Making down pants into down pants… suggestions needed

[Benjamin Beckerich]

Howdy

I'm BRAND new to this stuff. I have zero sewing experience, also, unless you count buttons.

I had a pair of Alaska Pipeline Nomex down pants that were way too bulky and heavy to be of any use to me.. They sat around for about a year, then today I got the idea to cut off all the Nomex and metal zippers and see what I'm left with. Lo and behold, they're actually quite light and promising.

So now I just need to finish them up… A new shell and improved lightweight zippers. I want to turn the 2/3rd zips into full side zips, for donning with crampons on, and would like to extend the fly down under the crotch for pooing without taking off all my stuff.

Use will be winter mountaineering… I climb.

Suggestions on lightweight wind-resistant (or proof) shell material? Where's a good place to order zippers? Do they make wind-proof zippers? Is the extended crotch idea a good one?

I have a sewing machine in the garage.. Guess I'll be digging it out and doing some experimentation… but I plan to use it as much as I can, obviously.. hopefully that's not too hard to figure out.

Thanks

-Ben

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[Conner D]

Try .9 oz ripstop (used in windshirts and has DWR) from owfinc.com and waterproof zippers from them too. The #3 zipper of #5 should be good. The #3 would be lighter and fine if you have a button at the top. You can order similar materials and zippers from zpacks.com and thruhiker.com. I just suggest owfinc because I have ordered from them and been in their actual store/warehouse and they are nice people, but so are the zpacks people. I dont know about thruhiker but hear that they are great too. Good luck!
-Conner

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