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The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual: Equipment Care, Repair, and Selection
 
 
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The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual: Equipment Care, Repair, and Selection [Paperback]

Annie Getchell (Author), David R. Getchell (Author), David Getchell (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Book Description

March 22, 2000

Here's what reviewers said about the first edition of The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual

"The trouble with outdoor equipment is that everyone has an opinion--one usually based on advertising hype, personal bias, or hearsay. Finally, here's a book that gives you all the information necessary to make objective buying decisions. This book, with its sound advice, will save you money and make you a better backcountry traveler."--Nancy Prichard, outdoor adventure journalist

"Think about something that we all need, yet we'd all hate to have to write a book about. After mouthwash, we'd probably settle on gear repair and maintenance. Thank goodness Annie Getchell came along with her artist's sensitivity for detail, a flair for language, and best of all, her wit. From repairing zippers to selecting 'green' adhesives, she nails it and keeps us smiling the entire distance."--John Viehman, Publisher of Backpacker and Executive Producer and Series Host of Anyplace Wild

"The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual has set a new standard for books about gear."--Backcountry

"All of us should be grateful to Annie Getchell for creating what is the best book I have ever seen on caring for and repairing your outdoor gear. If you want to know how to make your gear last longer, you need this book. . . . This is the complete word on care and repair."--Adventure West

"The big challenge with this sort of book is to make what is essentially an instruction manual into something that's pleasant to read, functional, and authoritative. Annie Getchell pulls it off."--Alan Kesselheim, writer and noted long-distance paddler


Frequently Bought Together

The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual: Equipment Care, Repair, and Selection + Don't Forget the Duct Tape: Tips & Tricks for Repairing & Maintaining Outdoor & Travel Gear (Don't Series) + The Backpacker's Field Manual, Revised and Updated: A Comprehensive Guide to Mastering Backcountry Skills
Price For All Three: $36.46

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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"I could have used this book when I snapped my kayak in half descending the Niger River. I could have used this book when I busted my water filter bicycling across Siberia. I could have used this book on Mt. Everest when all ten of our stoves were either in flames or had already exploded. Save yourself crocodile attacks, dysentry, and singed eyebrows--read this book!"--Mark Jenkins, columnist, Outside, and author of Off the Map, To Timbuktu, and The Burma Road (forthcoming)

Considering the cost of outdoor equipment these days, it only makes sense to repair, rather than replace, your carefully chosen gear. Regular maintenance is the key to maximizing the performance of your investment.

Veteran outdoorsfolk Annie and Dave Getchell have bought, used, abused, worn out, and repaired tentfuls of outdoor equipment. This second edition of The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual combines their 35 years of experience to help you choose the right gear, use it wisely, and repair it in the field or home workshop. During countless adventures, Dave and Annie have accumulated an encyclopedic collection of cutting-edge care and repair tips from manufacturers, innovators, and outdoor gurus. The new edition adds time-tested guidance on how to choose exactly the right gear for your outdoor needs.

The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual is an abundantly illustrated, multisport reference that offers clear, concise suggestions to help you care for everything from tents, cross-country skis, and hiking boots to kayaks, canoes, climbing equipment, backpacks, stoves, and more. To handle those inevitable repair jobs, you'll learn--among other things--how to patch a canoe, clean a sputtering campstove, fix a busted zipper, sharpen ice-axe teeth, and mend a leaky rain jacket. Annie and Dave have packed The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual with advice on adhesives, environmentally friendly cleaning solutions, repair kits, specialized tools, and useful knots. An extensive appendix of repair services and resources will guide you to the nearest expert should your own repair skills come up short.

About the Author

Annie Getchell and Dave Getchell, Jr. are enthusiastic cross-country and downhill skiers, canoeists, kayakers, rock climbers, cyclists, and mountaineers. Annie cohosts the PBS-TV outdoor adventure series Anyplace Wild, and has been the outdoor gear columnist for AMC Outdoors magazine since 1992. Dave, longtime equipment editor for Backpacker magazine, spends about 100 days a year in the field using (and breaking) gear as a producer for adventure documentaries, including Anyplace Wild and Trailside.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 250 pages
  • Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press; 2nd edition (March 22, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0071357122
  • ISBN-13: 978-0071357128
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #887,199 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Truly essential, April 1, 2001
This review is from: The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual: Equipment Care, Repair, and Selection (Paperback)
This is a comprehensive and thorough guide to caring for, and to a lesser extent, buying, backpacking and paddling gear. There are also short sections on climbing and ski-touring gear. The authors have a distinct bias towards repairing rather than replacing gear, which leads them to give less info about what to buy than "Rock and Ice Gear" by Clyde Soles.

The book is full of clear and useful drawings and photos. The lists of essential tool kits for different trips are invaluable.

The pun-filled prose and the Getchells' earthy-crunchy, smarmy preaching quickly grow tiresome if you spend a good deal of time with the book, however.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but poor photo editing, September 27, 2008
By 
C. Hartje (Redmond, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual: Equipment Care, Repair, and Selection (Paperback)
The book has a lot of topics that would be helpful to those that do their own repair and want to protect their outdoor gear investment. However, the photo editor of the book seemed to leave in a lot of notations, instead of cleaning it up. There are dozens of photos that say "FPO: Please slip in provided film" it is very annoying.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Before you run off to fix all broken outdoor gear, better to slow down and walk first: learn the fundamental skills of stitching, patching, gluing, seamsealing, and, of course, curing the myriad ills of the omnipresent zipper. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
liquid gelcoat, nylon repair tape, structural patch, full cure time, gelcoat patch, telemark boots, urethane adhesive, nondetergent soap, zipper repair, separating zipper, seam sealer, uncoated side, nylon tape, plastic hull, stitch holes, rudder cables, hull material, fuel bottle, dry bag, local outfitter, rubbing compound, water repellency, outer fabric, respirator mask, denatured alcohol
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Swiss Army, Materials Resources, Seam Grip, Rules of the Resin, Dave Page, Iron Mend, Cascade Designs, Directory of Repair Services, Low-Tox Cleaning Solutions, Thompson's Water Seal, Audrey Sutherland, Bibler Tents, Bob Upton of Rainy Pass Repair, Felice Benuzzi, Sweater Stone
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