MoparMan

This is how it's done. Note the lack of tie wraps. And yes it IS my work.

Guilty, but I have my motivations. In the past I have as a result of work been in the position of being sent all over the country for weeks sometimes months at a time. Often I ended up stuck in a hotel with nothing to do all weekend. I cached, logged in the cache and not online. Simply put I'd rather not advertise to the world at large that I'm 1500 miles from home for the sixth straight week. Paranoid to be sure, but not having to worry about the safety of my family is more important than my stats.

Seriously don't let the idea of fiberglass intimidate you. Regular old polyester resin and glass is easy, safe, and cheap to work with. You will be suprised just how easy it is to get foam waterlogged. Even with a good coating of poly it will eventually get wet. Depends on what kind of lifespan you are looking for but if a few good years of service are acceptable I say go for it. As for coating foam directly with cement, I suspect you are going to have some real issues with impact resistance, the foam is going to want to give and the cement isn't so every time it takes a hit you are going to run the risk of the cement coming off in chunks. For what it's worth I've got a fake rock I built out right now. I'm going to let it go through a full series of seasons and if it's still holding up ok , next year I'm going to build one big enough to hide a rubbermaid blue tote inside. I cut out a random rock shaped form from some plywood, then I cut out concentric rings from the inside, following the outside shape. All of the rings got nailed together with some risers and the center section made up the 'top' to that I added a bunch of wadded up newspaper. I also jammed wads of newspaper in random spots on the framework to hide hard spots. The whole thing got covered with an old blanket and soaked in resin (epoxy because I buy it 15 gallons at a time for boatbuilding). When that was set up I stripped all the framework and added a layer of glass for strength. So far it's holding up fine but we will see after winter is over.

Huh, I've always field dressed my critters in the woods. No sense in dragging guts home, and it makes the carcass lighter. Bigger critters like moose and elk generally get quartered as well because of their size.

That would be generically called a "Ped" as in pedestal. There are all sorts of different regional names for them, but ped would be pretty much universal. Look for the phone company yard with all the bucket trucks and cable spools.

Pic of the insides

Big fake rock. I built a frame work out of some scrap wood that looked something like a three tiered cake. Topped the top layer with a bunch of wadded up newspaper covered it with an old polar fleece blanket. Three coats of epoxy resin on top, then I stripped the framework except for the bottom ring and gave the insides a couple more coats of resin. couple days of spraypainting and walla, fake rock. It's big enough to hold probably two regular sized ammo cans.

I am unfamiliar with epoxy so i still am not sure on the cost. It sounds like a great idea. Good job! You could and probably should substitute plain old polyester fiberglass resin. It's cheaper, easier to work with and considerably safer. You can usually find it in gallon jugs at any decent hardware store. I only used epoxy because I have it around for another hobby (boat building). The other big advantage to polyester is that you would be able to use Bondo for addtional texture, details etc. I'll probably go that route if I build another one.

I am also wondering if it would hold up to someone sitting on it. Or maybe a child standing on it. I'm over 200#'s and I can sit on it with zero deflection. A child standing on it wouldn't be a problem at all. Rigidity is the primary reason I left the plywood ring at the bottom in place. If I cut that out I would be worried about it pancaking

Pretty hard to quantify really. The blanket was slated to go in one of the dog's house so it was free. The plywood I had laying around so it was free. The only real cost would be the Epoxy I used and since I buy that 15 gallons at a swipe and I didn't really measure my usage I dunno. From start to first coat of goo I probably spent three hours so I CAN quantify my time/money...100 million dollars

I wish I had taken some construction progress pictures but I was moving fast and working loose. I cut the overall shape out of some 1/2 plywood with my jig saw, then cut out one more that was just a ring and a third that was solid (picture all three nesting into one another). These were lightly nailed using my finish nailer and some scraps of wood creating something that looked like a three tiered wedding cake. I put a bunch of wadded up newspaper on the top tier and in various places around the lower tiers. Then I took an old polar fleece blanket and streched it over the whole kit and caboodle stapling it down to the underneath side of the bottom ring. The whole shooting match then got three heavy coats of epoxy resin on the outside. When that I was dry I stripped out the top and middle tiers and the wadding and put 1 coat on the inside. I eventually added a layer of 10 oz fiberglass cloth to the top 1/3 because I was worried about it being strong enough but that was probably over kill.

I've been working on a large fake rock. It's still a bit rough but it's coming along. Hope to have it out in the wild in the next couple weeks. It's big enough to hide a full sized Ammo can with extra room.

Wife beater T tucked into the pants to keep the holster and firearm off my delicate skin, with a big honkin' (as in at least a size to big) T shirt on top. Bulge visible, don't care. Open carry is legal in Idaho, but few people exercise it much outside of the real boondocks. Or Tshirt, shoulder rig, and then a VERY light button down with the sleeves either cut off ala Larry The Cable Guy or rolled up past the elbow. All this goes out the window when I get even a few miles out of town. Open carry is the letter of the day.

Concentrate and do one thing at a time...jeez

'gain

Test

Again agreed, perhaps inadequate wording on my part. More like "boilerplate" as in custom for each but based on a generic standard. I've got plenty of examples now and it seems mine was more than acceptable.

Agreed, but out of state landowners with professional forestry managment teams in the middle make that a virtual impossibility. Thanks for the letter.

I'm guessing you mean Leave no trace As for a permission letter, you might try a forum search (link in the upper right says 'search'). A quick search finds a couple thread with idea / examples. Permission letter, standard draft? Input on my permission letter Permission letter There are bound to be more. Honestly I did use the search but must have picked different search criteria because I got page after page of posts with zero relevant content. It happens, thanks for the links

Thanks that's exactly what I was looking for.

Nope, got a link?

Anyone have a generic permission request letter/email that they use when requesting permission to hide a cache? The reason I ask is that it might be a good idea to creat a standard with links to FAQ etc. Maybe a paragraph or two about how hard most of us work to be zero trace/impact while playing the game. I've got a couple requests out for private property stashes managed by a local forestry managment company. I included a link to a Google map or the property and the GeoCaching FAQ, but selling the responsible nature of our sport is kinda tough. Any suggestions on anything else I should be adding? MoparMan