Snags with Tags

[Stephanie Jordan]

Companion forum thread to:

Snags with Tags

[James holden]

Just as a warning some companies like westcomb snip part of the factory tag to show that the item was purchased at a factory sale and thus has no warranty

So if uou snip yr tags you may be snipping away yr warranty

;)

[Mary D]

Have found that even with several tags per garment, the total removed doesn't register to 1 gram (0.1 oz.) on my postal scale. Plus I've lost all useful info such as brand name, size, fabric content and laundering instructions, which would be useful if I want to sell the item, or even for my own information. To say nothing of making the item impossible to return to the vendor.

Not worth the trouble, IMHO!

[Peter S]

I really enjoyed this :-)

[icefest From Australia]

I heartily approve of the humor used to write this.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I was rolling of the floor but I might have sniggered a couple of times.

[James Marco]

You mean Jon actually carries more than one set of underwear????? Ditch one and save weight!!!

[Tony Ronco]

RE: "he realized he didn’t know how to wash and care for his gear without the instructions provided on the tags. The disappointment continued when he was trying to dry out his gear after washing it, as he realized many of the tags doubled as hanging points."

yeah rrriight.

No need to create lame justifications for not removing tags.

Washing instructions – that's what google is for. (Assuming you simply can't remember cold water with woollite, hang dry … i.e. no bleach, fabric softeners, or hot dryer)

Drying without a hang tag point – (ah, well I guess the hang dry part is more easily remembered) … how about hanging from the waist or collar? or use clothes pins, or just drape the piece over the hanger or a clothes line? There are many options where the lack of a hang tag doesn't stop you.

If one wants to remove tags and enjoy the comfort of not having a scratchy tag, or the mental comfort of trimming a few grams off … fine. Take comfort in that or NOT.

HYOH.

[Dale Wambaugh]

I have always thought that trimming tags was like the iconic toothbrush handle and more important to the mindset of the hiker than real change in base weight. Kind of the Gram Weenie membership badge.

It gets me when people buy a product and then chop it up. It rewards the manufacturer for making the wrong product. Better to vote with your wallet and encourage the development of products that truly serve your needs.

[Gregory Edwards]

I save all tags cut off and attach to gear instructions, sales slips, etc. and use sharpie to mark size on all garments.

[Edward Z]

Sometimes I cut the tags off other people's gear. But I never touch the funderoos.

[Dale Wambaugh]

Yeah, that's weird. Keep yer paws off mah tags, Varmit :)

[Gary Dunckel]

"It gets me when people buy a product and then chop it up."

Now them's fightin' words, Dale.

[Dale Wambaugh]

Why pay more for a product you have to adapt to meet your needs? Doesn't it make more sense to buy from a manufacturer who gets it and will continue development along the same line? The dollars spent will not only get the initial product, but also support future products that you will want. If you buy a GoLite pack (for example) and adapt it, you do nothing to support the real innovators in the UL market (pick your favorite cottage maker).

I'm talking about cutting out whole back pads vs a simple strap trim. I've seen posts where people replaced whole panels in a pack to suit their needs. I would rather make my own from scratch than pay for a pack and then pour labor and parts into it.

[Bas Hommes]

Whenever I camp in rural areas I want to be stealth a bit. That's why I take off the (mostly white) tags. Also I've been shortening a toothbrush so it would fit better into a certain small sack. There are unknown reasons for people to do things.

[Mike Clelland]

I cut off as many tags as i can.

One reason I do this is because the reason I go into the wilderness is to get away from the oppressive mania of our modern culture. I hate having some little instructional or promotional text written by layers or the marketing department with me in the mountains. This is what I am trying to escape.

Also – I am skilled with a pair of scissors. It takes me just a few seconds to trim a tag and throw it away.

I will add that I know how to wash my clothes, and I wouldn't use that tag to tell me anyway.

If I am dedicated to the these tiny items, I will be more assuredly dedicated to the overall lightweight experience.

The author is correct, the paltry weight of these little tags is obviously insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But to me it’s more of a mind-set. If you dedicate yourself to these (seemingly) inconsequential items, you are setting yourself up with a heightened level of overall standards. This mind-set will trickle up and influence the big stuff too.

I use a pair of scissors and trim off anything I can, and then reweigh things. The act of shaving off small extraneous stuff will really reinforce my goal. My backpack, no matter the make or model, can always use a little trimming. I use a razor blade and scissors, and go to town on all my gear!

Mike C!

[Greg Mihalik]

Mike!!!

Good to know you're still kicking….and cutting.

[Dale Wambaugh]

I clipped my tags today
To see if I still feel
Them tickle-ing my neck
The only thing that's real
The scissors tore a hole
The old familiar fleece
Instructions now are gone
But I remember everything

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep my tags
I would find a way

Sorry Trent :)

[Gary Dunckel]

Interesting poetry, Dale.

Today I was sewing a failed seam on a TNF glove, and I noticed there were still a couple of labels inside it. They were carefully cut off to honor Mike's! presence. Then I got to thinking…

Dale, of course you are right about the overall idea of buying the right item to begin with, to encourage vendors to meet the actual needs of the consumer. But then there's another thing to consider–I enjoy hacking things to improve them to my taste. It's a hobby. I've actually done my surgery on 3 different GoLite packs, and I've then showed them to Coup and other GL employees to try to get them to see the light (I usually get blank stares from Coup and the design people, but kudos from the rank and file employees). I've hoped that I could encourage them to come up with packs that would serve us better.

So here's what I did during Boulder's recent deluge/flood. I picked up a silly student's "computer/book bag" day pack that GL had put ON SALE. It had scads of silly features, like a padded computer sleeve, a hydration bladder sleeve (I think), useless too-small water bottle pockets, and an inadequate pair of side compression straps. But since it only weighed 18 oz. for a 1525 cu. in. capacity, I decided it might be worth hacking. Here's the stock photo of the GoLite Daylite pack:

Note the water bottle pockets and the compression straps. The zippered front pocket is intended for storing pens and other small items.

So I removed 7.5 oz. of useless nylon, zippers, interior pockets, and shortened most straps. Then I added back some mesh pockets that actually do something, like carry a liter water bottle on each side, as well as a huge front pocket. Then I added a 1.5 oz. external titanium rod frame, put evo pads on the weenie waist belt, and modified the compression straps. I also employed scads of mini biners and silicone hair ties (the best rubber bands ever). The total weight of add-back things was 4.0 oz. Here's a front view of the final hack job:

Here's a side view. Note the locations of the 3 black mini biners on each side. These can be clipped to the titanium frame to effectively compress the pack completely. Then the huge mesh front pocket and side water bottle pockets can hold everything needed for a day hike away from camp. Also, note the modified side compression strap to which the silicone "rubber band" attaches to securely retain the 1 L. Platy. On each side of the pack, after the straps were sewn with a loop to hold the titanium frame piece, the straps were trimmed to 1". I heated a piece of ti rod until red-hot and pierced the strap to make a hole (thanks for this tip Mike C!). The heat melts the inside edges of the hole to strengthen it against tearing under stress. Then I just attached a silicone band to the hole, with the other end being secured by a mini biner. The biner and silicone hair tie are both of course removable, so they can be used for other things. I carry a few extra silicone hair ties (of various sizes–I seem to have a fetish for silicone).

So modifying a rather silly 18 oz. pack to make it 14.5 oz. (or 15.5 oz. if I want to keep the waist belt), with a far more functional set of features, seemed worth it to me. It will carry my 10# summer base weight kit just as well as my de-ionized Ion does, and the carry comfort is about the same for both. Fully set up with waist belt, they both weigh 15.5 oz. Now the goal is to catch Coup sometime and make him look at this modified pack. Maybe if I pester these guys enough they'll finally make a BPL Special Pack for us.

Important to note: No labels or logos were harmed during this pack-hack–they all were attached to the nylon pieces that I carefully removed.

Edit–to expand on the compression strap mod thing, and also to correct a couple of spelling errors…

[Greg Mihalik]

"Then I added a 1.5 oz. external titanium rod frame…"

Gary,
Do you have a thread or link to the Ti frame?

Where did you get the Ti rod?

What diameter rod?

Did you heat it and then bend-to-fit? Over a form? Against a drawn template?

Did you build a pocket or simply reinforce an existing spot?

BTW, VERY nice mod!

TIA

[Bob Gross]

Gary, is your modified pack still 1600 cubic inches?

Too many packs have their volume estimated by multiplying the rectangular dimensions. However, once filled with gear, they assume a more cylindrical shape. I guess we have to fill up a pack with ping pong balls or sand or something to be able to measure the true volume. Using water is kind of a problem for estimating volume, since lots of packs will leak. Using ice blocks might work better.

–B.G.–

[Greg Mihalik]

Sytrofoam "packing peanuts" work very well.

Then dump them into a box to get volume from HxWxD.

[Bob Gross]

Greg, doesn't styrofoam squish and deform from weight?

I guess it doesn't matter that much for a backpack.

–B.G.–

[Greg Mihalik]

Bob,
Nope, not much at least. I fill a pack, shape it to approximate what it would look like with my gear in it, mush it around a bit, drop it once or twice, then pour and measure. Then I drop the box a couple of times to settle things in.

I get Very close numbers across three samples.

[Bob Gross]

I don't find that many companies ship stuff packed in styrofoam peanuts anymore. Maybe I just buy the wrong stuff.

–B.G.–

[Gary Dunckel]

Hi Greg, thanks for the nice words.

The titanium rod is 6AL-4V .125" stuff. I had a couple of 5 foot pieces sitting in the corner of the basement war room, and I used one of those. A couple of years ago, Brendan Swihart over in Fruita was selling some tubular aluminum pack stays. I copied his bends with my titanium rod. I just bent it with a table top jig (it looks like a cribbage board, but with a steel base and carbide pegs), and I fine-tuned it by forcefully bending it over my knee. No heat treatment is necessary, but .125" ti rod is a bit of a bitch to bend by hand. Probably heating it would help, but I don't have a decent setup to do that. Oh, my source for the rod was probably through Titanium Joe. I bought a bunch of it when I first made the Stix, but then I outsourced the bending and I had some of the rod left over.

Actually, the titanium frame doesn't help a whole lot with this particular pack, since the carry load is just 11-13#. But it does prevent the empty pack from collapsing to the ground when I'm loading it up. But when I used one of Brendan's aluminum stays with my modified Jam pack, it made all the difference in the world. Before the mod, any weight over 20# was definitely uncomfortable to me. But with the mods, I can easily carry 25-27# without issue. I'll try to get the link to that mod thread, but I'll do it in another post (I don't trust this system to not delete everything I just typed).

Edit– I forgot to tell you that I sewed a little pocket into the waist belt where it connects to the pack. I also sewed a few thin black & white loops to the pack to further support the frame rod. These serve mainly to pull the body of the pack closer to the frame, and therefore to my body. On the Jam, I made a pocket out of 1/2" tubular webbing, which I sewed to the seam where the hip belt connects to the pack. All of my seams are placed into the existing seams of the pack, for greater strength. Now, I'm off to find that Jam link.

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