Scales?

I was able to snag a brand new Pelouze 5lb postal scale on a eBay last year for about twenty dollars. Staples sells them for closer to forty. It's good for small stuff. To weigh your full pack you could get yourself a digital hanging fish scale.

Or jump on you home scale sans pack and then with and get a get decent measurement.

I got mine at Staples for about $30.

Weighs up to 5 lbs.
Battery operated
Has tare weight setting
Reads both metric and english
Measures to 0.1 oz or 1 gram

If anything weighs over 5 lbs, I'm not packing it!
If you have a bomb-proof, alpine, mountaineering tent for four, you can still weigh the separately the poles, fabric and stakes. Put it all in a spreadsheet to find out how much your total pack weighs.

I'm very happy with mine.

Purchased this some time ago; use it all the time not only for gear but weighing out food portions. Use a light plastic bowl on top to contain bulky items.

Stainless surface, 7 lb capacity (oops, forgot – 3 kg), accurate to one gram, displays either metric or English, tare.

$30 at Bed Bath & Beyond and Linens & Things, etc.

Got mine at Office Depot – $40 I think. Weighs up to 11lbs (great if you want to double check your entire base weight after measuring and packing all the items). Accurate up to 0.1 oz. (That probably isn't accurate enough for SUL… lol!)

These all look pretty small. How do you weigh things like shirts, pants, your empty pack, etc.? I don't understand how you get all of an item's weight onto the scale without having part of it's weight resting on something other than the scale itself.

> How do you weigh things like shirts, pants, your empty pack, etc.?
Put them in a stuff sack – and then deduct the weight of the sack (or even tare it out!).

Sheer brilliance! Thanks!

I have the same scale as Michael Davis. got it for $25 from Office Depot a few years ago.

To measure things that don't fit I use various techniques. The one that seems to work the best is setting the cover for a 50 CD spindle on the scale, taring it out, and setting things on it. This is how I measured the weight of my pack. You can also get a small box and set it on top of the spindle, tare them both out, and put things in the box. I measured one of my sleeping bags like this cause I was too lazy to stuff it in the stuff sack.

For things like socks, shirts, etc, I wad up the item and put a thin rubber band around it. It works great. The rubber band doesn't even register when put on the scale by itself.

I too use the rubber band method — great for clothing, backpack, tent, tent poles, etc.