A rare thing! Gear review: G-Works Gas Saver R1

We've all got one. A cupboard of shame. 

Open the door and stuff spills out over the floor. Stuff you haven't seen for quite some time. Back then, a long time ago, there was a reason why you put it in the cupboard. It's just that right now you can't remember what it was.

Two pairs of very expensive, but bloody useless, walking poles. A bag you can strap around your waist in case your rucsack and trouser pockets aren't big enough. Make that two bags. A dozen multi-coloured nylon stuff sacks - all with holes or pulled stitching. A rucksack. (Where on earth did that come from?) Two hydration systems - both bloody useless. Three anoraks. A dozen mis-matched merino socks. Six (yes, SIX) pairs of walking trousers that have barely seen the light of day. And so on. And on.

And then right at the bottom of the cupboard, rolling around like wild things, are these boys:

Eight cans of gas. All with varying sloshes of gas inside. Some are virtually empty, some half full. But: Eight of the blighters. Each could tell a story of a trip, a few dimly remembered, others as vivid as a nuclear flash.

Much to everyone's surprise, Lord Elpus recently had a dalliance with Social Media. It didn't go well. He has now closed down his Facebook account. Miss Whiplash tells me the night sweats have now stopped and he is once again back in his happy place. 

But this post celebrates the wonder of social meeja. For it was on twitter that an enterprising fellow walker put up a link to the little chap below:

And here he is again:

He comes from Korea (South, not North. The North's the place with soldiers in extraordinarily big hats) and weighs in at just over an ounce. And now instead of eight canisters of gas of varying sloshiness, I am the proud owner of two completely full tins of gas, and six empty tins that can finally be tossed away. The spreadsheet below (there has to be a spreadsheet or it isn't a proper gear review, right?) shows what can be done.

It comes with absolutely no instructions. At all. Once upon a time I was an Engineer and so I worked out what to do by myself. There are a few Youtube videos, in various languages, to help as well. These give you a steer, but have varying degrees of oh-so-wrongness about them. Indeed, some offer potentially dangerous advice. But I'll let you work that out for yourselves. It's more fun that way.  But here's a tip: Don't heat up the top canister on your stove. There's a love.

I paid for this with my own money, just before Sterling went into freefall. It was about twenty quid plus a bit extra to tie it to the foot of a carrier pigeon.

I love it.

And now, in the spirit of Old Mortality, some music: (But please read my important edit below the music!)

IMPORTANT EDIT! (Added 28th October 2016)

It *is* possible to overfill the receiving gas canister. This is NOT a good idea. I've seen a chap on one Youtube video saying he overfilled a canister by some 20% (and was mightily pleased about it) to then find that the concave bottom sprang outwards.

This, is definitely NOT GOOD!

Okay. As you were...

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