is always required to shelter your fire building material as you prepare to light it. In a "real" situation, you would not have been on you deck ! You would have dug a shallow hole in the ground a built a "fireplace" of sorts with stones ... If it was rainning, you would have set up a tarp before firebuilding to shelter you & your effort.

Bigger is better as long as it is not so big as you decide to leave it behind ...

Every person is different, every situation is different. Therefore, every kit needs to be different. Practice and personal experimentation is far more important than asking someone else what you should have in your kit, or buying a pre made one and never trying the items for yourself. I change the items in mine on a regular basis based on real life incidents no differenmt than what you have done.

I've had the same thought , many times, when folks go on about the diminuitiveness of their kits, although, in all fairness, my job and lifestyle allow me to walk around looking like Grizzly Addams most of the time <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Troy

P.S. Don't use a tack hammer if a sledge will get the job done <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />.

Maybe this is a usefull tip:

When I have to use (open) my PSK in the outdoors, wind, and/or rain I sit with my back in the wind and take out a waterproof bag (that is in my pocket) and place the PSK-tin in that. When I open the kit and something flyes away, it will fly into the bag and won't be lost.
The bag will also help to keep the contents of the opened tin dry.

At the risk of sounding critical ( and you have just made me double check my box) it would appear to me that you have packed things into your box in the wrong order. The things you need fastest go on top, the "luxuries" go at the bottom. Whistle, mirror, torch & firlighting on top, everything else in plastic bags below them. That way you can just open the top briefly, grab the vital item and close the kit before you loose anything. Also, bin the tinderquick in faviour of wetfire cubes. Must more effective.

Yea, but a tin ( of other PSK container) is very small, so if you want to pack it's contents in a special order, The items maybe won't fit.
( I had that problem with my PSK-tin)
I think you should pack your PSK as small as possible

A mini kit is exactly that. Mini. It is not all seeing, all dancing. It's intended to provide you with the absolute minimum amount of equipment nessesary for your survival. Keep it simple with as few items in it as possible. Consider it to be the smarter version of a hollow handled knife. For myself that means: 1 mini-bic, 1 firestick, 4 wetfire cubes,1 whistle, I wiresaw, 1 compass, Puritabs, and a signal mirror. Everthing else is exteranious. It just intended for 24/48hr use. Ref my previous post on minikits earlier this year for more details.

Garrett,

I have been of the same opinion as you for some time. Keep some small PSK items in your pockets and put the real stuff in a Camelbak or backpack. You don't want tiny stuff when you are cold, miserable, the weather is rough, fell bad and are stressed out!

You want stuff that is easy to use and easy find if you drop it. Cody doesn't describe tiny stuff in "98.6"! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Craig,

I just got done re-reading Cody's book and it helped me solidify my decision about my kit. After watching some of the new TV survivor shows and realizing that I am capable of doing what they do there (at least I hope) I think I can trim down my smaller kit to something more useful to me.

To everyone,

I guess I should have prefaced my original post with the fact that this was not my first test. I have had this kit for almost four years and I break it out regularly to replace and re-evaluate/test stuff. I have never had an issue like the one I had the other night though. I also have huge hands (hard to find good fitting gloves in my size) which only makes it worse.

I think I will re-build my kit and post some pictures of it over the next week or so.

I appreciate all the ideas you guys gave me (using plastics bags, etc). That’s what I love about this forum, you can post your mistakes and no one flames you like on other forums.

Garrett