Took my new Sawyer Squeeze system out this weekend. It was only one night with short distance, but I still got a feeling for how it worked. Here on Sunday afternoon reflecting one its first outing, I've come up with a couple of mods to share:

1. In a fit of frustration while trying to fill the 32 oz bag from a running creek and then from a lake, I cut open the bottom. Still not totally sure I am happy I did this, but at the time, 9:30 Friday night and thirsty, I couldn't have been more pleased. I have since punched a couple of holes in the bottom edging, outside the bladder proper, and placed a 2 ft piece of small elastic cord through. I can hang the bag, and use the stretch cord to neatly wrap the bag before packing.

2. The pull spout was a little frustrating...balance the receiving bottle, squeezing the bag, proper alignment, etc. This afternoon gave way to the fill bottle/hose mod. I work in an operating room. If you have ever spent any time all in an OR (not as a patient) you know we throw away hundreds of the two items below every week. The first is a irrigation bulb that looks strikingly like a turkey baster. The second is surgical suction tubing. It's used for suctioning blood and various other body fluids (I know, TMI, but you'll happy to know that neither had been previously used).


I cut the tip of the irrigation bulb, drilled a hole in a Dasani water bottle, and glued the tip in the hole. I drilled a tiny vent hole in the finished nozzle.

It fits the Dasani, a Platypus, and an Evernew. Granted, the threads don't fit perfect, but it holds the bottle in place while I squeeze.

3. Added stretch cord to my Sawyer Squeeze bottles with hot glue.

4. I didn't just throw away the rest of that handy irrigation bulb/turkey baster (multi use item). I enlarged the cut end to fit my Thermarest Neoair and pushed it through a hole cut in the corner of a kitchen trash bag. Instant instaflator! 2 bags then a big blow with the mouth for pressure.

Next weekend these all get a field test. Will also test the twirling dry method for the SS.

Edited by Gallen1119 on 08/05/2012 18:53:28 MDT.

Wow! Whole bunch of creative ideas/mods.

I'll be following your efforts and trying to learn from them.

I'm impressed.

Edited by lyrad1 on 08/06/2012 09:28:32 MDT.

Hmm, I thought that might be the downfall of this system - how to get the blessed water into the tiny neck of the flat-pack bottle. I've been meaning to find/make a funnel from a cicrle of plastic with a hole in the middle folded twice (I'm a fan of those origami bowl and mug sets). Did you think of that? If you did, it didn't work then!

Nice work. I've made something similar in the past with a cutoff Platy and a gravity filter. It should work well if everything stays glued. The down side of this is that it kind of takes away the lightweightness of the Sawyer.

I really like the Sawyer Squeeze but getting the water in the bladder is the tricky part. If the bladder were open on the bottom end with a ziplock seal I think it would be much easier to use.

To fill the bladder, just take any small 12 oz or even smaller if you can find it plastic water bottle, cut the top part off, put the sawyer into it to store it instead of a plastic bag, fits about right.

Use that bottle bottom to fill the bladder. I'm going to look for a plastic bottle that is even narrower, I think I used arrowhead, was just something someone was throwing away.

Alternately, you can use a mug or plastic cup and just dry it between uses. If concerned about cysts surviving on it, just rinse it a few times with clean water, then dry it.

If you don't want to do the mod thing with lids, you can just buy the hose connection adapter kit from rei or online for sawyer, that lets you add a hose to the clean end to fill the bottles with.

Add another female adaptor and you can use the bladder plus hose plus adapters to backflush the sawyer.

Somebody should find a water bottle that fits the threads of the Sawyer to replace those pos bladders.

The Evernew bladders have the same thread design as the Sawyer Squeeze bags, and they (the Sawyer filter and the Evernew bladder) mate together very well.

Nice.

i realized it was impossible to fill the bag too. i cut off the bottom of an old water bottle with a push pull cap to catch water and fill up my sawyer bag. the push pull cap creates a nice stream of water that's easy to aim into the sawyer bag. i also put some fabric paint filter stuff on when i screwed the cap to try and catch any big floaties so the sawyer won't get clogged as easily.