Right. I’ve been lurking here for a year or so and learning from you guys. This last year I decided to start making things for backpacking to get my weight down and just for a bit of fun. Not only that but as a tall guy 6’4″ making my own stuff seems to be the only way to get something that fits.
It’s about time I started posting about what I have made. Just a quick post this evening to get myself started on that process.
Today: Homemade foldable backpacking dog bed for my springer spaniel
Purpose:
A lightweight foldable dog bed that would give my dog some insulation against the ground but which would be compact enough to be folded up and carried in his dogpack or that would fit in an outside pocket on my rucksack (made that too).
Raw materials:
Scraps of heavyish silnylon in horrible emerald green colour
5mm closed cell foam camping mat
Method:
1. Find inspiration online. Settled on a design from Ruffwear called the ‘landing pad’. Look exactly what I was after but a bit expensive.
2. Cut shape out of 5mm camping mat.
3. Cut that shape up into roughly even sized pieces and number them so they fit back together properly later. I really wasn’t accurate about any of this project, it was just a bit of an experiment.
4. Draw the shapes onto your silnylon and cut out two peices. Sew them together around the edge leaving one end open to put the bits of camping mat in.
5. Slide one row of mat in at a time and then stitch alongside them to hold them in place. Repeat for each row.
6. Sew up end and tack some pegging loops on each end. If your dog is like mine he can move a bed around a lot so when in my small tent porch I peg the bed down. If I didn’t I would wake up in the morning with a cold dog sitting on the cold floor and the bed bunched up in a corner.
7. Fold it up and marvel at how compact it is.
8. Then weigh it of course.
9. Add a dog.
Conclusion:
V light, fits in the dog pack easily. Dog seems to like it. I found that in the UK in late September there were a couple of nights where it was barely enough in terms of ground insulation. The dog (Charlie) sleeps in my tent porch wearing a thermal dog coat. Summer this is fine, and possibly too much to be honest but as the heat was leaving the ground in late September I found that Charlie would have benefitted from something at least twice as thick, or a doggy sleeping bag on top.
What next:
I am cutting up an old synthetic sleeping bag to make a doggy bag for him for colder trips and I am making a thicker slightly larger dog bed to take in winter. I use a v light blow up exped mat myself but use closed cell foam as my pack frame/back padding on my homemade rucksack. I am going to turn this backpad into a thicker more insulated dog bed which serves double duty as my pack frame/back pad. I cant see this adding more than about 50g to the weight but will give him a much more comfortable winter/cold sleep in the tent. After short walk I think this thin pad would be enough for him but after a long days walking he simply is too tired to keep his body temperature quite where it should be and a warmer pad is needed.
I have a diy tent, net tent, backpack and a few other bits to post so will get around to those soon.
Cheers
Paul
