Harder work than work
A while back, I did something a little bit silly.
Alpkit were running a design competition under the catchy title of “CoLab08″. This looked interesting, but the conditions of entry were draconian to say the least and I decided that it would be far more sensible to steer clear and keep my large collection of home-made bodges (most involving gaffer tape) to myself. In any case, the general aim of the competition appeared to be “innovation in the outdoors” and, having failed dismally to invent the world’s first self-stirring mess-tin, I was feeling a little short on inspiration.
So, I decided I wasn’t going to enter, but I kept dipping into the Alpkit site and reading the entries. As you do.
The early entries were, in general, less than wonderfully inspiring - that is, they had either been done before, solved non-existent problems or required a fundamental re-write of the laws of physics.
Then Alpkit changed the conditions of entry to remove most of the nasty bits.
This seemed a good time to submit a couple of the more practical home-made bodges - ie the ones that actually worked as opposed to proving hazardous to the user, any passing sheep and low-flying aircraft, spontaneously disintegrating, or turning out to be so heavy as to require a dedicated team of sherpas.
So far, so good. Unfortunately, it was at this point that beer became involved. As did a wolf costume.
Yes, a wolf costume.
Really.
It didn’t work and, yes, it involved large amounts of gaffer tape. But the teeth on the ghastly effort were made out of a plastic with the useful property of becoming soft enough to mould easily at temperatures cool enough to handle.
I’d been thinking about getting new ice tools for a while. I’d had a good fondle in various gear shops and admired numerous funky spiky things with numerous different handles - none of them a particularly wonderful fit for my rather small hands.
Then, on the bus back from the usual climbing club pub session, I started wondering whether that interesting plastic would make a good custom handle. It turned out that it did. So, on the last day of the design comp, I submitted a strange plastic object, built and photographed at 1am while less than entirely sober, that resembled the offspring of a ice-axe and a sex-aid.
Worryingly, it made the final cut. I can only conclude that those responsible for the decision were themselves a little drunk, or possibly just in possession of a very warped sense of humour.
Then the full horror of the situation dawned. I was going to have to actually build the thing.
That was a while ago. Since then, my entire flat - and it isn’t a big flat - has filled up with prototype axe handles, I keep finding bits of plastic moulding in strange places and I’ve managed some impressively bloody self-inflicted injuries with a wide range of tools. (It’s actually quite hard to injure yourself with a tape-measure . . . I still managed it.)
In the unlikely event that I win the comp - which I very much doubt, as it’s too specialist a product to have much mass appeal - I still won’t make a profit on this. The to-do list gets longer every time I look at it and it’s been much, much harder work than anything the company I work for has ever required.
Next week I get to take the tweaked axes off to the UKC Glencoe meet to play with for real. The injury potential looks impressive. I can hardly wait!
But, assuming I don’t get avalanched, fatally choke on haggis, or get strangled by the rest of the meet for snoring, I will be at the NEC for the Outdoors Show, and, if anyone reading this is intending coming, I have one very simple request:
Find me and beat me savagely with a cucumber, malt loaf, or ice-axe-with-a-custom-handle until I finally get the following important principle into my thick skull:
“1% inspiration . . . 99% perspiration.”
http://www.alpkit.com/colab08/entry/configurable-ice-tool-handles