My first three burns were in a $40 tent generously advertised as “4-person”. It had flexy plastic poles and flattened in major winds. The last four years I’ve been in a Shiftpod. While I actually would still purchase it (or something similar) all over again, it’s more about the pop-up convenience, d...

I wonder just how little water one could get down to and still obtain a “good” clean. This last year my camp was averaging probably barely over a gallon per shower and I was stoked about this result. We actually kinda encouraged more showering toward the end as we didn’t get anywhere near using all ...

Don’t bring Chlorox disinfecting wipes, and absolutely do not keep them in your tent... ... cuz the one time you get lucky out there and you want to freshen up the private’s before the promise of glory ... Bleach does funny things to your junk. Or maybe do If thats your thing. I could be convinced ...

I think ePlaya can document the technical specs of impact drivers and roto hammers to drive lag screws of various sizes, just as the gentleman at Illumination Village originated the demolition hammer-ground rod driver-rebar technique: http://www.litebrite.org/rebarhammer/. There has to be a lower l...

I’m not sure that sale is real though they have plenty of inventory on all their other kits. It may be that particular combo of battery and charger that’s being phased out, but they haven’t had any inventory for it for months. Maybe a few straggler kits out there in Alaska or something.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/RYOBI-18-Volt-ONE-Lithium-Ion-Cordless-3-Speed-1-2-in-Impact-Wrench-Kit-with-1-4-0-Ah-Battery-and-Charger-P1890/206736695 just for future reference, as I couldn't find a lot of good recs when I was searching before the burn: I bought this and it drove two dozen 14" 3/8 l...

Oh...another thing I forgot to mention, my sleeping bag is a double-wide. Which doesn’t wipe out the concerns you’re mentioning but there’s actually some room to buffer, etc, to mitigate the potential for hysteresis-like fluctuations, etc. It will definitely still be a bit of fiddling about, and whe...

Thank you for the wealth of thought! I do have a half dozen burns under my belt and some background in thermodynamics, so I wasn’t flying blind, and most of what you went over I have been keeping in consideration as I go. You managed to mention a couple factors I definitely find useful and apprecia...

I finally broke open this Ryobi soldering iron last night and was pretty impressed. Heats up really fast, no mess, just solder anywhere.

I have those ice-water pumps they give you after bone and joint surgery ... lots of different pads and wraps for that. Could be some toys to play with ... That would be a lot of potential fun. I actually decided to get one of those temp-actuated switches you can find online so presumably I’d just f...

It’s interesting reading through all this and seeing a lot of posts that consider “improvements” to mostly focus on larger volume with little consideration of much else (energy expenditure etc). I think the better title for a thread such as this might have been “application-specific modifications to...

Oh that’s great to hear. I’ve also got a much smaller and lighter Milwaukee 2555 impact wrench that can drive 250ft-lbs, I’ll bring both but try using that one first. The Stubbie is such a cool tool. I’d still pay some attention not because of the power (it has more than enough), but because of the...

What’s the consensus on a good lag screw diameter and length for an EMT flat top shade structure? Sounds like 3/8” x 14” is popular. I’ve seen other people here talk about 1/2” x 18” and 1/2” x 24”. If size matters, our structure will be 30ft x 60ft and 8ft tall. Solid 10ft x 12ft top tarps and sha...

Separate. For reasons. It’s hard to me to say yurts are environmentally conscious at all when merely used for a festival or two. Use recycled material and then reuse/repurpose again after and then it’s not so bad. Yurts are a LOT easier to keep reasonable temps in though. It’s what I would have gone...

Returning them pretending they’re new? Besides the dishonesty going on with that suggestion, there’s the matter of the paltry amount of money they cost in the grand scheme, especially considering the time and gas wasted to bother doing that. Do the math...it’s wasting more time than it’s worth just ...

I was never going to use rebar I could never stand seeing the things in different camps sticking out of the ground everywhere waiting for someone to fall on them. I was in the middle of developing a different solution when a camp-mate mentioned having come across this lag bolt idea, which despite (s...

Cool work I like it

Been around probably a year now and just realized this was here.

I’m Ken. I’m in Portland Oregon, though I’m the only one in my camp from here. Been burning since 2011 iirc. The first three years very superficially, the last three years I’ve been much more invested.

BBadger....OK, I'm an idiot......I can't find 3/8" or 1/2" X 14 or 16 anywhere on that site. May I crave a boon and get ya to gimmee a link ? I can handle this call and order them for you. Just need you to email me your credit card number, pin, and security code. http://www.thefastenerstop.com/cate...

In the interest of giving back I'm gonna piss in the lag screw pond here with my monkey hut solution which worked for me this year (first big burn,yay). I got 24" long 1/2" lag screws then cut 10-12" sections of 1/2" PVC "sleeves" to put around the top half of the lag screws. Below the PVC I put so...

Impressive stuff (again)

Nice to know the playa actually was harder than usual this year. It seemed to me to be so, but I don’t have as consistent a frame of reference since I’ve been doing different and much smaller-scale things every year.

The “Inner Circle” of people who oversee how our camp’s major structures go together were all very happy with how the lags worked for us this year where we used them and are looking to diversify their utilization going forward. I donated a bunch of extra lags I accumulated just experimenting over th...

It's a goal before my next burn to figure out how to secure this BRH shade with all lags and no rebar. My suspicion is most applications widely believed to still be better served with rebar actually could probably still be better done with lags by merely duct-taping chain to whatever the structure ...

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-18-Volt-ONE-Hybrid-Portable-Fan-Tool-Only-P3320/205022215 If you happen to have the Ryobi platform of battery power tools, they have this fan for $40 that gets surprisingly high marks (especially for a budget tool brand) in terms of efficiency, relatively quiet oper...

I think some are misunderstanding my posts here. Stakes are generally pounded in a distance from the object being secured (tent or whatever) so most of the load being placed on them is horizontal. And that’s generally how we use rebar on the playa. Just bigger, thicker stakes (that are also much mor...

But if they're sticking out like stakes they might not be deep enough in the ground. Plus they'd be a pain to drive in. All things relative of course...but most rebar for basic camp stuff isn’t going much over 14” into the ground. When I say used as stakes, I don’t mean with some of the thing out o...

3/4”x14” though...those would be absolutely awesome if you’re intending to use them in a more “stake-like” fashion where they’re being subjected to a lot of bending load. You won’t have to adjust how you do things much if you’ve previously been doing rebar.

... being able to handle inebriated Burners (myself included) stumbling into it. Ha! I’ll drink to that! BTW, them unions - pretty darn slick! Why thank you, good sir! Although to be perfectly honest, if I were doing this one again, I’d skip the unions for a number of reasons. Most significant of w...

[errant attempt to edit; ignore]

Ooh, now I’m curious how much flex that thing is gonna have being lots of PVC. If I were responsible for keeping that upright for 9 days, I would try to tie and strap things such that all horizontal members have tension on them and are pulling away, while the shade cloth is holding things together ...