(3 July 2012, 11:05)Hrusai Wrote: amen to that jd1.....personally i think the adage of "one is none and two is one" is something everyone should live by.

and yes although we all hope we never lose our compass and dont need to improvise, if caught in a situation where we need to improvise, but dont have the knowledge, we'll kick ourselves for being dismissive, best thing to remember is, you can lose equipment but not knowledge. its always best to have both, if you got lots of fancy equipment but dont know how to use it, your screwed, if you got no equipment but know what to do, you've got a decent chance.

anyway thanks for this, personally i'd always keep a ready magnetised needle in my BOB ...you can always find a bit of floating wood or a puddle of water to use it in

Too true H

This thread has already doe its job, it has shared knowledge with our community.

One day in the distant future this little scrap of knowledge may be useful.

Until then I'm sticking to my Silva compass and the mini compass on the side of my Emergency Whistle..

BTW a magnet to get the whole process started can be made from scratch by placing a piese of steel or iron bar orientated north west under the centre of a good strong bonfire. The effect of the heat allows the magnetic poles in the atoms (?) to align and then fix in alignment when the metal is cold. We used to do this for fun when i was a kid.

LS