New to EDC? Beyond the Basics
This article is a follow up to the “New to EDC? Start Here” article. It is designed to help folks round out a nice basic tool kit for living life a bit more prepared. If you are looking for full on survival kit advice (AKA: a Bug Out Bag), I recommend visiting The Prepared, a Wirecutter style site for those with a preparedness mindset.
The idea with this article is to provide you with a second layer of good items to carry everyday that help make life easier to manage and to add a few tools to your arsenal to support your EDC kit. For more on kit maintenance, see this article.
The Kit
If you are thrilled by the idea of gear and you quickly move beyond having just a knife, light, and pen, here are the second tier of items you should consider.
Water Bottle: If you are health conscious at all, a water bottle is a must. Its easy to drink 8 glasses of water a day if it stays cold. Recently water bottles took a huge leap forward in design. Traditionally water bottles were a series of tradeoffs: insulation, durability, taste—pick two. But a few new designs allow you to get all three. Pure makes an excellent bottle, but I haven’t had a chance to use it (my wife has one and loves it—the glass liner makes for an excellent taste barrier). There are also active bottles that neutralize odor causing things in water through UV light. They run around $100 and I haven’t had a chance to test them either.
Pack: You need a place to store your EDC and carry your daily essentials. For me, as a lawyer with my own practice, I lean heavily on a briefcase. Backpacks look silly in court. On the weekend though and for travel, everything goes on a backpack, and mine has lots and lots of attachment points. Don’t skimp on a pack for any reason—they carry so much valuable stuff and they are the only item that has to be worn to work. Pay special attention to straps and do not fall for the “more pockets equals better” philosophy. More pockets means more places to lose your stuff.
Fixed Blade or Hatchet: A “camp knife” or a hatchet is a great complement to a folder and will allow you to do most cutting tasks—fire prep, food processing, and felling—with ease. Fixed blades and hatchets are also pretty inexpensive for a very good one. Be sure not to confuse a hatchet with a tomahawk. ‘Hawks are for fighting and have a thinner head making chopping much more difficult than the wedge-shaped heads on a hatchet.
Sharpening System: You need a sharpening system. The idea of buying a high end steel and hoping it never goes dull or bringing it to someone to sharpen is silly. This is like owning a car and not being able to pump gas (don’t laugh, one of my adult female friends used to drive home to Connecticut to have her Dad pump the gas because she had NEVER done it herself). Don’t be like that. Honestly I find sharpening therapeutic even if it gives me “Sharpener’s Mange” (a condition whereby large patches of hair mysteriously disappear from your non-dominant side arm). Whatever you do though, get a strop.
Battery Charger: Lots and lots of lights run on rechargeables (note: non-rechargeables are called “primaries”) and some of them need specialized gear (I am looking at you LiPo and Li-Ion). I have a Nitecore Intellicharger, but you could get away with a single well set up. I am not convinced this is the best option out there, so I am not making a recommendation.
The Recs
Yeti Insulated Water Bottle: Like its namesake, this thing is big and brawny. I am not normally a fan of these traits in EDC gear, but thanks to the thicker walls a drop on the pavement isn’t fatal. The lid is super nice and this is the first bottle on the market that has a better design than the Human Gear Cap Cap.
Worksharp Ken Onion Edition with Belt Grinder Attachment: I have found no better system to get good results quickly, but there is a punishing learning curve. As a result sharpen a few crappy beaters first before you accidentally grind away the tip on your Mnandi.
A Leather Strop: Of all the stuff on this list, the strop is both the cheapest and the most essential. Owning a knife without owning a strop is like owning a car without owning wheels. Find a good one, buy the black, green, and white compound and you will be a happy camper with a case of Sharpener’s Mange for a good long while without the need for a full-fledged sharpener.
Survive Knives GSO 4.5: A good medium sized camp knife is, like the strop, just on the edge of being a core inclusion but for the fact that you can’t EDC it unless you are a rancher in Montana. Like I have said before, having a good capable fixed blade is like having a truck—you do work you never even considered doing before. The GSO 4.5 is a perfectly rendered fixed blade with good steel and a decent price.
Gransfor Bruks Wildlife Hatchet: This is CLEARLY a 100% luxury as premium axes and hatchets are about as twee as it gets, but man, I love my Wildlife Hatchet. I don’t really baby it and it still looks and works great. The feel the handle and the look of the mirror polished edge (okay, maybe I baby it a bit when it comes to sharpening, see above for why), are a heady mix no knife knut can resist. This is a dump purchase, you don’t need it, and it is 100% awesome. If I were being serious and systematic about things I would have purchased a Small Forest Axe, as that, combined with a good fixed blade and a collapsible saw provide you with just about everything you need edge-wise for the outdoors. I found a Wildlife Hatchet for $80 at a sale at the LL Bean world headquarters and I snagged it. It was a no-brainer.
Tom Bihn Cadet: If you carry a laptop or a tablet for work, this should be your bag. With a host of accessories and great design features, the Cadet is smaller than the competition, but better in practice. It also happens to be relatively inexpensive. I have had mine for 7 or 8 years now and it is still looks and works great.
Maxpedition Pygmy Falcon II: This piece of kit was in my inaugural Hall of Fame selections for a reason—it is the practically perfect day hike bag and works well on vacations as a carry on. It is a bit more tacticool than other bags, but I have adapted it perfectly for my uses. It is also not outrageously expensive.
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Gransfor Bruks Wildlife Hatchet