Home Made Gear?

Oros down jacket

317g with 150g of 750 fillpower down. Body has 50% more stuff than the sleeves,
hence the wider baffles
42gsm ripstop nylon shell.






Before pockets stitched on..

Wow Papa Dragon, IMPRESSIVE! Where did you get the lightweight nylon and the down?

Thanks for the kind words Ruth.
Down is from Makoti Down, and the nylon is parachute fabric from Gelvenor in Hammarsdale, bought from Ragland in Pmb.

ruthtbl wrote: Where did you get the lightweight nylon and the down?

I was going to ask the same question

Hey PapaD

Welldone, you should start a brand or something... Your DIY list is growing

Thanks Gerrit

How's your project going, after your impressive prototype?

I enjoy making and using the gear, and you can get exactly what you want....
I hope others are inspired to give it a try, hence my posting the stuff,
because with a bit of research, thought and time, it's not difficult to do..

So here is a quick update on my tarp tent, which I took with me to the Fish River Canyon, intending to sleep in it every night:

1. The tarp tent has no sewn-in groundsheet, and because of the way you pitch it (spread flat on the ground and then pulled upright), the inside of the tarp tends to get covered in sand. The material also seems magnetically attractive to sand, so after one night of having sand rained onto my face and gear whenever I touched the sides of the tarp, I gave up and shared pfoj's tent instead (which does have a sewn in groundsheet and can therefore be kept almost entirely sand-free).


The tarp is the green tent on my right, on my left is the orange Black Diamond Mirage I ended up sharing with pfoj for the rest of the trip.

2. We did use my tarp during the day once for extra shade (pitching it half-suspended in the bushes), and that worked quite well. There was also plenty of wind on that day and the tarp was surprisingly solid, even though it was pitched on sand (pfoj's method of digging away the top very loose sand and then driving the tent pegs into the slightly harder sand underneath worked well). Because of the way we had pitched it, the tarp didn't stop the blowing sand much, but I think if we had pitched the edges right to the ground it would have done okay. One of the other members of our hiking party (who had no tent, just a groundsheet) slept under the tarp that night, and had no complaints.


The extra shade during the hottest part of the day was quite nice

I still haven't tested out the waterproof-ness of the tarp, but when I do I'll post an update
I'm already getting excited about making another tent/tarp

I must say, it took a long time to read all 11 pages of this thread. Fantastic stuff. Thank you everyone.

Thinking of stoves, I may design a stove like this and get everything laser cut:
www.canoekayak.com/gear/classic-camp-stoves-emberlit-original-stove/#KOH82y14aJ5jSyuU.97

I've not made much homemade gear yet. Although I will as I have left my previous vocation as a mechanical design engineer and decided to buy an industrial sewing machine instead and make board bags for windsurfing, surfing, SUP etc. Anyway, so I tried my hand at a few basic projects.

This cushion, using polyester 600D (600 denier) which is of the Cordura brand. With a medium density foam inside, 50mm. I used it on top of a jacket as a pillow for hiking, and also to sit on when the Therm-a-rest is not out yet, or when cooking outside. Works well when the ground is frozen, it is waterproof, and tough as hell:




And then some basic gear bags too, the draw string ones made of nylon. The closure ropes are way too big but it's all I could find as I was in a rush. They also glow in the dark (the ropes) which turned out to be marginally useful from time to time in the tent, mostly for the cool factor. The bags are useful for putting in food items and any small items which otherwise get lose in your bag:

For interest sake, I visited a local factory in Cape Town making clothes for Pick 'n Pay and Woolworths -> 185 machines. Very impressive operation. Inspiration to get cracking with the sewing machine!

Hi All

This is my home made jet boil stove:

Materials:
Gas stove (bought from AliExpress for about R100)
1 liter Pot (bought at Army Surplus in Pretoria for about R50)
The copper wind shield I bought from an art store in Pretoria, Jimnettes at the Lynridge Mall.
Some other bits from my parents garage.

I could have done it better, but it works...
The whole thing weighs about 650 grams









This the my previous cooking set. It weighed about 2200g with 2 small bottles of fuel (benzine), coffee, sugar, and dishwashing liquid. In the picture you can see the other wind shield I made for my whisperlite, is works like a bomb, it makes a very big difference on the boiling time.
We are always between 6 and 20 people (23 people was the most I had to make food for) so 2x stoves with 2x 5liter pots help, but when we are less and I could loose all this weight (2200g-650g=1550g) it would be great.