Articulated Hydration Conduit
I still have a few more ideas and addendums to post here over the coming months. I'll try to drop one in once a month if I can. Here's one that I can't believe I forgot about. I used this fun name of Articulated Hydration Conduit for nothing other than your old fashioned reuseable and flexible drinking straw. I've used one of these in my Scout costume pouch for years. It occurred to me to have one for my TK. Many of my ideas and hacks here have been things for fun troops or longer non canon troops. The straw is a good one for when you are off to the side on a troop where you are keeping the costume pretty pure on the inside too or if you are all in on a B.O.A. Troop as I like to call them (Buckets On Always). I found at some sporting events; there was nowhere to take my helmet off out of the line of site when I could get a drink from a bottle of water. I didn't want to get dehydrated, but I also didn't want to ever take the helmet off. Thus, I carried along a drinking straw.
This is a reusable plastic straw. It is flexible. I bought a couple of them so I could take the caps off and put the cap on each end of the straw. That way those were never exposed when not drinking from a water bottle. I wrapped a little bit of black tape and slapped a cog on there to make it imperial, but also identify the end which I drink from. The straw is wrapped in a double sided black velcro cable tie. I used about 11 inches of length. That's enough to wrap around most water bottle widths. This is wrapped around the straw. Then you simply mount a small strip of velcro of the bottom of your chest armor. A quick easy and well hidden spot to store it until needed.
It's nice to help mark your water bottle if there's a bunch of them all together. You'll know which one is yours as the straw is attached to the bottle. Wrapping the velcro around the bottle can also hold the caps while you drink from the straw.
Note: It's probably best to put the cap on the water bottle if you aren't going to use it. That would be in case it got knocked over, it wouldn't spill. You'd still use the velcro wrap to hold the straw with caps on the outside of the water bottle. You get the idea.
Unfortunately, the TK has less room to slip the straw right up on the helmet. At least it is for me. I could do it no problem on the TB. For the TK, I just slide the straw up under the helmet, then tilt the helmet to side and have my mouth find the end of the straw. The helmet doesn't come off and you get your drink. I currently use a 13" straw length. I may trim off the end of it some by an inch or two. I went long at first because I could trim it if I needed to. I'll see on troops if I need it that long or not.
And there you have it. The Articulated Hydration Conduit for trooping.