My first cuben backpack project

that is a work of art! Seriously awesome work there! How much Cuben and how much time did that take?

And of course, the all important question, how much does the pack weigh?

oh, I forgot the most important thing. The pack itself is around 180 grams and the volume is about 22L. It's nice size for a day trip or a ultralight multi-day trip. The removable sleeping pad is about 86 grams. The whole pack uses about 1 yard of cuben.

Not including designing, Pattern making took me one day, but it's some how based on my regular backpack so it's quicker than normal. And then I spent about 2 days to cut and sew.

Excellent craftmanship and excellent photography.

Hanchor is a brand name that I've never heard.

–B.G.–

I'm impressed! It was a pleasure to read your post and look at the photos.

Will you be selling these on your etsy site?

I made the side of front panel and bottom panel connecting to back panel curved just like torso of human, so that when the pack is packed it fits the user better.
The back panel is simply rectangular to hold foldable sleeping pad well.
The height of the bottom panel is made as short possible to make the pack lighter, when it still provides nice protection for the abrasion when the pack is put on the ground.

There are 11 pieces of xpac,10 pieces of cuben, 4 pieces of 3D spacer mesh, 13 piece of webbing, 1 piece of female velcro, 1 piece of male velcro, a piece of string,a piece of #3 zipper, a piece of grommet, two 1/2" ladder lock, one 3/4" dualside release buckle, and a side release line lock buckle to make this pack. Though this is not many for a pack, making the reinforcement nicely indeed took me a lot of time.

Thanks for the praise and interest. Actually I'm still hesitating to sell cuben products, since I've been already stocking a lot of different materials. And importing fabrics from abroad even raise the cost of expensive cuben. But, I'll think about it:)

BTW, I'm not putting new products onto etsy site for a long time, but focus on the official site. Though I'm running a bag company now, this is the site backpackinglight.com inspired me to start this business. Just like the founder of many other brands, I still like to make my own gear and please feel free to ask me any question about sewing.

Just perfect — one of the most impeccable pieces I've seen on BPL. All the stitching is exact, the design well thought-out. Just gorgeous. Congratulations!

I'm impressed with your workmanship!!!

Very nicely done. What sleeping pad are you using?

Brian P.

I’ve sourced 4~6mm thick special PE foam for backpad and shoulder pad etc..
I found it provide more stiffness than EVA or casual PE foam when they are at the same weight. Furthermore, folded pad keeps the shape even stiffer.
I usually make this kind of foam to be sleeping pad which can be folded to be 4 layers. I wouldn’t make the backpad thicker than about 1 inch, since when the backpad is too thick, the center gravity of the pack will be too far from the user.

I think this kind of backpad make the pack rigid and make me carry more. I usually don’t use aluminum stay, since I can carry a pack with this kind of backpad upto 35 pound with ease if I pack the pack carefully(see my previous post about packing).
How do you pack a frameless pack?
Besides, some people have also tested my cobble backpack which is equipped with folded pad along with the #shaped frame system which weights 38 oz in total. They found that they can carry more than 50 pounds comfortably.