Get Home Bag/EDC Bag

I got a good start on an EDC backpack/bag. This has prompted some thinking about what belongs in an EDC bag, and how much such a bag can weigh.

So far:

a kit of useful electronics - mostly a LiON battery/charger to charge cellphones and other USB chargeable devices, the charging cord for my pocket flashlight, charging cables for the various USB connectors, &c.
a basic first aid kit - at this point basically a booboo kit plus “stop the bleed” supplies, including a CAT tourniquet.
A handheld 2m/70cm radio kit including radio, extra battery pack, and an Ed Fong roll up J-pole.
handwarmers, aluminized mylar emergency blankets, &c

One of the things I put in was a basic kit of tools - screwdriver, knife, and a small pair of Knipex pliers, a silcock key for getting water, Bic lighter. But the screwdriver is pretty bulky and heavy, although it’s a cunning Wera thing that has six bits and telescopes. Very clever but as the bag got heavier the weight started to get up to where I really thought it should be lighter. I admit I’m a bit of a lightweight fanatic.

So I’ve ordered a cunning ratchet set from Prestacycle that holds 1/4” hex bits. Add a bunch of bits for various screw heads, and it makes a decent screwdriver as well as a ratchet.

The silcock key is, as most silcock keys are, a heavy item. It’s far more heavy than it need be, and this has vexed me for some time, as it’s a lot of weight for a device you expect to use very rarely. It has four sizes it will fit, all SAE sizes and all square. Probably 99% of silcocks use only one size, and it’s a shame to carry this heavy thing if I only really need one size, as a single size key would be lighter.

And then, I realized that a 12 point socket will fit square heads as well as hex heads, so if I just had four 12 point sockets that could be driven by the ratchet, I’d have more functionality at less weight, as the sockets could be used for bolt/screw heads as well.

Four sockets will be more compact as well.

Get Home Bag/EDC bag

Another thing that has had me puzzling is the relationship between what I had before, which was a get home bag in each car, and the EDC bag that I just schlepp around with me everywhere I go.

A lot of things (tools, first aid kit are good examples) would seem to be duplicated in both bags. That’s added expense and added weight in each bag, and adds another conundrum: when you’re forced to use the GHB, do you sort thru both bags and take only the stuff you need, do you take both bags, or what?

And this has led me to start thinking about both bags in terms of functional pods. So you might have a first aid pod, which lives in the EDC bag with a minimal backup in the GHB. The tool pod likewise. The GHB might have a very minimal nutrition pod and the GHB would have a much more functional nutrition package intended to supply for 24 hours or so, or even 72 hours. And then the GHB doesn’t need to live in a backpack, it’s just a bag with the appropriate pods appropriately packaged, and if/when you need to use the GHB contents, you just jam them into the EDC bag (which needs to have enough room) and go.

The need for enough space in the backpack used for the EDC bag might be the killer, as a big pack will not get carried around all the time. And if you leave the EDC bag home and suddenly need to use the GHB, you’re left with no pack to carry stuff in. But the idea of assembling and packaging stuff in functional pods seems like both a useful organizational idea and usable in the field, as you can always just use a cheap/existing backpack to hold all the GHB pods and in a pinch lacking the EDC bag you just grab that and go, which is not as good as the fusion of the EDC and GHB but still a lot better than heading out with nothing but what’s in your pockets. More thinking along these lines is obviously required to figure out if this is a workable concept.