Since we've been snow and ice bound here all day, I had a chance to finish up my first MYOG pack. It's a pretty basic design -- four panels + bottom out of lime green X-Pac + a 9 inch purple silnylon collar. I used some 1 inch purple nylon webbing, black 1 inch nylon webbing for accents, and 1.5 inch for a beefier waistbelt. Altogether, it came out pretty loud!



The waistbelt is padded using pieces cut from a Z-lite pad I shortened to torso length. The shoulder straps are padded using 1/4 inch EVA foam kindly provided to me by a BPL member.


The white mesh is from an old running shirt I bought at a second-hand store. Very stretchy and seems durable, but will probably pick up the dirt. The bottoms of the side pockets are made of some extra gore-tex I had hanging around.




The final weight is 15.2 ounces, although I will probably add a sternum strap which will bump it up to a pound or so. I weighed the pieces for the pack body (just sides and bottom of X-Pac) which weighed only 4 ounces. The entire waistbelt weighed 3 ounces. Forgot to weigh the shoulder straps!

Dimensions are 11 x 6.5 x 30 inches, which is roughly comparable to a ULA CDT or MLD Prophet. It's frameless right now, since I've wanted to try a frameless pack, and I have my Z-lite flat against the back panel, which seems to be supporting the load well.

The toughest part of making this pack was the shoulder straps--I sewed them together and turned them inside out, then had a devil of a time getting the padding down into them. Avoid this if at all possible! My sewing machine is also a tiny thing -- actually a travel-sized machine -- so it won't even sew through two layers of webbing. Had to do more of it by hand than I wanted to, but that's alright.

The best part is that the pack fits me like a glove.

Happy Gear making!

Great job!! How much does it weigh and what is the volume???

Nice job, looks good

I agree, shoulder straps are difficult

Nice job Nancy! I like the purple straps with the kiwi green xpac kinda reminds me of the joker.

Pack looks awesome - I love the bright colors. Nice work!

Super job Nancy! Love the colors!

Glad people seem to like the "joker" scheme. Not for everyone, I am sure ...

@Ken: volume is like 2100 cubic inches + pockets, and weight right now is 15.2 ounces

Looks great! I dig the loud colors too.

There's a trick to feeding foam into shoulder strap tubes. Get two metal yardsticks and sandwich the foam in between them. Shove the whole thing into your shoulder straps and pull out one yardstick at a time. Metal yardsticks are also great for turning your straps right-side-out, and for finessing the wrinkles out of the seams at the ends.

Loud colors? Who cares? The bears certainly don't mind tearing loud colors.

Looks good. I think I would have sized the whole pack an inch longer as it sits on your back. But, that's me. You may just prefer the higher COG.

Looks real good. I wish I could do as well.

Bee-ootiful.

Looks good. I like the green/purple color combination, kinda 70's style. I'm working on my own "loud" pack right now - using the orange XPac.

Where are you folks currently ordering your XPac? Any good deals currently out there?

Thanks!

Mike-

Great job Nancy, that purple webbing is sensational! I've got some sitting around (some rainbow webbing too) so I should get busy and be creative with it!
Well done.

KK

Hi Mike

You can buy X-Pac direct from Dimension Polyant. They have a small order facility.

Cheers

Heyyy you guys are so nice.

I got my X-pac from Rockywoods. Don't know any other place you can get it really but there probably is one! I realize that picture makes it look like the pack is too short for me, but there's no weight in it there just pillows-- when it's weighted it rides a little lower. Added to the fact that I have like no torso whatsoever, and yeah. I think it will work. Taking it out for a test drive overnight trip this week. I'm also really surprised what a great "frame" a folded z-lite pad makes.

Rainbow webbing! The tree straps for my hammock are blue camo. Rainbow would also be awesome though... I have come very, very close to buying it at Hancocks several times ...

Yep UL or not it's so cool I'll just have to use some soon on real adult gear. I made a tiny pack for a 2 yo for Christmas (the one in my avatar) and I used the rainbow webbing for straps. I think the straps weighed as much as the rest of the pack but at 2 I'm sure she's not an UL snob yet!

Go grrl!!

KK