Hacking a Kleen Kanteen with a Sawyer Water Filter
Jon Stokes 01.02.15
In my earlier piece on my modded iPhone 6+, I promised a writeup on the other non-pistol use that I’ve found for grip tape. So, here it is.
If I’m out in the bush, I like to keep a small bag on me with some survival essentials — nothing major, just enough to where if I’m forced to spend a night or two outside while awaiting rescue, I’ll have a few of the necessities like fire, water, and shelter covered. The old-timers called this a “possibles pouch,” and for this purpose I use a small brown Filson field bag. This bag is small enough that I can easily wear it 100% of the time I’m in the bush and awake, but large enough to carry a nice loadout of gear that I’d need if I were stranded for a while.
One of the things that I carry in this bag is an uninsulated, stainless steel Kleen Kanteen. The stainless Kleen Kanteen is a great survival item because you use it as an ordinary water bottle and (because it’s uninsulated) you can also boil water in it in an emergency. I also carry a Life Straw separately in the bag, but the Life Straw is bulky and unfortunately does not fit inside the Kleen Kanteen.
For Christmas last year my wife bought me a Sawyer mini filtration unit, and I’m extremely pleased with it so far. It small enough that I can jam the whole unit, including the little straw extension that comes with it, inside the Kleen Kanteen. This scheme saves on space in my possibles pouch, but it does come with a drawback: the straw knocks around inside the metal bottle and makes noise.
About a month ago I started tinkering around with this Kleen Kanteen + Sawyer filter combo, and I noticed that the filter fits right into the cap of the Kleen Kanteen. The fit isn’t exact, though, and there’s just enough play that it slides right out and back into the bottle once you put the cap on. I was thinking of wrapping the top of the Sawyer in duct tape, but I held off in case I found something with more grip to it.
When I got my GT5000 rubber grip tape from Amazon, I knew as I unboxed it that this would probably work. So before I even applied the tape to my pistol, I cut off a piece and wrapped it around the rim of the Sawyer. Voila! It’s perfect.
Because the grip tape is rubber and not plastic, there’s enough friction and added diameter for a very tight fit, but it’s not so tight that you have trouble removing the filter when you need to. I can now stash the filter in the cap of the Kleen Kanteen without having it roll around, and I can also keep using the Kanteen as a water bottle if I choose to. The filter stays wedged up inside the cap and out of the way, but of course it and the straw do get wet when I fill the Kanteen up with them in there.
In all, this is a great little mod that will get you a lightweight water bottle + filter solution that can be used as a regular water bottle or as a tool to filter and boil water in a survival situation.
Note: I have no relationship or affiliation at all with the people that sell GT5000 grip tape. I literally bought some on Amazon after googling for “pistol grip tape” and have been finding novel uses for the stuff.
