Major Gear Problem Requires a Field Fix – Camping in

oompa doompa doompity doo

In the video he was wearing some sort of fleece jacket. I couldn’t see what it was in the link in the description anybody know what it is? Thank you.

For that HelikonTex Alpha fleece, is it really hand wash only?

Luke have you ever thought of taking stills from you video and offering them as either post cards or as a calendar? I would love to get some of those pictures. Never been to East Coast and may never be able to. Live in Washington State in the SW part on the boarder of Wa and Oregon so I have been lucky enough to get a few pictures down the gorge. May be time consuming to do that so it. Loved the view of the sunset through the trees and the smoke.

Great vid brother

The one piece of must-have, absolutely necessary equipment that I will not leave behind on a cold weather camping trip is an insulated mug of some type. I don't like drinking out of metal mugs regardless of the weather, but a hot drink in a metal mug during cold weather…nope! Just ain't gonna do it. I don't like eating out of a metal plate or bowl either, but the insulated mug is a got to have!

Also, "Buddy" is something you name a dog or a cat, not a van. "Tug Tug" is better.

Imagine complaining about excellent free content 😂… keep doing what you do Luke… Cheers

Dude I love your videos, but this weird orange filter is strange.
You literally have the color of an Oompa Loompa
Lol

Luke what watch were you wearing in this video? Have you tried the Apple Watch Ultra on one of your adventures?

those gloves got plenty of life left in em

What is the jacket that you’re wearing in the video.

Thanks for doing these videos. Viewing on my phone from my hospital bed. I can at least enjoy what I love to do. Now yo get the BP and BS under control so can get out and adventure!!!

One of my favorite episodes is Facing the Storm at 6000 feet. I would like to see more like this. I enjoy your channel.

This would not be the first time that camping gear makers underestimated the effects of cold on composite materials. A bunch of the early hatchets and axes with fiberglass or carbon fiber handles snapped off clean just a couple inches under the head out in sub-zero temperatures. Most composites are made from some kind of epoxy resin and some kind of strong fiber. Epoxies vary greatly in strength and brittleness at low temperatures. The really clear resins that cast so well are often very brittle. On the other hand, there is an aerospace epoxy that is amazing. I think it is called GA-47. They used it to glue a sapphire part to an aluminum block. Then dropped the assembly into liquid nitrogen. The massive thermal expansion differences would normally pop the sapphire clean off the aluminum and/or shatter the thin epoxy layer. Not this stuff. It just hung in there like it never got chilled/shrunk. Really strong, and especially, really tough. So they used that epoxy a lot for designs that had a lot of cryogenic situations, which was most of the stuff they made. Liquid nitrogen was their warmer/cheaper environment. The good stuff ran on/in liquid helium.

* Key issue : Contact the tent maker and get them to pony up the actual materials in those poles. They are using either an epoxy or just a polymer to bind the fibers. That epoxy or polymer has a very poor temperature/stiffness/strength profile and should never have been used in cold weather gear. Hopefully they are using fibers that don't go brittle in the cold or get mushy on hot days. Either their engineers haven't done structural analysis on the poles over the full temperature range, or they are just pretending at knowing how to make milspec equipment. Real milspec suppliers understand the very demanding temperature ranges over which military gear has to function. Real structural analysis means running the simulations over the whole rated temperature range. Lots of stuff tries to go all brittle and snappy at the low end and droopy/unstable at the higher temperatures. Sometimes part A being cold and part B being warm causes big problems. Lots of materials have non-linear stiffness/strength/expansion properties over temperature, which makes the analysis more difficult.
Or maybe because they aren't really being sold to military customers, someone in purchasing got a deal on substitute materials and they got away with the substitution. If they tried that on a real military contract, there would be a Program Manager that would pounce down like a jaguar from a tree perch and tear their guts out (metaphorically). You don't mess with the reliability of a program manager's contract. And no one defends you from the jaguar, because he is right and keeps the company on the contractor list.
* Note: Anyway, if they did their jobs right, they should have done a structural analysis (computer simulation) of the poles to milspec temperatures, which look like -25F to 120F for operation (assembled, bent, wind) and -60F to 180F for storage and transport. They should really make the engineers take the tent on a campout in northern Minnesota during a cold snap in December or January.

To this day, I'm very skeptical about any fiberglass gear that's going into cold weather or has achieved a certain age. I prefer oiled hickory handles.
If it is really cold, I need an axe or hatchet to take more abuse, not less. I really need that firewood or shelter and I'll probably need more of it. I'll have to chop harder on the frozen wood. Aluminum poles are more reliable because the 3 or 4 aluminum alloys they use for poles are very well understood. Besides, -25F just isn't a big challenge to middle of the road structural aluminum. When you use airplane alloys, they come with performance charts over all the aeronautical temperature ranges. Not so much with last weeks batch of composite material.
When my equipment has some weird high tech piece in it, all I see is a problem. Can I replace or splint that piece with some wood if breaks in the field? I cannot recommend competence in all lashings highly enough. Really tight round lashings are very hard to do, but very valuable in camp repairs.
Because of my desire to have field serviceable gear, I also don't trust those butane/propane stoves. The valves are not field repairable. In fact, they are rarely repairable at all. You generally replace them. I go with alcohol stoves. They CAN fail by being accidentally stomped flat. That's about it. But I can replace them with any number of pieces of litter, such as a tin can, soda can or piece of aluminum foil. A little work with my SAK and we're back in business. Playing around with all those DIY alcohol stoves seemed like a waste of time, but now I am certain of my ability to make a reliable stove from random trash, which is everywhere.

Maybe baking soda and vinegar to clean that kettle….

Litefighter sells a pole repair kit, though it is often not in stock.
It might be nice, if you had two thermometers so you could give us the temp outside and inside the tent. I have the two person model, (with the winter liner as well) so mine will not be as warm when solo.

Try cleaning your kettle with wet paper towel and ash from the fire – might be a little late to start though.😊

I'm glad you mentioned Tony I'm a big fan.tug tug is great.He is a hard working amazing man.we love AB camping. You both should do a blog together. That would be awesome. Like Kent survival, and a Bloke out doors.2 more of my favorite utubers.😊❤

Try oven cleaner for your kettle or pots. Works wonders.

What a time, awesome video

Glad your ok dude.

This is primarily why I have moved away from carbon fiber. I live in the cold and when you mix that with those poles, you are likely to have a failure. Aluminum is heavy, but I have had fewer issues with aluminum.