I don't know the exact stuff in his kit, Terry, HOWEVER, I'll tell you what I did:

My wife found a spool of Coats & Clark's Upholstery thread; 150 yds; black; with "T26" on the spool (whatever that means). Now, Ritter's kit calls for 10.5 lb test. I don;t know the test of this thread, but I wrapped it around my fingers on both hands and could not break it.... not even with several attempts. I'm no He-Man, but as my nick might suggest, I'm tall and relatively athletic, and I couldn't break that stuff. Anyway, we had a hard time finding thread marked for test strength, so this is what I use.

We found some small (dime-sized in diameter) silver spool reels... the kind with the 1/4" hole in the center. They can't be more than .40 cents apiece. I chucked a short piece of 1/4" dowel in there, chucked that in the drill, and spun it slowly until it was full. I don;t know how much is on there, but I'd take a wild guess at maybe 50 feet. It fits just right in my PSK. I am confident you could sew anything up with that thread and it would hold.....forever. You could also haul in a 30lb catfish which is, of course, your goal when stranded in a life-and-death survival situation. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Good luck....
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DON'T BE SCARED
-Stretch