Chaps made from Drop-Stopper Pants!

[Mike Clelland]

[Easy Chaps!]

I made a pair of CHAPS using the rain-pants from the DROP-STOPPER pants/jacket combo.

They were very easy and simple to make. And, they weigh a scant 3 ounces! This’ll take

TIME: less than an hour

TOOLS: Scissors, a pen, Barge Cement, a piece of string.

DIFFICULTY: Easy-Shmeezy!

[here’s the link]
Drop Stoppers Micropore Rain-suit
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/drop_stoppers_rain_gear.html

The rain-suit fabric is NOT a woven fabric, so it’s easy to cut with scissors – no threads to fray!

1 – I took a thin magic marker and traced out the CHAP shape on the pants. I left a long “tab” near each hip, about an inch wide is plenty. This will be important for connecting the string.

2 – I cut the fabric off, and that liberates the elastic waist-band. Now I have TWO separate units, R & L.

3 – Put the legs on and measure where you need the string around your hips. The pants are sorta baggy, and this measurement will probably require trimming a little more fabric. Mark the HIP -STRING zone with a pen.

4 – I took the two long (hip) TABS, and I carefully rolled them into a tube (does this make sense?). I used a magic marker and rolled the tube with this as a “form” and then I glued the tube in place using Barge cement. This TUBE is for the string to fit through. (Barge Cement is flexible when dry)

5 – Let the CEMENT dry.

6 – Run a thin piece of string thru the little “TABS” in each hip, about 40″ is plenty.

7 – try ’em on – Wow, they’re pretty cool!

[Dale Wambaugh]

Good idea. It struck me that the thinner types of Tyvek could be a quick and dirty chaps material too.

[Joseph Rothstein]

Isn’t the primary advantage of chaps, as compared to pants, the increased ventilation? I can understand why that would be important for a non-breathable fabric, which is what most rain chaps are made of, but the Drop Stoppers are supposed to be quite breathable, so chaps seem unnecessary. I suppose that chaps are a bit easier to put on. Is that why you’re making them, or am I missing the point?

[Mike Clelland]

The point is that I saved a little weight.

The pants are pretty light to begin with, but I shaved a tad extra off.

I never weighed them BEFORE making them into CHAPS, but they weigh (with the string) only 3 oz.

[David Lewis]

I think the primary advantage of chaps is weight savings. They’re made from non-breathable material like Spinntex because it’s extremely light and waterproof and… since they cover your legs and not your torso… they don’t really need to be breathable…. IMO. I think the primary advantage of Mike’s very cool modification is… PRICE!!! Those chaps (from GG and BPL for example) are all pretty pricey for what they are and how incredibly simply are to make. 3oz is damn good considering how cheap O2’s, Drop Stoppers, Dri Ducks… etc… are! Great mod Mike.

[David Lewis]

BTW… I came up with my own chaps mod… for my GG chaps. I hated the shockcord ‘belt’… and I never wear an actual belt… but all of my pants/shorts HAVE belt loops of course. It seemed to me that the best way to attach the chaps was to attach them to the belt loops of my pants/shorts.

So I cut the grosgrain loops at the top and then undid all the stitches… leaving me with two long ribbons of grosgrain on each leg. I then attach them to my belt loops with a simple plastic toggle. This is great because it’s infinitely adjustable… along the length of the grosgrain straps. Just be careful not to lose the toggles (always keep them on the grosgrain).

[Pamela Wyant]

I remembered this thread, and it is going to help me with a current problem. I just got a set of Dri-Ducks rain gear. The jacket is plenty (almost overly) large, and the pants are generous in the legs, but not generous enough in the seat (at least for my hips). As I was trying them on I decided to squat down to check the fit, did so fairly cautiously, and the rear seam split open! Just testing them out at home!

Since they are cheap, it isn't really worth the postage to send them back, and the jacket alone is probably worth the $14.95, but this idea of Mike's may just give me some use out of the pants.

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