The Perfect Road-Trip, Water Bottle - A 62 Year Old Design.
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 08. 4.07
On the base of the two-sectioned, steel bottle pictured above is stamped these words: U.S., Swanson, 1945. The thick cotton canvas cover, lined with a dense woolen felt, snaps securely over the bottle's shoulders with two solid brass pins. When I was a kid, I'd fill it up for my bicycle trip, soaking the canvas completely and letting it hang off the back of my bicycle seat springs with the built in belt hooks (shown above). The evaporative cooling from wind passing by the wet canvas kept the water inside cool on the way to the swimming hole. In childhood memories, I can still hear that squeaky sound of hooks on springs. Years later, I found it was good to hang over a 1960's era car window...with a little jury rigging.
Almost seventy years after it's manufacture, there's not a spot of rust anywhere, the canvas is completely intact. And, a decade of kid- and teen-abuse barely shows. The Bakelite cover, the only fossil fuel-based component, is free of cracks and wear. Not a single component contains Bis Phenol-A. (See Jeremy's post for background on that issue.) Remarkable.
It's not sexy, or pretty. But it works perfectly, and is likely to remain functional for a century. There's no reason that more attractive versions, in a variety of shapes, can't be made. Stainless steel would be fine for the bottle as long as the top is equally rugged. What are we waiting for?
Image credits:: John Laumer, Dad's Canteen
Great pics and great memories. I bet you are the kind of guy who repairs the Christmas tree lights instead of running to the big-mart to get a new string. Too bad "cool" and "sexy" are about conformity rather than personality, and the marketers have convinced us that a new product at shorter and shorter cycles is necessary to be cool or sexy. Otherwise you'd meet a lot more people running around with stuff that served their fathers well and is still going strong.
The only drawback to these old canteens I can remember was the slight metallic taste to the water... but if it was hot enough and you were thirsty enough you got over it quickly enough. Mmmmm... water!
the army got rid of those old canteens and bought plastic ones mainly, so I was told by old sergeants, because you could put whiskey in the metal canteens but the alcohol would rot the plastic in the new canteens.
you can always line a bottle with beeswax (sorry vegans) to avoid the metal taste.
Sexy is all about personality, i use grolch beer bottles with the metal wire snap cork mechanism where the opened lid hangs on the mechanism that holds it in place. And i put home made beer in those, people always comment that i have a cool bottle, and its usually a point of conversation.
People love originality, on friday at a party i didnt feel like beer so made myself a bowl of tea, not a single person thought that i was weird, in fact, whenever i get milk at a pub i only get positive responses and people have even made toasts to my personality when i repeatedly refuded wine for a drink that i actually like, and at school a guy who brought his water in a jar with a wide lid because he couldnt find his drink bottle (this is a few years ago) well every chick told him that the bottle was cool.
So take taht confromists :) Originality is the way to be cool, conforming will just get you unnoticed.
That story reminds me of my first few days in Korea back in 1952. All of Korea was a combat zone but we were about !00 miles south of the 38th parralell where our brave infantrymen had the enemy pretty much contained. I had pulled guard duty of the motor poll and was paired with a half uniformed ROK soldier who could not speak English. we were walking on a ridge single file aroundthe motor pool which was lower about 8 ft. The guy kept stopping and holding his ear and gesturing down into the pitch dark motor pool and even climbing down in there. Was he conspiring with someone down there to shoot me? Should I shoot that nut first? It;s tough when you don't know the language. Finally, after two or three of these episodes he burst out laughing pointing at my half filled canteen hanging from my hip shloshing in the quiet night. We both had a good laugh at ourselves. Laugh language is universal.
kleen kanteens
I have no idea it's environmental impacts as far as production / materials but I have what is probably the closest modern equiv. to this - the SIGG bottles. I have a flask made of stainless steel that comes with a stainless steel canteen cup and a water bottle which I think is some kind of alloy with a coating (probably less enviro-friendly if it's plastic). The bottles are super well made and have served me well for the past couple of years. They go everywhere with me with hot coffee, cold water, various other drinks from iced tea to scotch and I couldn't be happier.
I do live the idea of promoting re-usable bottles vs disposable plastic ones - I have an excellent source of water at home (Rochester, NY is fortunate to have good drinking water from south of us, and I have a restaurant grade filter and separate drinking tap) so why pay for $2+ in petrol / transport costs alone for Fiji?
From my recollection these are alumin(i)um, which would explain the 'lack of rust' and although there may be some slight risk to using bare Al utensils I agree with all the other points (I like the beeswax idea). The cup is good for drinking out of pre-Guardia creeks and is durable enough to cook in. My father had several of these and canvas packs with bronze buckles (stamped "CANADA") left over from his Korea experience and his kids finally wore them out.
I just bought stainless steel bottles and yes, just hope the caps survive...
=== author's response follows ===
Yes. Mine looks like old aluminum on the outer surface; but it feels too heavy, almost as if it were a composite. Perhaps it is confusing because a modern mfg process would result in a thinner, lighter shell. I am still uncertain bout it. JL
It's amazing that products of the past have longer lifespan than todays products. Nowadays, anything you buy won't last for more than three years, and it's piling up the landfill
If this bottle is anything like the ones I know, it's made of aluminum, so rust would really be somewhat of a surprise there... Still, rugged and functional design, no question.
NOT "Almost seventy years after it's manufacture..."
IT'S "Almost seventy years after its manufacture..."
I think my dad's canteen from Vietnam was aluminum, but maybe the much older WWII era versions are steel?
I wish there was a good online source for some of these vintage versions. Even better than buying a new one:)
@Ingmar: Treehugger writers have a lot of qualities, but they don't all have great spelling, punctuation, or grammar. I wish they would focus more on that, this is "writing for publication," but this has always been a small-scale sort of thing. I hope that with the Discovery acquisition, writers can be paid better, and proofreaders will fix the errors.
~~
Round or flask-shaped metal canteens with a cloth cover are part and parcel of my girl scout camp experience. We even knew, back then, that all water above about 4500 feet was safe, didn't contain giardia, and filled our canteens with impunity. Now I want to find one of those canteens (mine is long gone) to tote with me on our long dog walks in the hills.
Recently been learning more about polycarbonate and abandoned my work of art Harmonik bottles for stainless steel.
Here is four links for the group of various stainless bottles.
Peace.
http://www.gaiam.com/retail/product/14-0402?HCR=OTC-booyahfeeds&site_id=boofd_nexttag_14-0402&Atlas=True&gcid=C18376x020&keyword=14-0402
http://www.holistic-physician.com/shop/?shop=1&cart=745560&cat=1&itemid=12875&noCookiePassThrough=Y&
http://www.holistic-physician.com/shop/?shop=1&cart=745560&cat=1&itemid=1308&noCookiePassThrough=Y&
http://www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?productId=48002906&storeId=8000&catalogId=40000008000&&ext_cat=undefined&ext_cat=undefined
Wow! I have that exact same canteen - my father passed it on to me when I was a kid.
Great design, that's for sure.
It's nice to see so many POSITIVE comments on a post for once on here:)
Also, Bakelite isn't necessarily fossil fuel derived, although it probably was on this piece. Bakelite comes from formaldehyde and phenol, which can be derived from ethanol and gum benzoin, respectively. Most pheneolic resins (like Bakelite), also use a sawdust or paper filler.
=== author's response follows ===
yes.
But to my knowledge, most of the old phenolic feedstock was from coal tar. JL
I have three of these.Attached to a rucksack for camping.They are stronger and more durable than their modern counterparts.I used to use plastic canteens.They had a tendency to be to fragile.I can drop my pack without worrying now.
ok, so i dont know very much, but wouldnt a padded glass bottle be worth something, you could pad it with say a hemp/macrame short of design.. but i havent looked into whether glass is environmentally unfriendly
Howdy John,
Just ran across this posting while researching online feedback on our bottles. We are the folks that made your Harmonik water bottle.
Just wanted to let you know that we actually now have a full line of 38oz stainless steel Harmonik bottles as well as our polycarbonate.
The base bottle is made by Guyot Designs and is the best stainless steel bottle that we have tested.
www.guyotdesigns.com/stainlessbottles?sc=11
We like them even better then the Klean Kanteen.
Safety of polycarbonate is something that we take very seriously. If you are interested in some recent research, check out some of the links dealing specifically with BPA and polycarbonate safety studies here:
www.nalgene-outdoor.com/technical/bpaInfo.html
(I know, I know, it's the Nalgene website but is a great resource and we have looked into the researchers that provide the info.)
Feel free to email me w/any questions!
Be Well,
Johnney Josefchuk