scale for weighing the fancy gear

Rest assured that the ultimate scale does exist. Mettler-Toledo XP64001L. 64 kg capacity (141 lbs), 0.1 g resolution. Internal calibration system, sealed against harsh environments, touch screen, ethernet and bluetooth. Only downside is the price: $8,000.

Seriously, though, you might take a look at this Ohaus CS5000: 5 kg capacity (ll pounds), more than any single piece of gear you’re likely to have, but not necessarily enough for a loaded pack (depending, of course . . . :) and 2 g resolution (about 1/14th oz.), portable enough to take to the gear shop (comes with batteries and AC adapter) and retails for about $130, although this place seems to have them for $67 (no idea if they’re reputable).

Good luck.

Here it is………

by Ultimate Support,

http://www.ultimatesupport.com/s.nl/sc.21/category.61/.f

Randy

First, from my perspective a digital hanging scale is probably the ideal type of scale, especially for obtaining your loaded pack weight. Individual, tiny pieces of gear can be placed in a stuff sack and hung from it. [Thanks, Randy, for the link to the hanging scale. It looks ideal for my/our purposes.]

However, when i decided to ditch my 30yr old analog scale ~2 mos. ago, i couldn’t find one that had both the resolution and range that i felt was required.

What i settled on was a digital kitchen scale by Salter available on-line from Bed, Bath, and Beyond for $50. It has an 11lb range in 0.05oz increments. [please, ‘click’ me; no, not that ugly dwarf avatar, “me” = this hyperlink]

It has a tare function, so if an item is too large for the scale’s bed/tray, i merely place a ~6oz clipboard diagonally on it, oriented towards the 2 o’clock position, so i can still see both the digital display and operated the tare/zero button and zero it out.

Ordering on-line was easy (you might find this item in one their retail stores???). Shipping was very quick.

It’s nice to know the weight of each individual piece of gear (these go into my XL gearlist spreadsheet). However, accumulated weighing errors (impt. to those “gram weenies” amongst us) can be minimized for obtaining final base pack and total pack weights by grouping gear into 2, 3, or 4 groups and performing fewer weighings – for all practical purposes any accumulated error from such a small number of weighings is essentially negligible, IMHO. If anyone can tell the difference b/t one or two tenths of an ounce in your pack, you’re a better dwarf than i.

I’d just go to Staples and buy a pelouze postal scale for individual items… and maybe also get a digital hanging scale for weighing the full pack. Not sure where you’re buy one of those… fishing place maybe?

David,

i checked bait and tackle shops a while back. they had some nice digital (and some analog) hanging scales, but they generally didn’t have the resolution needed for many individual UL items. at the time, i wanted just one scale. they would have worked fine for weighing an entire pack though, or some of the heavier pieces of gear.

I purchased a Salter stainless steel platform scale at Bed Bath & Beyond ($24 with 20% off coupon). It’s model #1015WH and has a capacity of 7 pounds, indicating in 1 gram or 1/8 oz increments. Also will zero out tare weight. Figured I wouldn’t have any single item that weighs more that that and if I did (large tent, for example) I’d just weight the individual pieces. I use a very light-weight plastic kitchen strainer bowl (and zero out the bowl weight) to contain unruly clothing, tent fly, etc. on the relatively small 4 1/2″ dia. platform.
Scale works great for weighing food portions to create indvidual servings from bulk and bagging freezer bag meals.