Onboard Fire Extinguisher

I've always wanted to carry a small fire extinguisher in the cab of our camping truck--a 1984 Nissan 720 4WD king cab.  However, everything in that cab is so cramped and there's essentially no place to rig a fire extinguisher.  Today, we finally solved that conundrum.  We bought a small $10 Kidde Marine Model Mariner 5 fire extinguisher and simply bolted the retaining device to a milk crate.  The crate has been a fixture in the truck for as long as we've owned it.  Now the extinguisher stays put, upright in  the same spot and is readily accessible behind the driver's seat.

 As you can see, it's firmly attached to the milk crate.  No wiggling, wobbling or whatever.

 Fits nicely behind the driver's seat.  The seat goes all the way without hitting the extinguisher.

Very easy to get to behind the driver's seat.

Camp knives

We've always had problems with camp kitchen knives.  They are hard to store and can cause all sorts problems.  A few years ago, we decided to simply cut off the sharp tips and shorten the knives to fit the 50 caliber ammo can in which we keep all our other camp utes.

Well, that worked great until realized fugitive dish water hides in the handles of those knives.  We all know what stray water can do.  Think mold and bacteria. So, this week we went to the thrift store and picked out two knives that are essentially waterproof.

We figured this would be a good time to explain the process so here ya go.

These are the former camp knives.  They're great knives and will continue in use in our travel trailer where there is sufficient air flow and ventilation to help the knives dry out after washing.

The problem with the former camp knives is that  water would get trapped between the handle pieces and the blade.  When put into an airtight ammo can, well, use your imagination!

Here are the two knives we found for $2 each at our local Deseret Industries thrift store.  There's no place for dish water to hide in the one-piece, molded plastic handles of these knives.

The new knives have two problems; 1) Sharp tips and 2) Too long to fit an ammo can.

So, we square the knives up and mark the proper place to cut.

A hack saw can cut through most knives.  If not, a bench grinder will do the job.

Good-bye sharp tip.  If you've ever had  a sharp knife tip fall and stick in your flip flop foot, you well know how such an incident can ruin a perfectly good camping trip!

Then, you simply smooth the blunt end of the shorty knife, round and smooth  the corners and you're good to go.

The new knives are perfectly at home in the 50 caliber ammo can utes box.