This is the second geocache, now complete. It's work began a little bit after beginning the first geocache, after realizing THAT one wouldn't fit inside of the location that I wanted to put it. Hence... I began work on geocache #2, with a smaller container.| So... seeing as I have been unable to find an ammo-can small enough for this location, I went with something else known for strength. A Pelican Micro case (despite the name, it should be considered either a small or regular sized cache. Most likely regular, since 'small' tends to mean altoids-tin to 'really small tupperware container'). Forgive the pre-first-image sanding. Much like the ammo-can, I forgot to take a true "before" picture before beginning work. But hey... the sides are still clear, so you can easily compare both before AND after in this pic. |  |
| And once again, as with the ammo-can, we want to sand the living hell out of it. You need to have a nice, rough surface in order for glue, paint, or pretty much anything adhesive in nature to stick to it good. I'm sure people who are fans of Pelican cases are probably shaking their heads at me as they read this :P. |  |
| Ok, so now we've got a readily-sanded, quite strong cache container. What's next? Well... this particular cache already has it's location waiting... so it'll be hiding in amongst some cementy-type of rubble. You know... that older concrete that's half-made of gravel. And I've found that what makes the best looking texture of concrete... is concrete. I'll be putting rocks along the visible sides (two... maybe three), so not that much will be needed. Hence... we have ourselves a pile of nicely-cleaned smashed concrete rocks (so they stick well), a new bottle psycho-strong glue, and a bag of pulverized concrete mini-rocks. Note: All of this material was obtained from a house that was knocked down who knows how many years ago at my parent's place... so it should look nice and weathered, like where it's going. |  |
| And no, don't worry... this won't be something hidden in a random pile of old, discarded concrete rubble. It's actually a scenic, cool area I used to play at as a kid. The cementy rubble is used for support in some areas there. What... I grew up in the country. Things like this were done out there :P But as you can see, we've taken said larger pieces of concrete and glued them to the 'outside-facing' sides of the cache. These will be the most visible portions of the cache. Keep in mind that since this will be sitting with concrete kinda slabs on top and below it, the sides specifically are wanted to look like crumbling concrete slab in general. It turned out not bad. The 'hinge' will be what gives it away the most... but given it's sanded down, it should somewhat blend in as well regardless. |  |
| Then, what I did was take the pulverized concrete, and glue two layers of it to all sides of the geocache. I made it two layers worth, since after much handling and weathering, assumingly some of what's glued there will begin to crumble or fall off. The second layer at least keeps the colour and texture looking relatively the same in those parts, instead of just seeing the plastic container underneath. This way, it should blend in well when viewed from any angle the geocacher comes in at... making for what will hopefully be a good hide. I'll post a picture of it when it's sitting in it's final location. |  |
| And lo, we have the final product, and it's original contents. The logbook, two pencils, and a sharpener; a roll of camouflage tape; a matchbox car; a normal-shaped caribiner; a duck-shaped caribiner; a bouncy ball; a rubber chicken; and the first to find certificate and prize. The certificate itself is wax-sealed, and the FTF prize is a hand-woven titanium chainmaille bracelet... made by myself of course :P |
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| Here it is in it's final spot. It's more granular-looking than the blocks nearby... and it may be somewhat hard to compare with this picture (seeing as it was placed in the dead of winter), but from several paces away... it's indeed quite well blending in. Although... to make it less visible, I ran around for about 5 minutes, making paths all over the place and dug around both sides of the canal... and pretty much anywhere. Basically... to make it as un-obvious as possible where the cache is hidden. Not that it'll matter after the first few people find it... but if it snows again, the path will be re-hidden. Then again, it was also drifting snow while I was there, so odds are my footprints are covered anyway. But YES! COMPLETE! |
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Jump ahead to spring of 2009. Mother nature decides to take a dump on my hard work, and washes the cahe away? How can it be that a cache covered in CONCRETE is capable of washing away, you ask? Because the flood waters were even strong enough to wash away the 20 POUND BLOCK OF CONCRETE IT WAS TETHERED TO! Back to the drawing board, it seems. This time, the cache will be bigger, heavier, and I plan to tether it to one of the several thousand-or-so-pound slabs of concrete. WASH THAT AWAY! |
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| But I'll skip ahead of most of the building process, since you've seen the gist of it before. As you can see, I used larger chunks of concrete over the surface, and held it pretty much entirely in place with a whoooole lot of electrical tape. The larger chunks also allowed me to create 'teeth' of sorts on the sides, so that the seam wouldn't be nearly as visible. |
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| And several weeks of work later, here it is complete. This is the front of the geocache container, and you can sorta see the clasp where it opens. That kinda blackish spot towards the top-right of the opening clasp kinda annoys me a bit... so I did something about it, and spread a thing layer of glue over it the same night as looking at this picture, and pressing smashed concrete powder onto it, like I did for the rest of the joints. Problem solved... but I wasn't about to bother re-taking the picture :P. |
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| This is the back of the container. As you can plainly see, the joint where it rotates to open is still fairly visible, but it's still a lot better hidden than the original one could ever have hoped to be. All in all, I'm fairly pleased with how well it came out looking like a generic pile of chunks of concrete. The old one moreso looked like an abnormally shaped pile of small rocks, and this one... if I can seat it well at it's hiding spot... should blend in a LOT better. |
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| And here you see the inside of the cache. You can sorta see the "teeth" I was mentioning on the left side, or the top-right corner. Everything fits nicely, and rocks on the top don't connect with the rocks on the bottom... I made sure they had a 1-millimeter gap at minimum. So yeah... a lot more room inside, a lot better camouflage outside... and it'll be tethered to the aformentioned concrete slab with some thin aircraft cable. Nuts to relying on the multiple joints of a chain any more. With any luck, this one's here to stay. |
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| And so finally, you can see the cache in its native habitat. It does unfortunately look a lot 'chunkier' than the surrounding rocks or slabs of concrete, but all in all a lot better than the original container. And you can't see it from this picture, but about 3 feet to the right the aircraft cable tethering the cache is visible if you sit down and actively try to see it. This will however be less visible as it becomes covered in dirt and dust, and thus be less shiny. The rest of the tether is coiled up under the container. Final conclusion: I'm happy with the result :) . |
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