Survival Caches

[2now]

Doc Torr, I see what the problem is, you are using bigger infantry men than I am used to . . .if standing in a 6 foot deep hole is shoulder high . . . no wonder they can dig so well!

Shoulder high on most people is more like 4 feet. 5 long, 3 wide and 4 deep I can believe.

Does your branch of the military know how long 8" is?


Now its my turn to remind all that I am not trying to be a dick, just trying to be funny.

[KnightoftheRoc]

Generally, the excess dirt is either spread around in the area, where it can blend in, or taken away with you. Taking along a tarp for the removed dirt when digging helps a lot, just pray you don't get pulled over on your way to your cache location... "Excuse me, sir, but- what are you doing with a tarp, a shovel, and what appears to be a home-made small coffin?" Hearing a sentence like that can change the tone of your whole day

A 5 gallon bucket for underwater works well, but I'd attach a weight to the handle of the bucket, so it can float upside down, with everything in it waterproofed six ways from Sunday. The bulk of the bucket itself helps to discourage anyone from accidentally snagging it while fishing, but can be worked around if intentionally trying to haul it up. A cheap, dollar store mesh toiletries bag with a hard plastic kid's ball in it can work as a marker buoy, if you want to have one, and will last a long time with a synthetic rope or cord. Nylon or polypropylene rope tied to the handle, and a concrete block or two, depending on the needed weight, will last a very long time- your only real issue would be the steel wire handle rusting away. If the bucket can float, it's recoverable, even if the handle lets loose.

You can also tie concrete blocks to a PVC tube cache, just by threading the rope through the blocks, and around the tube.

[Doctorr Fabulous]

Doc Torr, I see what the problem is, you are using bigger infantry men than I am used to . . .if standing in a 6 foot deep hole is shoulder high . . . no wonder they can dig so well!

Shoulder high on most people is more like 4 feet. 5 long, 3 wide and 4 deep I can believe.

Does your branch of the military know how long 8" is?


Now its my turn to remind all that I am not trying to be a dick, just trying to be funny.

I was counting in the 3'x6"(dia) grande sump and the two 3'x2'x6' "skirmish trenches" the get dug behind the fighting hole. I may be off by a few cubic inches, but the overall ammount of dirt moved should be the same, and the grenade sump alone takes mnore time than the skirmish trenches.

Excess dirt usually packs down about level. Scatter the rewst and cover with local vegetation.

[Kutter_0311]

Generally, the excess dirt is either spread around in the area, where it can blend in, or taken away with you. Taking along a tarp for the removed dirt when digging helps a lot, just pray you don't get pulled over on your way to your cache location... "Excuse me, sir, but- what are you doing with a tarp, a shovel, and what appears to be a home-made small coffin?" Hearing a sentence like that can change the tone of your whole day

Come to think of it, some parts of this thread do remind me of Dexter...

I promise not to use any of this when disposing of coping with my daughter's boyfriends!

[Tourg]

I've bought the water pipe from construction yards before, both times it was very cheap and still in great condition. The Main thing was it's the "scrap" pieces they couldn't use and were going to throw away. If you're not overly picky about the size I'd recommend it. Largest piece I was able to find was just over 8ft of 6'' pipe and I think I payed 20$ or less for it.

[KnightoftheRoc]

I've bought the water pipe from construction yards before, both times it was very cheap and still in great condition. The Main thing was it's the "scrap" pieces they couldn't use and were going to throw away. If you're not overly picky about the size I'd recommend it. Largest piece I was able to find was just over 8ft of 6'' pipe and I think I payed 20$ or less for it.

I just paid over $45 for a 10 foot length- all I wanted was 2 feet of it...

[Logans Run]

I've bought the water pipe from construction yards before, both times it was very cheap and still in great condition. The Main thing was it's the "scrap" pieces they couldn't use and were going to throw away. If you're not overly picky about the size I'd recommend it. Largest piece I was able to find was just over 8ft of 6'' pipe and I think I payed 20$ or less for it.

I just paid over $45 for a 10 foot length- all I wanted was 2 feet of it...

dayum! that really sucks. arent you in NY though or something where no one has a yard to speak of, so that kind of stuff might be hard to find?

[KnightoftheRoc]

I've bought the water pipe from construction yards before, both times it was very cheap and still in great condition. The Main thing was it's the "scrap" pieces they couldn't use and were going to throw away. If you're not overly picky about the size I'd recommend it. Largest piece I was able to find was just over 8ft of 6'' pipe and I think I payed 20$ or less for it.

I just paid over $45 for a 10 foot length- all I wanted was 2 feet of it...

dayum! that really sucks. arent you in NY though or something where no one has a yard to speak of, so that kind of stuff might be hard to find?

There's an entire state here, it's more than just NYC- I'm a hundred miles away from NYC, up in the mountains. What hurt most, was the fact that I'm a retired plumber- a scrap length of pipe shouldn't be THAT hard to find...in fact, I had a 13 foot length of 6" handy (my old pipe tube from my van), but it was sched. 35, not 40. All the fittings I had were sched. 40, and the fittings would have been more money than the length of pipe was.

No matter what kind of pipe you manage to find, be sure you identify it right. This will be important when you go to buy fittings for it, as schedule 35 stuff won't fit schedule 40 pipe, and vice verse. the good news is, threaded parts (IF they are standard pipe thread) will fit any schedule pipe of the same size. Always buy pipe plugs, NOT cleanout plugs. Cleanout plugs sometimes have a non-standard thread, and that can mess you all up.

[Logans Run]

I was an electrician for the first 20 years of my secular life (then I moved into a building engineer position for a large phone company), so I am used to schedule 80.
I dont think I have ever even seen schedule 35 ... or I did and didnt know it lol.

[Rebel Pariah]

I was an electrician for the first 20 years of my secular life (then I moved into a building engineer position for a large phone company), so I am used to schedule 80.
I dont think I have ever even seen schedule 35 ... or I did and didnt know it lol.

Excuse me kind sir....

WTF are you talking about ?,

Sincerely yours,
plumbing newb

[Logans Run]

I was an electrician for the first 20 years of my secular life (then I moved into a building engineer position for a large phone company), so I am used to schedule 80.
I dont think I have ever even seen schedule 35 ... or I did and didnt know it lol.

Excuse me kind sir....

WTF are you talking about ?,

Sincerely yours,
plumbing newb

PVC pipe lol

[Rebel Pariah]

I was an electrician for the first 20 years of my secular life (then I moved into a building engineer position for a large phone company), so I am used to schedule 80.
I dont think I have ever even seen schedule 35 ... or I did and didnt know it lol.

Excuse me kind sir....

WTF are you talking about ?,

Sincerely yours,
plumbing newb

PVC pipe lol

I got that you were talking about PVC pipe
what is all this talk about schedule?
....do I need a daily planner? :

[Logans Run]

Oh ... its just how they gauge PVC
schedule 40 is the white stuff you see in plumbing type stuff
schedule 80 is the grey stuff you see electricians use. The 80 is thicker and is rated for exterior uses in many places.
it can also be warmed up and bent with a torch ... not sure if the schedule 40 can do that or not
.. I think some landscapers use schedule 20 and it would be thinner still.

[Rebel Pariah]

Oh ... its just how they gauge PVC
schedule 40 is the white stuff you see in plumbing type stuff
schedule 80 is the grey stuff you see electricians use. The 80 is thicker and is rated for exterior uses in many places.
it can also be warmed up and bent with a torch ... not sure if the schedule 40 can do that or not
.. I think some landscapers use schedule 20 and it would be thinner still.

Ahhh now I know.......and knowing is half. the battle ..... to Joe!!

[KnightoftheRoc]

The pipe schedule simply refers to wall thickness, rated in crush resistance. Schedule 40 is the thickness you see on the shelves at Home Depot or Lowe's for white sewer pipe, or the grey plastic conduit (which is identical in formulation to the white stuff, it just has a dye added to it. Schedule 80 gets used for heavy duty stuff, where damage to wires from an outside force is more likely, like in an industrial setting, for example. As a plumber, I've only used it once- it's not real common in my area, it's just not normally needed. Schedule 30 is the black interior/white exterior pipe used for septic drain fields, and comes with holes in it, or not, depending on your need. It's also commonly used around house foundations for perimeter drainage.

Normally, the average person doesn't need to worry about this stuff, but, for a simple comparison, schedule 40 pipe is based on iron pipe sizes; inside diameter and outside diameter. The fittings are designed around the STYLE, but not the dimensions, of cast iron drain pipe, which slip together, instead of threading together.

All plastic pipe has the important stuff printed right on it- material, size, and schedule size- match that up with your fittings, so it's all the same, and it doesn't matter which schedule rating you use. And, btw, Charlotte is both the name of the pipe company, and where it's located- don't let it confuse you

[Heem]

I've bought the water pipe from construction yards before, both times it was very cheap and still in great condition. The Main thing was it's the "scrap" pieces they couldn't use and were going to throw away. If you're not overly picky about the size I'd recommend it. Largest piece I was able to find was just over 8ft of 6'' pipe and I think I payed $20 or less for it.

That is some good info. I'm going to check with local contractors about scrap pipe . . . may also check dumpsters at construction sites on Sundays when no ones working.

[KnightoftheRoc]

OK, so, I had a great idea for the use of PVC tubes as caches- and the beauty of it is, NO ONE will WANT to mess with them.

If you use 4" pipe and fittings, these need to be 12" apart center to center. 6" pipe means a 16" CTC distance. This would work best right outside your home, but outside any building would work. You'll want these as a threaded plug/adapter and a glue-on cap arrangement, about 30" of pipe between them. Bury them standing straight up, in a straight line coming away from the house, with 6-12 " of the assembly exposed, threaded plug up. If you want, a 4" piece of pipe with a mushroom cap on the top can be placed further from the house than these two plugs, and in line with them.

This will give the appearance of a house trap and line vent- part of the sewer line- typically found on the street side of a home. The reason I give a 30" length on the pipe, is that this A; allows a 10' piece of pipe to yield 4 lengths with no waste, and B; is about as far as you can reasonably expect to stick your arm into and still reach bottom. For 4" pipe, I'd make a "sock" to hold the items inside that can be pulled out as a single unit (not a bad idea if you're using the 4" vent pipe with the 6" house trap idea).

A post hole digger, or a power auger could be used to install them with minimal damage to the rest of your lawn. Just make sure, if you have actual sewer line work being done, you direct the plumber to the correct house trap, especially if the correct one is less visible than your fake one. You can, of course, always paint them beforehand to camouflage them.

If you want to get REALLY crazy with the idea, make the vent pipe the one real aspect of this- the smell of sewer gases will discourage anyone who gets close enough to investigate the fake portions.

[Logans Run]

That would be a great idea if my neighbors house wasnt 5 feet away from my house.
It would be just my luck their pipes would back up ... they call out a plumber... he opens up my fake clean out ... and takes anything I have stashed in there ... also probably not a good idea in apts either ... but I do like the idea!

[KnightoftheRoc]

Hey, I never said it was a 'one size fits all' answer...

[Rebel Pariah]

More foood for thought.... how long would it take grass to regrow properly so It didn't look like you dug there




(Ps maximum dose of lidocain is a fun thing )

[KnightoftheRoc]

More foood for thought.... how long would it take grass to regrow properly so It didn't look like you dug there




(Ps maximum dose of lidocain is a fun thing )

If you cut a section(s) of the turf out before digging, refill with room left ofr them, and replace them, very little time at all. Depending on the ground cover, it can as quick as overnight, to a casual observer (like a next door neighbor). If you have a good turf in your lawn, you can lift out a chip of turf, dig, bury, etc and have it back with VERY little sign of it being disturbed.

[Tater Raider]

Cut the sod and remove, then dig out. Lightly tamp down soil then replace sod and water.

Note I said lightly tamp the soil. If you pack it too tightly you don't have drainage, too lightly and it will settle. Best to leave a smallish (1-2" maybe?) mound there to allow it to settle some.

[DJH]

Quick, somewhat relevant question that I couldn't find an answer to from searching the forums...

What's the legality of caching on public land, aka near forestry trails, etc.?

[Heem]

Quick, somewhat relevant question that I couldn't find an answer to from searching the forums...

What's the legality of caching on public land, aka near forestry trails, etc.?

You don't want your fingerprints on anything, including the cache container.