ESBIT SOLID FUEL COOKSET Review

I was recently in the market to purchase a new light weight camp stove. I thought I would be able to just make a quick purchase, but once I started looking I realized I was wrong. When you are looking to buy a backpacking stove there are a huge number of choices are out there. Do you want a gas model, an alcohol model, a wood burning model, or a solid fuel model? Once you make a decision on fuel type there are still a ton of different stoves to choose from. Stoves can go from a fly weight ultra light stove to a mammoth twin burner unit. My decision was the Esbit solid fuel cookset.

The Esbit solid fuel cookset comes with three pieces, the wind deflector/fuel holder, the 16oz pot, and the pot lid. The wind deflector is meant to be stored inside the pot then put inside the mesh bag that came with the stove. I would call this a medium sized backpacking stove. The complete set weighs in at 6.94oz. So it is still a light weight stove, just not as light weight as a titanium folding stove. The Esbit burns the .5 oz solid fuel tablets, made in Germany by Esbit. Esbit claims that one large tablet will bring one pint of water to a boil in 8 minutes. I would imagine that this varies with altitude.

So after using the Esbit solid fuel cookset a couple of times I can attest to the quality and ease of use of this product. Set up is easy, just take the pot/lid containing the wind deflector out of the mesh carry bag. Then place the wind deflector on a solid level surface, next place a fuel tab in the tray on the wind deflector. After that you may light the fuel tab and put the pot with water in it on the top.  Now to the main reason that I selected this stove; it is capable of using wood, alcohol, and the solide fuel tablets. My penny stove fits nicely in the wind deflector, and twigs may be broken up and put in the windeflector as well. I also liked the fact that this stove came with a pot already. You could use other pots with this stove but the Esbit pot has a small lip on the inside that allows it to kind of lock into the wind deflector for added stability. To clean the residue left by the fuel tablets you just scrape out the tray. The pot is not dishwasher safe so it must be washed by hand.

Esbit claims that 1 large fuel tab will boil 1 pint of water in 8 minutes. This was not my experience, I used one large tablet, and let it burn for it's entirety of approximately 18 min. Even letting it go this long the water temperature was only 180 degrees Fahrenheit. I have to take into account that where I live is at an elevation of 4,336 ft. Even so I thought that letting it heat up for twice the advertised time that it would have reached its boiling point.

This stove seems to be well made, and can use different fuels, but it's performance was a let down. I had better luck using my penny stove to boil the container, and it was boiling in seven minutes. With a price of $24.95 it is a relatively inexpensive stove, but the fact that that a stove that cost me 51 cents outperformed it was a let down. I think that this stove has excellent usability, but again lack luster performance. If I had it to do over I would have stuck with my penny stove.

While the performance of this stove was a let down, the construction of the cookset is solid. Those of you at a lower elevation may have better luck. The Esbit cookset is available on Amazon.com and the price I paid was $24.95. Thanks for reading...

GERBER SHARD Review

Today I have for review a GERBER SHARD. This is one neat little tool. These retail for around $6.61. There is another similar model called the Artifact. The Artifact is similar overall to the Shard but it has a fold out blade, which uses #11 hobby knife blades. I chose to go with the Shard because I pretty much always have a knife on me. Here are some specs on the shard.

• Overall Length: 2.75"
• Weight: 0.6 oz
• Stainless Steel - Titanium Coating
• 7 Functions:
• Pry Bar
• Small Flathead Driver
• Wire Stripper Puller
• Large Flathead Driver
• Bottle Opener
• Lanyard Hole
• Cross Driver

• Lightweight
• Titanium nitride coating for corrosion resistance
• Perfect size with the basics to carry anywhere
• Airline Safe

As you can see from the specs it is a lot of functions in a small package. The one thing that really jumped out at me was the pry bar function. This was definitely an area that my knife didn't cut it. I am not about to use my knife to try and pry something, the same goes for my keys. So when i saw something that was purpose built for the task and pretty cheap I gave it a go.

While it is small, it fits the hand nicely. There is no problem gripping the tool for prying or bottle opening. As you can see from the photo it has some light knurling on the edge where your thumb and fore finger would be placed for bottle opening. The flat head drivers are the forked portion of the prybar. One side is smaller than the other to account for the two different size flat heads. The cross tip or phillips driver is on the opposite end. It is the size equivalent of maybe a #3, but works on #2 screws also. The wire stripper is in the fork of the prybar.

Overall I believe this to be a handy little tool. It is however a jack of all trades and therefore a master of none. The two faults that I found with the Shard were the screw drivers. The larger of the two flat head worked fine, however the smaller one was too thick to fit any screws that I tried it on. This could be fixed easily with a file. The phillips only down fall was that the screw you are trying to manipulate must be close to the surface of the object it is attached to. If the screw is in a recessed hole this tool will not reach, but hey it's not a dedicated screwdriver. These two things aside I still really like this thing. It prys like a champ and protects my other more expensive tools from abuse. This alone makes it a worth while purchase, and a good addition to your key chain.

Welcome

Welcome to Gear Blog!! The intent of this blog is to showcase products that I have found useful in my outdoor/military life. My reviews will be to the point, honest, and fair. I hope that you will find the info on this blog useful when looking at items to purchase. Thanks for stopping by.