Best Survival Tin Kit//Esee Survival Mess Tin homemade kit

okay guys welcome to another video in today's video we're going to have a lot of fun we're going to talk about survival tins and kind of my thinking and my rationality and we're going to in the end take a look at this but real quick I want to discuss many people make Altoid kin survival kits and this one is empty but it's a Altoids tin that I spray-painted so I've made a couple of these in the past my issue is while being very compact and lightweight for an EDC bag or something like that or something to throw in your back pocket they just don't hold a lot of stuff and for not that much more size you can have a far more effective kit or have better tools and implements so so while I understand kind of the reasoning you can get these tins for dirt cheap and they're very small I'm not a big fan of them personally and I've made them in the past though and it's kind of a fun project so I'll set that one up there this is kind of my minimum size so this is a Sequoia aluminum box and it's kind of an expensive box but it's really durable and I've gone through this before and I'll leave a link to that video so in today's video we're going to talk about this it's made by Essie and it's their survival tin they're empty soliton so they do make a premade kit but I decided to forgo that and I just bought the empty tin it was about 14 or 15 dollars on Amazon and I wanted to just buy the tin and make my own kit around it so real quick before we take these other tins off the table I just wanted to show you a size / perspective quite a bit bigger than melt waste 10 is quite a bit bigger than both of these and as you'll see to some that might seem like a downside because there's no way you're going to fit this in a pocket maybe fitting it in the cargo pocket but it's just kind of heavy and it would get in the way what this is for the reason I made it specifically is to keep in my get home bag so I can keep keep kind of a last-ditch survival kit and then that way it cleans up the rest might get home bag just store the things I'll most likely need you know food water and clothing so that's why I made this kit but uh you know the applications are kind of endless depending on what type of bag you carry on a daily basis you can keep this in an EDC bag you could keep this under your front seat you could put this in a a bug-out bag or I'm never coming home bag just to have you know bare essentials with you if you lose everything else so before I open it up I just put some three inch wide gorilla tape on the bottom not a lot of tape but this can be used for band-aids I've used it you know if I get a little nick on my hand you know duct tape gorilla tape has a lot of uses and I have more tape inside the kit but I wanted to maximize this keep in mind that this is a messed in that you can use to cook or boil water so on and so forth so if you were to do that over like a fire you need to remove this tape but you could save it certainly or just you know use it up or who knows so the next thing and the thing to keep in mind with this kit is the lid doesn't really walk on and I'm going to probably modify it in the future I think I can bend some of these edges in just so it grips a little bit but as it comes it doesn't rip so the next thing I just have some shock cord and that if needed you could maybe use that for other stuff you could use rubber bands I had rubber bands but they were kind of thin and chintzy and I was nervous that they would break you could tie paracord you could use a nylon webbing cut whatever I had some shock cord laying around and it's just really easy and it it locks in so now getting to the good part so I'm gonna open this kid up I'm warning you there's a lot of stuff in this kit I'm kind of going to go a little in depth behind my reasonings so maybe save this video for another day when you have a little more time you can just enjoy the whole video or you can kind of skip through but you might miss some critical stuff so the first thing I did is I polished the top it doesn't come like this and I didn't do a perfect job but to use as an impromptu signaling device and then I polish the inside but then I just taped a signal mirror to the top it's a really thin shiny piece of metal and the other side of this mirror has a protective film so that the side that I want to use is facing upward and it's protected but this side you could even you know if you had to use this quick you could open this kit and signal and then uh I mean this tape is just here to hold a mirror but you could use this again to use as a band-aid or something so I wanted to kind of maximize this piece and the other thing is I don't know how much cooking you'll be doing but you could use this as a little plate or a frying pan but it is pretty small so I'll set that off to the side so the first thing is going to be a little weird um I threw this in because I had it because I had a little extra space in this kit and my rationing or my rationale I guess for putting this in is I could use this to hold some water now it's not completely watertight it's waterproof but it will leak through the seams and I could probably put a dry bag in here instead of this I just didn't have one and I didn't want to spend a lot of stuff there are a lot of money on this kid I was trying to use what I already had so just a Granik year 3 liter yellow color so this can also be used as a signal flag it has a dump pouch you could thread your belt through here and if you gather stuff or you want to bring extra stuff with you you could just toss it all in here so the other reason I put this in is if you want or if you need to you can just dump the we'll get into here it won't be as organized but if you need to use the tin um or as you take stuff out and you don't want to lose it toss it in there don't kind of be hard to lose this break clorbag I didn't have one but what I would actually do is try and find like a blue one I don't know about you I didn't color blind but in nature at least where I live I don't see a lot of blue you know in the woods so a lot of people think orange and yellow are better but the thing is in fall you know yellow orange and red the changing of the leaves at least where I live the forest gets really vibrant so uh if I would have had a blue one I would have put a blue one in but yellow is pretty bright but again kind of multi-use it's a storage device made to hold water you know lots of uses and yeah so the next thing I'm not going in any particular order is just a small pencil I have some right in the rain paper in this kit so this is if you had to leave your vehicle or you got to a trailhead or something and I don't you were on the move you could leave a note or if you made camp you know you could write headed north west or something like that until pencil this is a pencil elight and this isn't super common but I think it's really cool Petzval is a pretty high-end brand when it comes to headlamps and the reason I like it is it because it's so compact it has this drawstring and what I had done before hiking at night is I'll attach this to my wrist well I flipped it I put it on the wrong way but you can rotate it like that or if you're doing something tying knots it doesn't put out a lot of light but enough to uh you know get work done or if you had to travel at night it has red flashing red and stuff like that it takes two 2032 button cell batteries so the next thing one talk mode is a string or rope I put two different types in here for different applications so this is orange micro paracord and it's not super strong but this is about 60 to 70 feet and you can see it doesn't take up a lot of space the thing is I think I just hastily coiled this so if you go to use it it gets tangled up pretty easy but I threw that in there just to have a lot of utility type cord and then this is a number 36 bank line hard bank line and this is 30 feet and I believe this gage of bank line has a breaking strength of around 300 pounds I think but yeah number 36 bank line so I'm going to pull this out I'm gonna talk about this in a second but just a couple more things an emergency whistle with a lanyard on it so you can you know once you get lost or whatever you can throw this around your neck just so it's on your person in case you hear someone you can start whistling distress signals this is a little piece of tenacious tape and it's pretty much clear repair tape and I've used this to repair thermos you can repair you know waterproof rain jackets is really sticky waterproof it nearly sticks to everything and it's not a lot but it didn't really take up any space so I threw that in there this is about 30 feet 20 or 30 feet of flagging tape and then I threw a couple safety pins and safety pins have a lot of uses but my thinking is putting it with the flagging tape you know right when I get lost I could take a couple pieces off and safety fit safety pin them to my hat I tend to wear like a earth-tone hat so I could safety pin a couple flags to my hat and as I'm walking and as the winds blowing it's going to kind of wave in the wind if you have more of a camouflage type backpack hiking backpack with you that blends in easily you could put a couple flags on there and then this to mark trails or to leave you know if you get to ally in the road you can signal you want one way or the other you can use this also as a binding implement but I have other stuff in there to do that but flagging tape very inexpensive very effective this is something that I threw in because I had space there's probably better alternatives but I had a big bag of tea lights so I threw two in and they don't take up a lot of space and you know for to warm your hands up they don't put out a lot of heat but just to have a candle you know sometimes you want just a little bit of ambient light but you don't want to start a big campfire so just two tea lights they don't they're really light they don't take up a ton of space but I could certainly see why someone would choose not to have those in this kit so this I didn't pack a lot of medical gear in here but you know when I'm out in the woods I tend to just do weird things you know abrade my knuckles on a tree or something like that so I just have some triple antibiotic cream some hydrocortisone cream some alcohol prep pads which could double as like fire starters and like five just band-aids in this little bag again it doesn't take up a ton of space I have some ibuprofen some benadryl is back there some aspirin not a lot but you know again it might get you through a tough situation or make you know if you have to tolerate some pain it might make it a little easier or if you get an allergic reaction you know so this is kind of a mini fire kit this kit isn't really designed for camping or sheltering in place so it's not like I'm going to be starting a ton of fires but this is a spark wheel I find it a lot more effective than those very small miniature fire steels it only requires one hand to use you don't need to use a striking implement with it and think of it as a Bic lighter without fuel that throws the sparks a little farther and then I have five tinder quakes I found these to be one of my favorite very compact reliable fire starters there's a lot of fire starters out there though that you could use use these tinder clips in this bag I packed it not super necessary wet it packed in a little plastic bag and this is a nightcore 2 flashlight and it might be waterproof but just for extra security I packed in a little waterproof bag and then I have a second way to start a fire just a miniature bic lighter again big lighters are semi waterproof I packed it in the plastic bag just for a little extra protection so this right here is about 10 to 15 feet of just brass wire more for repairing stuff than for snaring animals and a lot of people put wire in this type of copper thin wire to snare animals I tried it when I was a boy it's not super effective but you know I do have that option with this kit but this is more for repairing stuff sometimes you know tape isn't strong enough so you can bind it lash stuff with wire you can also make this if you want it like a bail handle you could poke a hole in this if you wanted to hang it above a fire for example um but just wire because it's not you know it doesn't really melt or whatever so you can use their own heat sources but there's a lot more uses I'm just touching the surface so this is a miniature pen I don't know who makes it it might be zebra but it's I don't know where I found this but it's a very small ballpoint pen so you could write notes on your hand you know you can't really do that with a pencil but if you're headed in a certain direction in case you forget you can write notes on your arm I have some paper in the bottom of this that you can use this with you know it's pretty self-explanatory but that's just kind of my reasoning for that for aqua mira tablets they have a couple more water tablets but this is um to treat water so i don't get dehydrated so I can have a clean drinking source so something I put in here which many people would say is overkill but I put a baseplate compass in here so many people in these small kids they put a little button compass um and the reason I don't like those are one I found even the higher end ones aren't super durable they're not really easy to use they're not super accurate but the biggest thing is because they're so small I've lost at least a few of those out in the woods and they tend to be black you know it's some company needs to come out with a button compass that's blaze orange or that's bright blue and not black oh but I put a baseplate compass in here just because I had the space it's more accurate it's easier to hold it does have a magnifying glass it has some measurements some map scales and it's not a super high-end it's a silva sola explorer made in finland and i've had this for a long long long time and you can see there's no bubbles in there and you know some people don't like silver compasses some people prefer sudo or Brunton but this one i'll just keep using until it forms some bubbles but it's been fairly durable but again it's kind of a basic compass so this is just some duct tape for again band-aids repairing stuff you can write notes on this and tape it to a tree or to your vehicle you could put this on the side of your vehicle if you need to leave your vehicle and say I'm headed in this direction for example you can use this with the paper I have to you know tape and o it up somewhere to let you know search-and-rescue know which way you're headed and then some more water tablets these ones are called aqua tabs so then these I'm not going to undo them but they're - they're called world pack stand-up bags and I bought them on Amazon and they hold about a leader - a leader in half of water and there you know people could say just use a ziploc bag these are actually meant I believe for companies that do water testing to take water samples I believe that's what they're for but two of them with I marked the measurements you know so then that's kind of important when you're using water pills so you don't you know so you can filter the air purify the right amount of water very compact I packed two just because they're they're fairly durable but that way I can gather twice as much water for example or if one breaks I have a second one so I'm not a big fan of space blankets but I put one in here for you know a quick down and dirty shelter for you know preventing hypothermia and a multitude reasons so this one is just a Walmart brand called Colin's Coughlin a space blanket that was in a I got for Christmas one year or something like that so I decided to throw it in but unlike many kits I actually have a second one so this is an S no adventure medical kits heat sheets and it's slightly bigger and it's orange and some people say it's more durable I've it's a little more durable but it's not bulletproof but again I could be in a party of two maybe we both need a blanket where I want to use one to make a little shelter and the second one to bundle up in so I have two space blankets the reason I have two is just where I live we get a lot of cold weather there's a lot of water there's a lot of chance for you know getting dunked in water and risking hypothermia so I thought it was important to have to this I just kind of threw in it's a derma razor and I've seen people throwing that razor blade straight razor blades my issue is a really hard to use effectively so I like these ones because they're very compact you can get like a big pack of them for not that much and you actually have a handle it's not the most durable blade you know you're not going to really be doing whittling or carving with this but you know for cutting rope or maybe for medical emergencies you might need to use this I you know alcohol prep pads you get sterilize the blade so the next thing is two squares of aluminum foil this is 18 inch by 2 feet I believe quite a bit of foil but when you fold it right it's really thin I packed two separate ones this has a multitude of uses signaling cooking you know you know making impromptu boiling devices even though I already have a pot that I could use to clean water for example or make a tea but I threw this in because just to have kind of a backup the the other thing I was going to put in here and I saw this and john mccain's build the perfect survival kit book what he does in some kits is he uses a baking pan that's about yay big and he folds it those disposable ones and he he folds it up and it packs very flat and it's a lot thicker well it's thicker and it it has rigidity to it so if you need to boil snow or melt snow for example you just undo it and now you have a cooking vessel and I was going to put one of those in this kit but the thing is I already have a boiling or a pot okay so that was that reasoning and then at the very bottom is three pieces of right in the rain paper it's four by six it's out of a four by six notebook and then all I just had to do is clip the corners so they fit in they don't take up any space they don't really weigh anything again for writing notes for rescuers for writing notes to help you later on and stuff like that so that's the kit as you can see you can fit a lot of stuff in here I think it's a fairly effective kit that's the kit as you can see I think everything's on quite a bit of gear to help you through a sticky situation so the last thing I wanted to cover and I think a lot of you guys might find this interesting I know the video is running long and I apologize but hopefully you guys enjoyed it this far the last thing long to cover is the cutting instrument so I guess you could include that and that's what I have now I had a lot of other choices Swiss Army knife Swiss Army knife farmer so I think this video this discussion will make the video a little longer but I think a lot of you guys will enjoy this so I want to cover why I put this one in and personally I don't know if it's the right choice so the first thing is um so the first one I wanna cover is something that carry on my keys I've seen a lot of people pack this this is a Leatherman squirt ps4 my reasoning is a lot of different outdoor activities I do whether it's snowshoeing snowmobiling four-wheeling off-roading cross-country skiing hiking camping so on and so forth I tend to get there in my vehicle and I take my keys with me so these are already going to be in a pocket and they already have this so why pack another one in kit the other thing we're on a daily basis I tend to carry some type of Swiss Army knife and a multi-tool so I didn't go super heavy on the knife's in the kit because my rationale is I'm already going to have some knifes and some cutting implements with me I want to talk through just a couple things to keep in mind so the first one this is one option it's called the Leatherman freestyle and it's very compact but my issue is it has a knife blade and it has a pair of wire cutters and pliers and does this one have tweezers no I don't think this one has tweezers so that's it right so it's for its weight and for its size it takes up you don't get a lot out of it right so you know this an old standby Gerber and 400 and it's compact it's lightweight it's thin so you have wire cutters and pliers can openers bottle openers scissors screwdrivers and then you have a knife the thing is I don't like this knife that much it's you don't have a lot of cutting edge so my biggest issue with this is because for its size it's missing something semi critical a wood saw so I do that one I could do a Leatherman skeletal knife blade pliers and a screwdriver but again no wood saw so these two I considered putting one of these Swiss Army knives in and they are quite a bit lighter and more compact but the thing is in this kit I did have the space to choose something bigger but Swiss Army knife it's going to be a little more compact and then full size multi-tool and the cool thing with this this is the farmer probably my favorite Swiss Army knife it has a wood saw in a very effective one and a cutting blade screwdriver can't open a bottle opener that's about it but I mean very good knife this is just about the same this is the Swiss Army knife hiker and then one additional thing this has is it has two blades you know in case you did something stupid and you broke one of the blades you sell the second one so you have two blades which is advantageous and then you have the tweezers and the toothpick but my reasoning and my rationale is I already carry one of these on a daily basis so I'll already have one of those with me part of the reason I packed this is because this is my least favorite multi-tool which will come to a surprise a lot of people because a lot of people like this I'm not a huge fan but for a multi-tool a full-size multi-tool it's fairly slim it has a Ferro cerium rod so just a an additional way to start fire in case you've lost everything else it has a little whistle slash diamond sharpening rod it has a knife and this one you'll see is a combo edge but again I'm carrying a full straight edged knife already I'm nice so this is serrated but you know you still have some usable blade up there and then it has wire cutters and pliers if you wanted to use the tin to cook with you know or you wanted to use this as a frying pan you could pull it out of the fire you can use the plier pliers for a lot of things but my kind of reasoning for using this one is while being kind of a compact full size multi-tool if that makes sense it has a wood saw now it's not super effective but I wanted a knife that also had a another way to you know if you wanted to cut some small sticks to you know make something and then it has the screwdriver bits it has a cap lifter you know in case you have some choice beverages with you and then it has a punch at all crichton right in there and the screwdriver bits so I wanted to cover fix blade knives so I wanted to cover fixed blade knives real quick and why I didn't include one so I don't own that mini compact itty bitty fix blade knives that would fit in a kit and I was trying to use stuff I already had I don't want to buy a lot of extra stuff and this is the only one that it would actually fit in a kit and it's the more L Duras my issue with this is it's a it's a decent knife a neck knife or a Tec Tec knife but the blade is shorter than for example Swiss Army knife right so it is fixed blade but you have a shorter night um the other thing is the candle while being comfortable is fairly wide so that's gonna take up a lot of space in the tin and uh I've kind of come to the point where if I'm going to pack us if I'm going to pack a fixed blade knife I want it to have a little bit longer a blade than some small like this hopefully you enjoyed that quick discussion on knives and I understand there's a lot of other suitable knives but the thing is I don't have those and I wanted to use things I already had so the last thing I just wanted to cover real quick and this video kind of demonstrated it well is there's no way you could fit all this stuff and one of these so I understand the reasoning behind this but when you look at all all this extra stuff that I can take in not that bigger of a tin it kind of proves my point a little bit so I'm gonna leave a link to this tin I like it a lot fairly it's like $15 on Amazon it's fairly durable it weighs only a few ounces you can boil water you can melt snow you can collect water you can cook food if you count like a trout or something like that and then I like the fact that this can double as the a signal mirror plate so hopefully you guys like this video I had a lot of fun filming it and kind of explaining what's in it and why I put it in there and keep in mind Essie makes a kit very similar to this that's pre-made so if you don't want to go to the hassle and you don't have all this small stuff to put in here I believe it cost 180 dollars but it has a lot of similar stuff plus it comes with an Essie Kandra which is about the size of this knife it comes with a Swiss Army knife I think it might be this exact Swiss Army knife it comes with a lot of similar stuff so that's another option it's a hundred and eighty to one hundred and ninety dollars but it's all put together for you and I think it even comes with fishing kit so this video has ran pretty long but I think a lot of you guys will enjoy it especially if you're thinking about putting together Survival tin now I get to spend the next you know 10 20 minutes repacking this the way that I unpacked it so if you guys liked this video go back to my homepage watching my current videos if you like what you see feel free to subscribe if you have any tips questions or maybe additions or different stuff I could put in this tin leave that in comments below

Channel: Great lakes prepper

Views: 301,667

Rating: 4.5522537 out of 5

Keywords: leatherman, esee, para cord, survival tin, mess kit, e&e kit, get home bag, bugout bag, bic lighter, nitecore, Bushcraft, preparedness, victorinox

Id: f5jbQuS929c

Length: 31min 36sec (1896 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 11 2018