These are two packs that I've made fairly recently.
The lighter grey one has no frame, and the darker uses a Granite Gear Nimbus frame sheet, shoulder straps, and hipbelt.
For the frameless pack, I used some Granite Gear shoulder straps that I had laying around, and I can also use my Granite Gear hipbelt.
All dyneema came from Thru-hiker, and most everything else came from Quest.
My main goal in making these was simplicity, or atleast a fairly simple pack body.
I was pretty disgusted when I tore apart my Granite Gear Vapor pack and found that the seemingly simple pack was actually about 1000 pieces. Just seemed pretty stupid.
So the frameless pack body is made of two pieces of fabric (back panel, extension collar, body/bottom) and the framed pack is just two pieces. I wanted two straps on top to secure whatever I felt like, and with the pack body being essentially just one piece that's also how the pockets attach. Neither of these packs is UL and I won't bother listing the weights because you'd probably laugh at me. Ummm I carried the frameless pack this summer on the CT and it held up great, but I went about 7 days between ressuplies, and this compression system isn't super effective so I decided to build a similar pack with a frame. The framed pack was only built about a month ago, so it's only got about 100 miles on it, but so far so good.
Anyways, I'm sure I'm leaving out some essential information and if you've got any questions feel free to ask.
Additional (and more detailed) photos can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21196968@N04/sets/72157624092659983/

Fantastic looking packs - I was particularly impressed by your adaptation of your framed granite gear pack. How did you attach the pack body to the frame? Did you use an industrial sewing machine? I've got an older GG nimbus meridian at home that does get much use at the moment and would love to convert it/customize it to my needs.

Thanks for sharing.

Matt

Nice! Like the Granite Gear mod/hack job especially.

Nice looking packs, good job

Come on, how much do they weigh???

I agree, it's weird how many pieces hiking equipment is. Must be cheap to pay someone to sew them all together.

They look good! Regarless of the weight, if they are comfortable, that is the important thing. I am guessing the framed one is around 2#6, maybe 2#11.
Really nice work.
jdm

Very nice.

Do you have an estimate of the packs' volumes?

I like the looks of the compression system ... is that bungee cord or less stretchy line?

Matt,
I basically just spent two days ripping every seem on the original Nimbus Ozone.
Then from there, just sorta replicated what I needed out of dyneema.
Just a standard old Singer machine I found in my grandma's garage. If I'd been brave enough to take detailed shots of some of the inside shipping, I don't think you'd be too impressed. I used "Extra strong Gutermann" thread from quest and just took my time. Working with that stretchy back panel was a real pain. Made it really hard to pin everything.

I will say this much, I think the framed pack is about the same weight as the Nimbus Ozone. Which is fine for me. There's also a lot of webbing and other little things I could trim though.

Volumes, couldn't really say.
The framed pack is definitely smaller than the Nimbus Ozone, maybe 50+ liters?

I'm working on a new design right now, so I'm in the process of taking measurements of these two.
If I get anything solid I'll post here.

Oh, and the compression on the side is just guyline.
I just got the sturdiest stuff that would still fit in those adjusters.
It is shock chord over the rear pocket though.

One thing, if you go this route, make sure you put the adjuster AWAY from you.
You can see that I changed that on the newer pack. The loose bit of string was always flapping around and bugging me.

Wow! Fantastic looking packs! I was actually scrolling through those flikr pictures the other day(you posted a link to something else and one click lead to another...) and was wondering if those were packs you made or bought. At first glance they look almost like MLDs. Anyway, mystery solved and GREAT packs. Whenever I can get my thread injector out of storage I've got a few projects a-brewin'.

Best,
Clint

Loving your packs Jacob, I can really appreciate someone who makes exactly what they want out of their gear. Your Granite Gear reverse engineering custom pack is the kind of pack that Granite Gear should be putting out and isn't. I was sneaking around looking at some of your pictures on Flickr sometime back and saw a picture of the frameless pack and didn't think anything of it other than it looked to me like a really nice custom MLD... so be proud of your pack cause it looks great. The use of linelocs on the side compression is a nice touch, and the dual crossover straps are a good idea for securing more gear or a canister, much wiser than the single strap method that the MLD packs use IMO. Sharp stuff.

Nice packs. You must have a lot of patience to have gone through such a tedious dismantling and assembly process.

Wow, thanks guys.
My hope in posting these photos is that someone else can use some of the ideas.
I started off modifying an older Granite Gear Vapor pack, and it ended up just being a Frankenstein and still wasn't exactly what I was looking for.
So yeah.
The only problem with making my own packs is that about five minutes after a finish I come up with a whole new design and want to throw away the one I just completed and start the new one.

That dyneema aint cheap.