Corrugated plastic sheet for pack stay
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Have other used corrugated plastic sheet for a pack stay? I I found it in the local hardware store in the sign area and slipped a piece into the backpad area of my golite pinnacle and it seems to work great. I used in on an 8 day trip around Mt Whitney starting off with about 35lbs without any sagging in my pack (although I also had a GG nightlite torso pad in there too). I also used it on a 4 day trip to the Emigrant Wilderness starting off with about 25lbs (without the GG nightlite torso pad) and again it worked nicely. I should add that the piece I used weighs 3.5oz.
>"after an election they're all over the place, free, but they have printing on them" Or, as I think of them, personalized:
They are notable stiffer in the direction of the channels. And people are right, adding rods inside of those channels stiffens and strengthens them a lot. You can use aluminum aircraft alloys, carbon fiber, titanium or even unobtainium if you want to spend money, but in keeping with the cheap source of the corrugated plastic, how about wooden (often bamboo) skewers? A few cents each. The thinner ones are 3 mm. The thicker ones are 4.5 mm in diameter and were a very snug fit in each channel (different corrugated plastic can vary a bit). If using the thinner ones, I'd be tempted to wet it out with Gorilla Glue and let it foam in place. I'd leave the plastic a little large and trim to size to remove any extruded Gorilla Glue from the ends. If not, wipe it off before it hardens. And you could do it iteratively – adding more skewers until you got the stiffness / strength you want. One nice thing about cheap materials is that I have less hesitation to test samples to destruction. I learn a lot that way.Jerry, The local non-profit, member-owned electrical co-op, Homer Electric Assocation, was looking at a used coal plant to add capacity and that didn't seem like a good idea to me even apart from the climate and mercury issues – it still isn't generating any power 7 years later (Fairbanks ended up buying it). My other big success was to argue to borrow more money and build a combined-cycle natural gas plant instead of the cheaper single-cycle unit (steam generated off the 1100F exhaust generates 40% more power with no additional fuel consumption). I fight the realtors on our line-extension policy (they want to pave the state, I don't want to subsidize extending gray infrastructure into the woods) with some success, and mostly lose on civil-rights issues (there's a screaming closet case on the board and he thinks that gay-bashing somehow improves his straight cred). I won in 2008, lost getting re-elected in 2011, won in 2012 and again last year. I do reuse the signs from one election to the next. One nice ethic up here is that ALL campaign signs are taken down the NEXT day. Win or lose, the candidate and supporters are out election night and the next day taking them down. Given that, I consider the few that are still up a week later fair game for reuse in UL BPing projects, school posters, etc. One recent use was as part of a "recycled / edible" sailboat with my 10-year-old daughter. A doubled campaign sign is the deck, part of the trash can is the sail, the pontoons are shellacked baguettes, gingerbread sailors, and namesake lollipops:
The GoLite Infinity uses a corrugated polystyrene framesheet reinforced with aluminum rods. Details of this framesheet are given here: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/golite_infinity_review.html#.VflqbTfouih
GoLite’s Infinity Series 6.3 oz (179 g) framesheet: It is corrugated polystyrene, the same material the US Postal service uses on their white letter collection baskets. GoLite reinforces the framesheet with 7075 aluminum rods (seen as lighter areas in the photo) inserted into the sheet’s corrugations. These rods allow you to bend the framesheet to custom fit to your back the same way you would bend an aluminum frame stay in a conventional pack. One of the reasons I chose this pack was the rigidity let me get a little air flow and some relief for my sweaty back. geoff
They are notable stiffer in the direction of the channels. And people are right, adding rods inside of those channels stiffens and strengthens them a lot. You can use aluminum aircraft alloys, carbon fiber, titanium or even unobtainium if you want to spend money, but in keeping with the cheap source of the corrugated plastic, how about wooden (often bamboo) skewers? A few cents each. 
The thinner ones are 3 mm. The thicker ones are 4.5 mm in diameter and were a very snug fit in each channel (different corrugated plastic can vary a bit). If using the thinner ones, I'd be tempted to wet it out with Gorilla Glue and let it foam in place. I'd leave the plastic a little large and trim to size to remove any extruded Gorilla Glue from the ends. If not, wipe it off before it hardens. And you could do it iteratively – adding more skewers until you got the stiffness / strength you want. One nice thing about cheap materials is that I have less hesitation to test samples to destruction. I learn a lot that way.
GoLite’s Infinity Series 6.3 oz (179 g) framesheet: It is corrugated polystyrene, the same material the US Postal service uses on their white letter collection baskets. GoLite reinforces the framesheet with 7075 aluminum rods (seen as lighter areas in the photo) inserted into the sheet’s corrugations. These rods allow you to bend the framesheet to custom fit to your back the same way you would bend an aluminum frame stay in a conventional pack. One of the reasons I chose this pack was the rigidity let me get a little air flow and some relief for my sweaty back. geoff- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
