Cuben Material Project Number 4:

Cuben Material Project Number 4: (This project was finished on October 28,2005)

I have been working on a pattern for a Foot VBL made out of Cuben Fiber. I first made several muslin patterns to get the right size for my foot. Tonight I finished my first pair out of Cuben Fiber. I expect to try a couple more pattern ideas but this pair will give me something to wear and see what happens.

The pair weighs 0.22oz and are 10" tall. I wear a size 11 shoe.






The theory is that the VBL goes next to the skin with the sock on top then my shoe. In this case my trail runners. When I made a sleeping bag VBL out of really light spinnaker ripstop I sewed in a light silk inner liner so the silk was next to my skin.

I do however, have room for a thin sock in my Cuben Footie's. I have always used a Rocky Gore-Tex bootie in my trail runner when it rains or when I expect heavy dew or a lot of creek crossing where I will get my shoes wet. I wear my socks then the "Rocky's". I also carry a little foot powder and that helps some to a lot.

I have a prototype for a pair of insulated full shoe gaiters to be used with my trail runners. They will attach to the full top of the trail runner but leave the bottom of the trail runner uncovered. They also are 10" high. My hope is to extend the use of my trail runners without using something like an overboot safely into the 0 to 20 degree range.

The combination of the foot VBL's and the insulated gaiters will give me something to test with.

Cuben Material Project Number 3:

Cuben Material Project Number 3: (This project was finished on Sept 23, 2005)

Part 1:
Cuben Water Bag Replacement for an - Amigo H2O Water Filter System:

I had a small piece of the Cuben fabric left over from my Pack Bag and decided to replace the Bag from my ULA H2O Amigo water filter with it. The ULA bag with the fittings removed weighed 1.96oz. The Cuben replacement bag weighed 0.57oz or a savings of 1.39oz. I will replace the ULA stuff sack with one made from the Cuben fabric as I have more scrap.

I will multi-use the tubing from the Amigo on my Platypus bottle and save another 0.23oz.








I wanted to use a piece of my "Yellow" AirCore Pro Ultralight Dyneema" shelter guyline from BMW for the water bag cord.

The yellow stuff is 3/4" grosgrain folded in half and pressed with a hot iron. I used the yellow so my colors would be the same. I then sewed around the outer edge of the Cuben material with the yellow grosgrain for reinforcement. Then I punched 16 holes in the grosgrain and strung the "yellow" AirCore Pro cord through the holes. I made the two Plastice Tube handles from two 4" pieces of the tubing from one of my feeding tube food bag sets and was done. Most any light weight plastic tubing could be used. As I said above the weight of the water bag went from 1.96oz to 0.57oz. A nice weight savings.

Part 2:
Filter Replacement:

There was a disscussion on the yahoo group - Backpacking Light about replacing the Amigo inline filter with a Katadyn Hiker Pro filter and put it inside the Amigo water bag. The Katadyn Hiker-Pro filter was said to filter water faster than the filter that comes with the Amigo. I had looked at the Hiker Pro filter but hadn't bought one to see if/how it could be used with the Amigo H2O Filter set-up.

I bought a Hiker Pro filter and it was really easy to covert the Katadyn Hiker Pro filter to my Amigo system. When the water bag has water in it and is held up or hung the filter seems to float upright and filters fine.

If you have an Amigo a look at the pictures should be enough to figure out what I did. If not ask.







Part 3:
Completely New - Home Made Water Filter:

Cuben Water Bag/Gravity Feed Water Filter- 5.61oz

Back to the Hiker Pro for a moment. I just weighed my filter. I had to wait till it dried out. It weighs 3.62oz on my gram scale.

But as I was looking at the filter I had to ask myself why do I needed all the extra plastic around the screw part (Out-end). Why not cut off the extra plastic. I also removed the O-ring.

Stock Hiker Pro - 102.5gr/3.62oz
Cut Down Hiker Pro - 85gr/3.0oz


My Home-Made Water Filter:

Cuben Water Bag - 0.54oz
Hose's etc - 2.07oz
Modified Hiker Pro Filter - 3.0oz
==========================
Total Weight - 5.61oz

Weight of stock (Gravity Feed) Amigo H2O Water Filter - 8.82oz
Weight of stock (Gravity Feed) Katadyn Base Camp Water Filter - 13oz




Stock Hiker Pro Water Filter. (3.62oz)


Hiker Pro on a Diet. (3.0oz)


Note: I use an Orikaso Flat Fold cup to fill my water bag. I carry the cup anyway and it keeps me from possible damage to the filter bag.

Cuben Material Project Number 2:

Cuben Material Project Number 2: (This project was finished on July 12,2005)

Super Ultra Light Poncho (2.81oz)/Tarp (4.99oz)

I have finished my first SUL Cuben Poncho/Tarp. It is 48" wide (that is how wide the Cuben fabric was) and 90" long. If I made another one I could keep the weight under 2oz if it was a Poncho only. The extra reinforcement necessary to turn it into a tarp added about 1oz to the weight.

The 2.81oz weight is for the Poncho mode only. In the Tarp mode it is necessary to add guy lines and stakes. 6 Vargo - Ti Shepherd's Hook UltraLight Stakes at .20oz each would add 1.2oz. 50 foot of AirCore Pro guyline and 6 tensioners would add another .98oz. This would give me a total weight when used as a Tarp of 4.99oz.

I plan to pitch the Tarp in different ways to see if it is big enough for my use. It sure looks small.

My plans are to do a short part of my Thru-Hike SUL and see how it works. The weather will play a big part in when I try it but it should be interesting to see what under 5 pounds would be like from Springer Mt. to Fontana Dam or so. Ideally it would be nice to start SUL and go that way as long as the weather didn't get crazy. As the weather gets warmer SUL should get easier.

As each piece of my gear gets lighter and lighter 5 pounds is starting to look like a lot of weight play with. Smart selection and layering of my clothing, even watching the weight, should allow me to stay warm for short periods of colder weather.


Poncho Mode 2.81oz.
Tarp Mode 4.99oz

Cuben Connection - Super Ultra Light (SUL) Backpacking Gear - Project 1

I am making most of the gear necessary for an Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike. The first few projects will use a very light fabric made by Cuben Fiber Corp. This material is about 0.44 oz per square yard (36" by 36").


Cuben Material Project Number 1: (This Pack was finished June 14, 2005)

Super Ultra Light Backpack - Finished weight - 2.10 oz.
Part 1:

I have a G6 pack that weighs 3.44 oz. I like it a lot, however for an AT Thru-Hike I made a few changes. I changed the size a small bit making it 6.5" wide vs the 5" wide G6. I added mesh pockets to each side of the pack and a full mesh pocket for the front of the pack. This gives me 1833 cu inches in the pack and a total of about 730 cu inches for the mesh pockets. I wanted mesh pockets for a lot of reasons. I like to keep my water bottles in a side pocket and my Trap or other wet things in a back mesh pocket. The G6 has a back pocket but it isn't mesh and it has no side pockets. I am sure a lot of the reasons concern added weight. The mesh pockets add 1.28oz to the total weight of the pack

The pack is not quite finished. Tonight I have to decide how I want the top of the pack to close. I like a roll top but don't have a place to put the velcro since that space is now a mesh pocket. I will work something out. I also had to order some small width webbing for the shoulder straps.

This pack bag is shown on one of my "Home-Made " SUL External Pack Frames.

The weight of the pack bag as you see it in these pictures is 1.96oz. If you consider that 1.28 oz's of the total weight is from the mesh pockets and if I had left them off the pack bag it would have weighed less than 1 oz. I might make another pack bag without the mesh pockets just to see how light I can make the standard size G6 pack. I don't have enough of this light weight material left over or I would try but expect to get more.






Part 2:

I finished the 10" collar for my SUL pack. I even found a way around the velcro issue. I didn't see how I was going to sew the velcro inside the mesh pocket easy and was tired. I did a cop out and since I have draw cords and neat little cord locks I just put the roll top ends through the loop and pulled the cord tight. It seems to work. I then just push the ends into the pocket. I will try this and see how it works.

The more or less finished pack weight is up to 2.10oz. I think I can live with that for awhile.





Lets see what is next on my list?