Sir Dive-a-Lot, always re-inventing the wheel ;-)

AS you might know, being a GeoCacher yourself, sometimes the stash is hard to find, due to the ability to burry it by the creator of the Cache.

A special stick to poke around in the soil might come handy. Below you will see my ammendmends to a nice gadget you can buy at army dump-stores.

Original it is a fouldable retainer for infuses (medical assistance). Some Cachers saw-off the hook and use it to peek the ground.

My first re-disign was 'stolen' from "Dwarreltje" who told me she did not remove the hook, but bent it, to get more length.
Indeed, my 2 meters length and bad back require a longer stick to be comfortable "-).

<==Klick to enlarge the image.
This photo shows one original retainer with hook and all accessoires and one with the bent point.

Unfortunately, it was still to short for me, (so now my wife uses it).

My second re-design was more a real design effort:  I took 2 devices apart, cut the cables and made me a new cable from a bycicle brake innercable (RVS). The segents of one device and 2/3 of the segments of the other device made up my custom stick.
Now it is long enough.

<==Klick to enlarge the image.
This photo shows the original bent version and the re-designed longer version.

At the botom, the cable is secured by its original stop, through a 8 mm piece of thread-wire. This gives the opportunity to screw some tools on it. For instance the original spike that came with the set. Now it is a nice pointy device.
The top of the cable needed to be secured at the release grip, that took me some aluminium with 2 holes. Run the RVS cable througt 2 holes and it will not slip any more. Some tie-wraps and a shrink wrap make it nice.

One disadvantage is that the ratio between #segments and slack in the cable has changed. Ergo:  The device will fold with a bigger radius than before. But for now: I am happy with it.

    <==Klick to enlarge the images.
This photo shows the different sizes and radius of the SDaL revised pokesticks.