Thursday 28 October 2010

Mugs and Nikwax


I'm still making stuff honest!  But in the mean time I thought I'd just share a couple of little solutions to minor problems that I've encountered over the last couple of weeks.

Firstly mugs.  As you know from my last post I use an Alpkit MyTiMug as my only pot/mug thingy.  A lot of the time I especially in the mornings when I’m wanting to get up and go I really wish I had a separate mug to drink tea from whilst having breakfast.  Also during the day if you stop for a brew as all my cook kit fits inside the MyTiMug I have to wait until I finish said brew before I can pack up and put stuff in my bag.  A separate mug, oh how useful you would be…

Now the thought of carrying extra weight, even that of a mug is pretty repugnant to most normal people, it is to me anyway, the lightest I had seen was this,



Expensive, light, out of stock and very sexy.



I’d never considered one of these  



It’s an Orikaso Mug.  I picked up a full set of Mug, Plate and Bowel from eBay for £3.99 including postage, just search on the site for Orikaso (I’m in no way connected to the seller by the way).

It weights 37g and folds flat.  I know they’ve been around for years, for some reason I’ve never clicked that this is a solution to the mug problem and remains in the realms of acceptability for weight.  It could also be used as a chopping board or a lure to attract giant tadpoles.




Now on to Nikwax.  I apologise now if this is teaching grandmas to suck eggs.  I’ve always had a bit of a hit and miss experience with reproofing clothes with Nikwax, mainly miss.  I’ve always used a washing machine, done the washing the dispenser thing and running it through empty on the hottest wash to clean the machine of detergent.

Combinations of drip drying, tumble drying all sorts and stuff never has a DWR like it does new from the shop.  I tried hand washing this week instead.  Absolutely bloody brilliant, quicker, less energy and DWR just like out of the shop.  I do have to point out this was the first time I had used Nikwax on Paramo, I know the two were developed to work together so perhaps I should expect better results than on Goretex but by Jingo it worked.  That is all.

7 comments:

Londonbackpacker said...

I used the Orikaso mug for a while but never really got on with it, I went back to a poly-plastic mug but have now starting using the Sea-to-Summit x-mug, I've only used it a couple of times but like the small pack down size, the only complain is that it doesn't seem to keep to liquids as warm of the poly-plastic mug.

John Davis said...

Hi, Shed Dweller.

Hand proofing ordinary waterproofs in the bath never seemed much use to me. I have only once tried TX Direct in a washing machine and it seemed slightly better than using the bath - in other words, barely worth bothering with. However, Tech Wash is a very different kettle of fish. Washing waterproofs as if they were any other piece of sports clothing has brought some very old waterproofs back to life, making me think I would have got many more comfortable walks out of them if only I had liberated them more thoroughly, more often from my skin's oils.

Shed Dweller said...

Hi George. To be honest I've not even used it to have a cup of tea in the house yet. I may tonight to see if I get on with it, what was the reason you didn't find it satisfactory? Just the fiddly nature of the beast?

John, it's a funny thing that Nikwax, my results were brilliant this time. I reckon it's down to reproofing paramo though.

markswalkingblog said...

I've been using the mug for about three years now. I like the measures down the side. I don't use the plate and bowl now as I eat out of freeze dried packs.
Mark

Shed Dweller said...

Mark, I've not noticed the measures down the side, maybe because its black, or it could be that I'm not very observant. I’ll have to have a look at that. It would seem that it’s pretty sturdy if you’ve had one for so long.

Mac E said...

I went through a 'Lightweight' phase kind of and ended up with a couple of ti mugs, a 450ml which fitted inside a Mitymug and then a 375ml when I switched from the 750ml Mitymug to a identical but shorter 550ml pot from Tibetan ti (same brand as the mugs) In the end I went back to a polymug, Gelert I think, I started to think I was getting a funny taste from the titanium mugs and they always burned my lips. The polymug is lighter by a couple of grams than the 375ml ti mug and lighter still than the similarly sized 450ml ti mug.

I keep my mug in a side mesh pocket and my PET bottles sits inside, having the mug accessible means I can use it to take a drink from streams and so on, I should probably clip it to the shoulder straps though to make it easier to get at.

Shed Dweller said...

Mugs are such a personal thing, fellow bloggers Steve Horner and Phil Turner have these

http://www.ultimathule.fi/en/product_catalog.php?c=8&gclid=CNbHi8Gl1qYCFcgf4Qod1TBCHQ

Having used one to drink beer in I can say they are the ultimate outdoor drinking vessel, sometimes the weight isn't everything. Having a mug handy to drink from streams is a great idea. Cheers for your comment.