Your Repair Kit Contents

[Kenneth Jacobs]

I'm curious as to what everyone carries in their repair kit and the contents intended uses. Please share with us all what you carry and why so that we all may build better repair kits and ditch the things that don't really work well in the field.

KJ

[Andrew F]

Single use tube of krazy glue.
NeoAir patches.
Needle and polyester thread.
Two medium zip ties.
A 2×2" hybrid cuben patch.
A small and a large safety pin.
A 12" by 3" piece of grosgrain webbing.
In the winter, I add a small length of brass wire and bring a small multitool for repairing bindings. I usually also have a ski strap.

I've only ever needed to use the needle and thread, and NeoAir patches.

[Mobile Calculator]

…

[Bob Gross]

One or two zip ties
One foot of fine steel wire
A few small safety pins
A couple of feet of clear tent repair tape
A foot of duct tape

No tools

–B.G.–

[Nick Gatel]

Small piece of duct tape.
A patch if I bring an air mattress.

[Dale Wambaugh]

"Hotel freebie" sewing kit
Duct tape
Gorilla Glue super glue
Small roll 26ga wire
20' light braided seine line
Wescott scissors or Leatherman Style CS

Minimus.biz is a good source for sewing kits, small packs of tape, single use glue and also small sample size food and first aid items related to hiking.

[Scott S]

For thru-hikes: about 2 feet of duct tape.

For anything shorter: nothing.

[spelt with a t]

Zip ties, safety pins, gumbands, binder clips, omnitape, tenacious tape, and UV cure aquaseal. I keep meaning to add needle and thread and some spare cordage but haven't yet.

I also have a mini multi-tool but I consider that standard equipment since I use it for things other than repairs.

[Brian Johns]

I have a needle stuck in a tiny piece of cork with a nice length of dental floss spooled around it, a mini tube of superglue, a few squares of silnylon tape, and a couple of feet of duct tape. If I take an inflatable pad, I also take the TAR patch that comes free with their mats.

EDIT: to add that there is also a small safety pin somewhere in there.

[Arn Aarreberg]

I generally take what has been said above. I also include about 10 ft. of dyneema cord. I carry it as a bracelet that I take with me on every hike. I find it invaluable for a multitude of purposes and have had to use it many times. For me, duct tape and cord are the two things that I alway have with me while hiking.

[Phillip Asby]

This is helpful as I carried too much early on and could still benefit from some paring down.

Currently I have:

Tube of tenacious tape (multipurpose)
Two safety pins
Tube of seamgrip (might replace this with small tube of crazy glue)
Patch kit for Exped mat
about 4ft duct tape (I am mostly out with scouts and this might seem redundant to the tenacious tape I have it mostly for scout clothing or gear repairs on the spot)
Hotel sewing kit

I think adding a couple zip ties for no weight might be useful as mentioned above.
I also could reconfigure the sewing kti to something more useful

[Diane Pinkers]

I was musing on the contents of my repair kit, and I think I've done pretty well at controlling my paranoid "what-if?" brain that makes me want to throw everything in. The one part of my kit that keeps it from being in a small zip-loc is–the zip-ties. Long, stiff, don't fold up easily, I find them a challenge to package neatly and easily.

The ones I have are multi-use, not one-time zip-ties, so I suppose I could just coil them and call it good. But, I was wondering, how do other folks carry them? I'd like everything in a snack-size Ziploc, rather than the quart I'm carrying now.

The one thing I do have that isn't mentioned on much of the above list is a spare hip-belt buckle. My pack is still dependent on having a good hip-belt, and if it broke, I could slip this one into place and still carry everything with relative ease.

[Marc Kokosky]

3-5' of duct tape.
air mattress repair kit for whatever air mattress i'm using
hotel sewing kit
1 tube of single use krazy glue

[robert van putten]

I've never carried zip ties myself but I had a friend carry a whole bag of 'em on a cycle tour once, and he sure did use a bunch of 'em!
In particular I remember he used quite a few on his panniers.

Coil 'em up tight and maybe stuff 'em in their oun little baggie to keep 'em that way?

I’m surprised so few folks carry extra cord! What, never need to replace a shoe lace? Add an extra guy line to the shelter for bad weather? Replace a busted D ring or something on the pack with a temporary lashed fix? I used to always carry plenty of para cord for such things but carry a hank of spectra cord these days.

I also stow my extra fire makings and compass in my “repair” kit, so maybe it is more of a “what-if” kit!

I lives in a small ziplock bag and over the years seems to have gathered the following stuff –

Patches / glue fer thermarest pads.

Sewing kit – This packed in a small plastic tube and contains two needles, heavy button thread, two pins, two safety pins, and I think two buttons but I'm not sure!

Gorilla tape – The narrow 1" kind, about a foot I guess, wrapped around the sewing kit.

Book of paper matches in its own tiny zip lock bag

About 8' of strong, thin cord

One trioxane fuel bar for use as an emergency fire starter.

Silva compass, the tiny .9 ounce one with a sighting mirror.

I think that's everything. It weighs about three ounces and rides inside a small stuff sack along with my first aid kit, which is contained in another ziplock bag.

Edit – I used to carry the MSR wrench and a spare jet in the stuff sack fer me Whisperlight, but now that I use a Trangia they are a ting of the past!

[Glenn S]

The usual suspects, not much new to add, except for:

Eyeglass screws. I've had a lens pop out of my prescriptions before, only to find the screw had worked loose and fell out.

Credit card sized Fresnel lens. Only about a 3x, but only about 2g too. Good for seeing small splinters, or just for reading if my glasses go kaput. Firestarting on a sunny day too, but I haven't actually tried that one yet ;)

[Dale Wambaugh]

Knife
Scissors
Single use super glue
Duct tape
Light braided nylon seine line
Glowire or similar line
"Hotel freebie" sewing kit
26ga. wire

[Shane S.]

1 NeoAir patch
6" Cuben fiber repair tape
10" Tenacious tape
Single use Krazy glue vile
Sawyer Mini-filter replacement rubber washer
Half Dollar size replacement screen for my DIY water bottle cap pre-filter
2 rubber bands
very small amount of dental floss for sewing
Super sharp scalpel blade
2 needles
1 small micro tick tweezer (for splinters and such)
5ft of strong fishing line
1 AAA replacement flashlight battery

total: 1.12 oz

[rick .]

Duct tape, ~5' wrapped around a roll of gauze package
2-3 zipties
paracord: 2×2' and 1×5' piece. I'd curse then cut my bear hang line if I needed more.
sliding razor knife, the small snapoff kind (just got some derma-safes to try instead)

I generally let my leatherman micra (scissors etc) come along. Can't say I use it enough to be critical, but it's 1.75oz of goodies and my daily carry.

I'm not often more than a day from bailout, most things you can limp in. Those items are generally for a major shelter/pack rip, or sealing a hole/break in my body. For a longer trip I'd take this a bit more seriously, but I've yet to really need anything that wouldn't be fine til home.

[Delmar O’Donnell]

You folks with the hotel sewing kits…dump them. Very low quality thread. Make up your own with quality notions. Same weight or less… Do you need all those colors?…, but will hold up when the chips are down.

[Diane Pinkers]

What are folks using the super glue for? Is it part of patching your air mattress? I'm having trouble visualizing where it would be necessary. Could be part of the first aid kit, I guess, for small lacerations.

[Stephen M]

For me its Tenacious tape, cable ties and ironwire.

[Nick Gatel]

Other than tape, have any of you folks actually needed to use any of this stuff?

[Shane S.]

Good question Nick.

The only items I not needed yet have been: Krazy glue, fishing line, Sawyer Mini-filter replacement rubber washer,replacement screen for my DIY water bottle cap pre-filter or the dental floss.

[David Drake]

Yeah, good question. I've sewn a strap back on with dental floss, but that was back when I carried a too-heavy pack, and I prob. would have seen the problem if I'd inspected the pack more carefully before the trip. I doubt any of the seams on my pack are stressed to failure now. On the other hand, floss and a needle are multi-use.

I have had a pad get punctured, so patches seem prudent. The super glue I carry is prob. pointless, though.

[Stephen M]

Yes Nick,

I have used cable ties to fix buddies snow shoes and reattach a sole to a boot when the front of it seperated.
Have used cord (ironwire) to add extra guy points to a tent in a gale.

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