This week I've been playing with fuel canisters way too much. Note my other thread started today.
Anyway, while playing with filling and adjusting fuel levels in "disposable" fuel canisters, I thought I'd try and build a better mouse trap . . . or, ah . . . build a simple ultra-light canister scale to estimate fuel content while on the trail.
In the end, I realized that a few marks made with a sharpie marker on the side of my canisters was far lighter and simpler than any other scale system I could possible figure out.
In playing with a current MSR branded canister, I was shocked at how easy it was to float the canister and how surprisingly accurate the estimate of the fuel level was based on the little printed scale on the side of the canister.
SO, I STOLE IT!
Using a little piece of tape placed on the side of the MSR canister, I transposed the lines onto the tape and then used that piece of tape to mark all my non-MSR canisters (and my older MSR canisters) with the nifty float scale. After transferring the marks to my other canisters, I put the tape onto a piece of sticker release paper that I keep in my first aid/emergency kit so I can keep it and use it in the future on the trail or off.
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FYI: The fuel content of that floated canister was 45 g as per my kitchen scale and it reads just slightly less than 1/2 full which for a 110 g canister is pretty darn close. In general I would say these scales seem to be accurate to within 10 or 15 g or so.