Sunday, 20 July 2025

My Brand Spanking New Fit Well Big Wall boots returned under warranty why?

 My Brand Spanking New Fit Well Big Wall boots returned (to retailer) under warranty Why?





Almost without fail when I purchase any sorts of outdoor gear and especially boots, which are ALWAYS purchased from a "physical shop"  to guarantee perfect fit;  I thoroughly inspect the quality of workmanship first hand before handing over the ghoulash  (yes it is indeed a play on 2 words!).

So it came as a total surprise that not soon after I purchased (from a reputable authorised dealer) these boots that an annoying problem was noticed.


For some inexplicable reason I could no longer pull the laces through an upper metal eyelet. In fact when I added a little jungle juice, the lace became shredded! Ah stupid me, I must have had some piece of stubborn grass or stick material caught in the eyelet, after all we were out hiking with them in some rough terrain the other day!


Hold on, no the laces is moving just fine, i checked it??? What gives?


On closer examination this is what I found:


This was for me a bit worrying as it meant whoever inspected this boot didn't look too hard. Or it was known and that this "second" was shipped to "certain" retailers as exactly that. I sincerely hope this was NOT the case. None the less the retailer has taken the boot in question but they are NOT going to ship it back to Fitwell as they say communication is poor (I don't know what that's supposed to mean) and will attempt to correct this oversight via a professional cobbler/shoe smith.




@BushCampingTools 

Ebay watch Scams Don't get caught!

 Here is an example of E Bay Watch Scams.


You will notice that despite the sellers appearing to be different, the featured watches ALL       show the same time! How remarkable!

Although these are examples from Japanese EBay sellers, this scam is not limited to Japan. In fact I caught one guy apparently selling my watch, a special edition Eco Drive! He had posted multiple pictures which he had ripped off from my blog, and then tried to argue that he had the watch for sale and when I queried how was it that his images were identical to the minutest details with my images, he insisted he owned the watch and had it for sale LOL!


As a serious Ebay buyer and seller, I reported this knob and guess what? He disappeared (at least under the guise he was using at the time!).



Here's another one, similar modus operandi 



If you frequent E Bay enough as a buyer you will have encountered such dodgy sales scams. In fact if you frequent it enough it is safe to say you may have even had to utilise E Bay's money back guarantee. I certainly have for items which were never available for sale, ie they were never posted/shipped. Or the seller deliberately ships the incorrect item hoping you will not be bothered to return it.


Although despite the plethora of criminal activity associated with the Bay, it's clear the whole shebang is a great success and certainly been great for me and I hope you too!



Saturday, 19 July 2025

Practical use knives

 Practical Use Knives

Seen here is a jumble of practical knives. The manufacturers are: Work Tuff Gear, Wanger Linder, WithArmour and Extrema Ratio. You will note that no blade exceeds 6.5". With the exception of the WTG knife, all are of stainless steel. Although the WTG model is now available in Böhler  K329. With the exception of Wanger Linder, all of the above manufacturers also produce ginormous (quality) knives for those who just have to own one. For example the mega sized destroy all monsters Zeki Menacho beast from WTG (shown below).

or
The super excellent FKMD RIMOR, which IS a big knife and CAN handle the wilderness just fine but overkill for general hiking and camping.






This is what no one wants to acknowledge.

"Most people will never require the use of a big knife. Big knives are only practical in serious wilderness and even then there will be little difference between a modern big knife's performance and that of a locally made parang or machete. The main difference being cost and that cost difference could easily equate to over one months food and or accommodation/transport in the tropics". 

I've been on many a tropical adventures and let me tell you I've never taken anything more expensive than a multitool with me, in fact the single most expensive item other than a shit hot expedition tent, was an almost indestructible carbon fibre take down fishing rod (because it was def mission critical as we were on an island with no boat!)

If you are not doing this sort of thing then possessing the kind of knife shown in these images, you will not suffer on any other kind of adventure from lack of a practical knife. In fact for all hiking and camping purposes on known trails, a small knife is best. This definitely goes for hunting purposes as well unless you intend to butcher an entire elephant!


What makes a Knife Practical?

Shown above are ALL practical and great knives to satisfy ALL outdoor activities.


Not in any order, here are 4 pretty good reasons to what makes a "practical carry knife":

1/  Ease of carry


If it's a pain to carry then more than likely you'll leave it at home or in the trunk fo the car. No so with the Kizlyar Supreme Dominus (AUS8) Kraton grip


2/ Ease of maintenance (no tools required). Unfortunately MOST knives do not satisfy this criteria unless using an over moulded TPE or Forprene or Kraton type grip permanently affixed to the tang. (see below).


The Kizlyar Vityaz T (AUS8) sporting an over moulded TPE grip. There are Zero parts to come loose or fail. Also this knife has an incredible temper and quite a different bevel angle of 15 degrees.

The superb skinning knife from WTG 


3/ Comfort during excess use (no gloves required)

No acute edges to be found on the handle of Extrema Ratio's Sethlans

OR on this beast, an all day user



4/ Can be used to eat with and prepare all foods.

Simple un coated D2 tool steel, resistant to most food stuffs, even acidic pineapple juice. (Manly Knives (Bulgaria) Model Drugar.

Ego knives (Bulgaria) Perfect EDC knife (made with D2) with a super ergonomic grip and concealed lanyard hole).

A practical knife is an uncoated knife or a knife coated with a food safe material such as certain PVD compounds. Since an uncoated knife (if stainless steel) will basically be un-reactive to any food acids, water, (fresh or salt).

A practical knife should not possess areas which are difficult to keep clean and free of food particles and or raw meat/fish/guts.

To be totally honest after all the years of camping, trekking and hiking around the globe, a synthetic handled knife is one of the most useful items to carry. The exception being on length here is that, my trusty ONTARIO Spec Plus clip point has been one of my most trusted camping knives albeit at 7" length, it fairs well in the Australian bushland and cut it's teeth in the Western Australian wild coastlands along with  New Zealand's wild regions.








Remote beach Australia (WTG Lamigo) in D2.



Manly Knives (Bulgaria) Drugar  A Wanger design. German D2 perfect for cutting close to or in the dirt. Mushrooms, Amethyst Deceivers, Boletus edulis, Lactarius. sp.  Totally at home in the "European forests"


The Superb Kizlyar Supreme YETI (PGK steel)


More than strong enough for the Aussie bush after hacking  down a palm tree to get at the edible "palm heart", the Kizlyar Supreme STURM



But I want a strong knife?

All of the knives shown here in this blog are MORE than strong enough even for THE most arduous tasks (just watch my reviews) however if you want some extra assurances......


Can you have almost indestructibility with a  small size knife? Sure you can, see here for just 3 examples. 


This is one super heavy duty small fixed blade from the Super Edge series) Wanger Linder.




New from With Armour, the CAJO I BK,  a San mai constructed scandi ground powerhouse of a knife using their WASTEEL. 420J2 sandwiching a Vg 10 core.



The mighty Kizlyar Supreme URAL, Above and below) , a full convex ground hunting and camp knife. Built like a tank!






Coastal duties with the Extrema Ratio T4000C (yes, it's a coated blade in this instance and I also own the Satin finish version (totally food safe). Do as I say, not do as I do!



Limited edition WTG Mini Nomad made with Hitachi ATS-34. A superb small knife. 






BCT

Monday, 7 July 2025

Why the Citizen Eco Drive is King and a Major marketing Blunder?

 Why the Citizen Eco Drive is King or Is there such a thing as a Watch being Overpriced?


Consider the following:


Approx cost of a Citizen BN176-08 E* approx $750 USD second hand from the bay.












I've beaten the daylights out of this model ( I bought mine second hand over 4 years ago), diving, caving, adventuring been around the globe several times etc. You get my point.


BTW I still have my original 200m Eco Drive, perfect time countless dives, water action, caving action, canyoning action etc. 25 years old now! Still going strong, OK, I lost a bezel after about 22 years of the above action! Never had a service, never leaked.

So what does Citizen's latest 300m model look like?

Latest 300m Professional diver's model from Citizen BN1024-01E approx. cost $580 USD brand new! 


This is the limited edition model (BN1025-08L LIMITED EDITION shown above) of the new  BN1024-01E. You can see the similarity of the design to previous 200m models and this is evident in the bezel design. In fact there is nothing outstanding about this new model at all and even the sapphire crystal can not save it from looking like a regular 200m (much cheaper Eco Drive.


I have to say it doesn't look as cool as the BN 176-08E, it just looks like a beefier version of the regular 200m, they kind of admit this anyway. I think it's a marketing blunder and not distinct enough, sorry Citizen!






accuracy +_ 1 sec in one year!
Can you see the difference?
Although the above model is NOT that dissimilar in appearance (and therefore does not stand out against the following model:



However at a considerable cost increase. Ok, sure, we have a sapphire glass in the new 

BN1024-01E and


there is just a regular mineral glass in the BN0156-05E

 What's disconcerting is that already this new model is available second hand on the Bay! Ok they could be stolen etc. who knows and certainly there are many Japanese sites selling watches which are all FAKE as they simply use the same pictures but the sellers all appear to be different. WARNING! Either none of them actually have the model (usually the case) or they are all as i said crooked! Caveat Emptor!


For serious diving, the bezel design from the award winning 200m Aqualand (you can read about it here) is far better to grip and the surface finish to this watch bezel is far superior to that of the new model which is just bare stainless steel.

Shown above just after a dive, the BN0176-08E (immediately below the camera) and the Aqualand 200m BN 2026-00E (this was a "special edition" model with a TiN coating (note Suppaparts adapters I added).


with gloves one than the 

BN0156-05E

As is the bezel for the the BN 0176-08E 



and it's 300m sister model with the fluorescent green minute hand.




What do you get for 300m water resistance in terms of time performance?

Rolex Sub Mariner


The straight stainless steel model
approx. $11, 219 USD! No mention of accuracy only crapping on about what they did back in 1953! That's almost 20 watches of the above model citizen. I know which watch will last longer and require less servicing!

Sure a Porsche out of the show room will drive better than  Subaru out of the show room. However, a Subaru modified will give ANY Porsche a run for it's money, I know, I had one LOL. BUT we can't modify watches in the same way as we can for cars.

I'd bet the above Citizen Eco drives can take a hell of a more beating than ANY Rolex watch.

It's physics. There are fewer mechanicals within the guts of an eco drive, this means less things to go wrong. In terms of accuracy, NO automatic watch can compare to the crappiest of quartz watches, even no name brand ones when it comes to time keeping. 


No, one buys a Rolex, to tell the time. One buys a Rolex because it's a Rolex, not to tell the time accurately, only to: show off to your mates you've either made it, blew the family savings (and hence about to encounter even more  debt because now you face divorce proceedings), expect to get you arm yanked off by some desperate robber and finally incur massive (and they are) service charges (out of warranty), if you manage to ward off the thief. 

It definitely will not tell the time better than the above 2 Eco Drives.

What's even more frightening that for such a ridiculous price, the warranty is but for 5 years!
Let me tell you right now, it will not be under warranty if you are playing ball games with it on your wrist or batoning a knife, using a jack hammer etc. (probably the Citizen won't be warrantied either for the jack hammer action but the service cost will not cause a rise in blood pressure either.





BCT
*The Eco-Drive PROMASTER AQUALAND is compliant with both the ISO 6425 Dive Watch and the JIS B 7023 Watch for Diving standards.