Cheap Canteen Para-Cover

If you go to Canteen Shop's store , you can seen an ingenious device called the canteen para-cover , designed to hold your canteen cup and stove to your canteen. However they are asking $28 for this strap.

At first I thought that due to the tight friction fit of my canteen with its cup that I could do away without one. After reaching in my bag and finding that they had separated a few times, I started to think that $28 looked rather attractive, though still on the expensive side.

Then it hit me: build my own.

I made this harness for free, using rubber bands that held my neighbor's newspaper together. Yes, I asked the neighbor if I could have the rubber bands before I took them.

In order to complete this project, you will need the following materials:

*/ Canteen
*/ Canteen Cup (with optional Canteen Stove)
*/ 3 rubber bands

Easy, right?

To make the canteen cup holster, you will need to chain the rubber bands together into a rubber band chain. If you already know how to do that, feel free to skip to the next step.

For those of you still with me, I'm going to teach you how to make a rubber band chain. A rubber band chain is one whereby rubber bands are connected to each other through a series of Larks Head Hitch "knots".

What's a Larks Head Hitch ? I'm glad you asked. It is a really simple knot to make whereby you pull one end of a loop (rubber band) through itself while having a piece of another rubber band in the way. In this case, a picture (or two) is worth more words than I can offer. To that end, I present:

Resource #1
Resource #2

Both of these will help you to properly "tie" your Larks Head Hitch . To make the process easier, designate one rubber band as the center rubber band, and then larks head hitch the other two rubber bands to it on opposite sides.

The last step is to harness the canteen. Using one loop of your rubber band chain, loop it around the neck of your canteen, under the cap retainer.

Loop the chain under your canteen cup and up the other side, using the final rubber band loop  to loop around the neck of the canteen, but in the opposite direction of your original loop.

Fin!

Enjoy your $28 that is still in your wallet/bank account.