Makes a great car camping chow set - Stainless Steel Chow Kit
Written: Feb 17 '05
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Easy to clean, Resists rust, Rugged enough to hold up to lots of use
Cons: Heavier than other alternatives, transmits heat quickly
The Bottom Line: For an introductory chow set, or for someone looking for a quality utensil set for car camping, the Stainless Steel Chow Kit makes an excellent choice
|
|
|
| jps246's Full Review: Campmor Stainless Steel Chow Kit |
If you’re car camping or otherwise don’t care about the weight of your knife, spoon and fork, the stainless steel chow set would be a good choice for someone looking for easily packed an stowed silverware. But if you’re concerned about weight – skip them over and look at other lighter alternatives.
Chow Set Basics
There’s not much to know about these utensils – there is a full-size knife, fork and spoon that can be put together and stored as one block. This is handy for packing and storing them, as it’s harder to lose one of them out of the bunch. The spoon has two small cylinders attached to it that pass through the holes on the fork and the knife and hold the three together when you’re not using them.
All three are made of heavy-gauge stainless steel and together they weigh about 2 ½ ounces. They come with a vinyl carrying case, but I found that quickly disappeared and it was just easier to store them on their own.
The utensils are all full-sized. They are the same size as you’d expect to find on a dining room table.
They all work as expected and after a few years of use – I’ve never noticed any rust and beyond a few scratches here and there from drops and bumps, they don’t look much different from the day I opened the package.
Use wise, it’s just like any other silverware – except with the spoon you have the two small spokes sticking out on the handle and the others have holes in the handle. The spokes are really the only difference – but they don’t make using the spoon any harder.
When it comes to washing these utensils, it’s easy. The stainless steel makes it very easy to see if there’s any dirt on them and after a few scrubs with a sponge, they come out looking as good as new.
Overall these utensils are a good basic set for someone who is car camping, or is a backpacker not as concerned with weight as other backpackers. They will last for a long time and are a quality set of utensils.
Experiences
My stainless steel chow set was a gift from a friend a while ago and while I love outdoor gifts, at the time I was backpacking more than I was car camping and I already had a lexan silverware set that I was using to backpack with.
So for a while my chow set was packed away in the big blue ‘hiking stuff’ box in my basement (yes, there are now actually two of the plastic storage boxes labeled ‘hiking stuff’ in my basement). I’d shuffle around them while I was looking for other items and I would occasionally take them out and go ‘oh yeah, I do have that.’
It wasn’t until I started car camping a little more often and had my partner along that I started to use the stainless steel chow set – mostly because I never remembered to pick up another lexan set while I was shopping. So the stainless steel chow set came out of being mothballed and got pressed into service.
I found them to be a quality set of utensils. While not as adept at every camp chore as the lexan utensils I have (for one, stainless steel transmits heat much faster than lexan – so if you’re stirring something boiling, the utensil will get hot very quickly), this chow set has shown that it’s a good addition to my car camping collection.
Now I take them with me whenever we’ll be doing some camping out of the car.
Personally I’d never take them backpacking with me, these are solidly car camping utensils in my eyes. It’s not that they are very heavy, but they are heavier than the lexan utensils I have for backpacking and with the lexan I’m not bothered worrying about how hot the utensil is going to get.
Final Thoughts
For an introductory chow set, or for someone looking for a quality utensil set for car camping, the Stainless Steel Chow Set makes an excellent choice. The stainless steel is strong enough to stand up to the bumps and bruises of camping and overall, you should be able to use these utensils for years to come.
However for backpackers concerned with weight, I’d suggest skipping over the stainless steel and heading towards some lexan utensils. They weigh less and don’t transfer heat like the stainless steel utensils do.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.