And the next interview is up! This time Fritz Handel, the maker of the famous BushBuddy sat down and answered my questions and shares with us how he developed the BushBuddy started his company.

That was a great interview. I have always been fascinated by the bushbuddy and the level of detail that goes into it. Nice work.

Excellent! Thanks for doing that Hendrik.

"...fractional reserve banking is the biggest scam of all time, so don't participate in your own enslavement."

Reading that makes me very pleased to have supported his business. ;)

+1

Hendrik and Fritz- This was a great interview.

You get a certain satisfaction of bringing MYOG with you on a trip.

Interviews like this give a different, but similar satisfaction for carrying cottage industry gear with you.

Best interview yet, Hendrik.

When I first heard of the product and saw where it was made my first thought was to mapquest Iskut, BC.

From that moment I saw that map it was just a matter of time before I became a customer. Reading the interview made me even more pleased that I did. He gave very enlightening description of the development/refinement process.

Edited by jcolten on 11/16/2009 21:03:48 MST.

Hendrik, thanks for taking the time to conduct and post these interviews on BPL for us. I hope to see some more in the future!

Fritz mentions reading Kephart. The book is available online. I browsed some of the chapters. Kephart put these writings together in the early 1900's. The packs that he mentions weigh 2.25 to 2.5 lbs. Early UL, very early!


http://www.archive.org/stream/campingwoodcraft00kephrich#page/n0/mode/2up

Ron Bell of MLD Interview is online =)

Once again, another fine highlight of the craftsmanship available to the BPL community. Anyone recognize the sewing machines in the shop? They look like standard machines(not industrial). I assume they are of a higher grade than some home models.

Hendrik,

Thanks for the excellent series. Leave it to a Finn!

As far as MLD goes, it is definitely a fantastic operation. Ron mades top quality products and is great to communicate with about this gear. Keep it up!

Also, the interview with Fritz at Bushbuddy is great too! Nice to see him do so much work to innovate and bring an amazing product to market. Love the cottage industries!

Interview with Ron Moak is up.

I have really liked these interviews. Thank you for doing them.

I was lucky to meet Ron on Saturday. It turns out my daughter lives about 5 miles from him, and he was gracious enough to let me come to his house to buy a Wild Oasis while I was there for Thanksgiving. I had just sold my Gatewood, because I don't need the cape feature, with the intention to get the Wild Oasis. Serendipity took over so I was able to get it directly from him. I wish I'd thought to ask him to autograph it!

An autographed Wild Oasis would have been really awesome! And I am jealous that you got to meet Ron; I'm planning one day to come to the USA & Canada and visit some of them, that would be a cool holiday.

We should get some of the cottage manufacturers to make signature limited editions of which proceeds could go to some good cause! I'm sure there's plenty of folks out there who would pay for these.

I just wanted to personally thank Hendrik for all these awesome interviews as well as his excellent blog.

Mark Richardson from Ultralight Outdoor Gear interview up. UOG is probably the most popular UL Shop in Europe, and also will soon bring its own products out...


Thank you all for the positive feedback and thanks! It is very rewarding to first do my normal job and then work on the blog in the evenings, knowing that there are people out there which appreciate it!

Tim Marshall from enLIGHTened equipment should be a well known name here =) I got Tim to answer my question and tell us what's we can expect in the future from his cottage in stealth mode!

Henrik, I'm really enjoying this continuing interview series! Thank you!

Edited by hikinggranny on 12/15/2009 13:12:25 MST.

Gen Shimizu from Alpinlite Gear took out some time from sewing and answered my questions, in this first cottage manufacturer interview of 2010!

I got a 5x8 tarp from Gen. The tarp is very well made. Gen wasv very friendly,responsive and the order was filled promptly.

Actually pretty amazing considering he's a Wahoo ;)