d_rek
Well-Known Member
Hi Everyone,
Since i'm a bit of a gear freak, and apparently have too much time on my hands, I figured i'd write up a review of some of the gear I regularly use.
Full disclosure: I'm a modder. And I love to DIY and mod prefab items to make them even better, or customize to my specific needs. It probably began as a child, starting with legos and customizing gear for my GI Joes. It continued into my nerdy teenage years with PCs, and now as an adult with a lot of different type of gear and toys.
Anyway, here is my writeup of the Stealth Strips for climbing sticks by Stealth Outdoors: http://www.stealthoutdoors.com/shop/climbing-stick-kit-xd3/
MSRP/Purchased Price:
$25.00 + 3.00 flat rate shipping.
Where bought:
direct through stealth outdoors website
Initial Impressions:
The strips arrived sealed in a white flat rate letter-sized shipping envelope. Unpacking them was uneventful. I was impressed by the softness of the microfleece material and also the definition of the camo pattern. There is also a very present, but not overwhelming, chemical odor which I assume is from the adhesive on the strips.
Quality:
Again, I was impressed by the softness of the microfleece and the definition of the camo pattern. The material is quite heavy duty, and required a very sharp box cutter to slice through cleanly without having to score multiple times. This indicated to me that the material should hold up to abuse in the field pretty well.
Features:
The adhesive backing on the strips is die-cut into a single 1" strip that runs the length of the strips. Once you apply the strips to your sticks the metal-on-metal clanging from the buckles or other sticks is dramatically reduced.
Ease-of-Use:
Quite frankly installation sucked. Applying the material was not in and of itself difficult. The difficult part was cutting the material after applying to accommodate the hardware for the climbing sticks. In particular cutting 1" DIA circles for the nylon washers was a huge PIA. After one stick I defaulted to cutting squares in the material rather than trying to carve neat circles, which while not as aesthetically pleasing to me does not reduce the effectiveness of the product.
Uninstalling and reinstalling the hardware on the climbing sticks was not that difficult, but you can potentially get confused if you are not careful and cut holes in the wrong place since all of the holes on the sticks will be covered with material.
Installation took approx. 1 3/4 hrs. Removing all the hardware from the sticks, applying the material, cutting holes, and putting the hardware back on is a tedious and time consuming process. Be prepared to set aside a small chunk of time to install the Stealth Strips.
Lastly, it should be noted that it was much more difficult to get the sticks to 'nest' once the material was freshly applied. I will assume that over time the material will compress and nesting will become easier again.
Field-tested?
I have not tested in the field, but will tomorrow!
Closing thoughts:
I really like the stealth strips and how drastically they muffle metal banging and clanging on the sticks. I just wish installation was a bit easier. I felt that if the manufacturer had invested in kiss or die-cutting the material it would make installation dramatically easier, and the user wouldn't have to do so much work to install this great product.
Before and After
Material Detail
There is one useful piece of information on the included instructions. Otherwise they are rather crude.
Tools I used
Stripped climbing stick
Adhesive detail
Wrapped stick
Seam detail
Cut detail
4 wrapped sticks!
In this video I was really trying to thrash the sticks in a way that would probably be extreme in most hunting situations. I think most of us are going to be far more careful than I was here. And while the audio is probably sub-par it should give you an idea of how quiet the stealth strips make the sticks and the buckles!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14619721/saddle/stealth_strips/ss_banging.m4v
That's it. Hope you enjoyed!
Since i'm a bit of a gear freak, and apparently have too much time on my hands, I figured i'd write up a review of some of the gear I regularly use.
Full disclosure: I'm a modder. And I love to DIY and mod prefab items to make them even better, or customize to my specific needs. It probably began as a child, starting with legos and customizing gear for my GI Joes. It continued into my nerdy teenage years with PCs, and now as an adult with a lot of different type of gear and toys.
Anyway, here is my writeup of the Stealth Strips for climbing sticks by Stealth Outdoors: http://www.stealthoutdoors.com/shop/climbing-stick-kit-xd3/
MSRP/Purchased Price:
$25.00 + 3.00 flat rate shipping.
Where bought:
direct through stealth outdoors website
Initial Impressions:
The strips arrived sealed in a white flat rate letter-sized shipping envelope. Unpacking them was uneventful. I was impressed by the softness of the microfleece material and also the definition of the camo pattern. There is also a very present, but not overwhelming, chemical odor which I assume is from the adhesive on the strips.
Quality:
Again, I was impressed by the softness of the microfleece and the definition of the camo pattern. The material is quite heavy duty, and required a very sharp box cutter to slice through cleanly without having to score multiple times. This indicated to me that the material should hold up to abuse in the field pretty well.
Features:
The adhesive backing on the strips is die-cut into a single 1" strip that runs the length of the strips. Once you apply the strips to your sticks the metal-on-metal clanging from the buckles or other sticks is dramatically reduced.
Ease-of-Use:
Quite frankly installation sucked. Applying the material was not in and of itself difficult. The difficult part was cutting the material after applying to accommodate the hardware for the climbing sticks. In particular cutting 1" DIA circles for the nylon washers was a huge PIA. After one stick I defaulted to cutting squares in the material rather than trying to carve neat circles, which while not as aesthetically pleasing to me does not reduce the effectiveness of the product.
Uninstalling and reinstalling the hardware on the climbing sticks was not that difficult, but you can potentially get confused if you are not careful and cut holes in the wrong place since all of the holes on the sticks will be covered with material.
Installation took approx. 1 3/4 hrs. Removing all the hardware from the sticks, applying the material, cutting holes, and putting the hardware back on is a tedious and time consuming process. Be prepared to set aside a small chunk of time to install the Stealth Strips.
Lastly, it should be noted that it was much more difficult to get the sticks to 'nest' once the material was freshly applied. I will assume that over time the material will compress and nesting will become easier again.
Field-tested?
I have not tested in the field, but will tomorrow!
Closing thoughts:
I really like the stealth strips and how drastically they muffle metal banging and clanging on the sticks. I just wish installation was a bit easier. I felt that if the manufacturer had invested in kiss or die-cutting the material it would make installation dramatically easier, and the user wouldn't have to do so much work to install this great product.
Before and After
Material Detail
There is one useful piece of information on the included instructions. Otherwise they are rather crude.
Tools I used
Stripped climbing stick
Adhesive detail
Wrapped stick
Seam detail
Cut detail
4 wrapped sticks!
In this video I was really trying to thrash the sticks in a way that would probably be extreme in most hunting situations. I think most of us are going to be far more careful than I was here. And while the audio is probably sub-par it should give you an idea of how quiet the stealth strips make the sticks and the buckles!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14619721/saddle/stealth_strips/ss_banging.m4v
That's it. Hope you enjoyed!
