MYOG Sleeping pad drops 5lbs from my pack

I'm very impressed that you would tackle such a challenging piece of gear. Nice job.

Also was a very clever way to reduce weight (wife carrying it).

You've opened up a whole new weight saving strategy for me. For example a pint of whiskey might same me many pounds of weight because I have a couple of friends who would do anything (including carrying gear) for a drink.

Daryl

Very nice! Can you tell more about that valve, like which one it is and where you got it? How did you do the heat sealing?

The valve I used was a 9mm Airtime valve that is originally designed for kite bladders. It comes with its own adhesive and is very strong. Once its on the pad you cannot come close to pulling it off(at least I couldnt). I also used some seam grip on the DAM I made just to test and it works awesome too. They also make an even larger 11mm valve that flows like crazy. It's a huge port that could deflate deflate down filled mats quite easily.

How I sealed it – Unfortunately, a household iron. Takes a long time and is pretty tedious. An impulse sealer is the way to go on these. If I did these everyday I would get one in a heartbeat. This pad took about 7 hours from start to finish.

Ryan

It looks like you used the valve that attaches to new bladders. Do you know if the Fix Kit valves will work as well? I have no experience with this type of valve / kit.

Ben,

I haven't used that brand, but I remember reading somewhere that the glue in the Fix kit is very good. I would feel confident in using it. Some of the the Airtime valves come with a check valve(i.e. just a flap) to slow the rate at which the valve let's air out. Makes it handy when blowing the pad up, but a pain when you want to deflate. I prefer the valve with no check valve personally.

Edit…I looked up the Fix kit and it's a different valve than I was originally thinking. It should work fine.

Ryan

you dont have any pictures of the parts that make this up do you, as in how do you make those baffles, whats the baffle material etc.

I would love to try one of these but have no idea how its made or how you held the down in (away from the valve etc)

and link an impulse sealer for me that would do this, I just want to see what one is?

Mark- Sorry, I don't have any in-progress pics. You really just need two identically sized pieces of fabric for the body, seven baffles that are 6" shorter than the body, and an inflation valve. The baffles are just strips of the same 70d fabric used for the body. Heat seal the baffles to one side of the body, then to the other side, then seal the outside edges to form the pad. You want to be careful where you heat seal b/c if you make a mistake there isn't really any going back. That is a very basic set of instructions, but I would be glad to go into more detail if you want.

Google Impulse Sealers and there will be a ton of models out there to compare. AIE is a common brand out there. This link should get you started. http://www.abcoffice.com/sealers.htm

Ryan