Finally finished a pack I'd been slowly working on over a couple weeks. 210D dyneema x for most of the pack with leno mesh, 3d spacer mesh, some 400D reinforcement and a little 70D making an appearance. The design is basically the same as a modified ion I made a few years ago that has sort of fallen apart and smells of cat urine. For this one I opted to make my own frame instead of using the GG one from my previous pack. The frame is made from the .340" poles from quest and weighs about 2.5 oz. Total pack weight is 20.6oz which I'm very happy with considering I wasn't exactly minimalist with the features.
I'm pretty proud of how well the shoulder straps and their pockets turned out. I was able to make the pockets big enough to hold my garmin foretrex comfortably and the zippers can be used one-handed. Also, nothing but the perimeter stitching is sewn through the 3d-mesh. I don't like when bartacks make an uncomfortable lump that can sit right on your collarbone. Everything was secured to the dyneema x before it was sewn to the mesh.
On this and my other pack, I made lumbar support by crudely sewing 3dmesh over a couple strips of 3/8" foam. The main two pieces of the hipbelt are attached to this with double thick leno mesh about 3-4 inches wide. This is my way of getting some airflow to the hotter parts of my back/waist. The rest of the hipbelt each has a piece of 3/8" foam and there are no bartacks going through this either. Hopefully the dyneema will be able to handle the stress on it's own. The hipbelt pockets could be deeper for more volume.
Things I would change would be to make a wider top pocket, and a taller and wider front pocket. The front pocket is pretty tough to jam anything in when the pack is full.
