Pack leaning backwards

[Aaron W]

First post

[Aaron W]

I made my own standard 30 liter backpack with a 17″ torso.

For the life of me, I can not get it to fit right on my back.

It has a huge lean back.
Ive tried varying every angle I can for it to fit right and nothing.

It needs to be pulled off my lower back about 3″ to sit right.

Anything you can think of to help would be appriciated

[Aaron W]

I’ve tried 15 different ways to add a photo??????

[Jerry Adams]

maybe your pictures are too big?  has to be less than 1MB.   you have to resize.  I use “paint” because it’s free.

[Aaron W]

Finally got the photo uploaded.

[Ivo Vanmontfort]

The height is to short i think. Make him smaller and higher

and you better use contoured side panels.

Read the links (David Chenault)

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/105362/

[Jerry Adams]

yeah, it’s like the bottom of the pack is on the small of your back, rather than further down where your hips are.

[James Marco]

I do not think the height of his carry has much to do with it. If he attempts to lower the pack, it will lean back. I agree it is sitting on the small of his back and using his hips as a “shelf” more or less locking the bottom in. Soo, when he loosens the shoulder harness, it doesn’t slip down much, rather it slips back away from his back. This will make the pack feel loose and floppy, especially side-to-side, on his shoulders. Take it out for a short 1mile hike. See if it wants to settle down on your butt and tightening against your back. Otherwise, you will be prone to blisters from all the friction. But, I believe the problem is with how the pack is loaded, not so much the actual fit. With no hip-belt, you have a wide range of lengths before you need to rebuild it.

This is rather typical for a frameless pack with no hip belt. A couple things that may help. You need to work on HOW the pack is loaded. Note the round shape of the pack against your back. This is always a problem since your back is more or less flat. The rocking on the round is a problem. So you tend to over-pull the straps to flatten it somewhat. Relieving the pressure does little, because the center round is still applying pressure against your back and has enough friction to hold it there. Except your shoulders now have no contact with the pack, exacerbating the rocking, making it feel loose and floppy. In the picture, note the large distance between the the panel against your back and the seam. I would recommend to get rid of the round. There are a couple ways to do that.

Fold up your CCF pad to the width or perhaps a little more of your pack. Put that in first, against your back. (If you use an inflatable pad, you need something else, of course.) I used to load up my old Trek this way with a cut down pad, taped together with duct tape. This made a pad about 3″ thick, 10-1/2″x20″. (I am 5’9″ tall so a 5’3″ or 63″ pad was enough to sleep on along with my drybag used for a pillow.) Then the rest of the gear was loaded inside with my drybag/sleeping bag/sleeping bag at the bottom, a food bag on top of that, and any spare clothing/ditty bag/pots&pans above that. But the Trek was a huge pack at around 4400ci.

Not quite as good, but if you use an inflatable pad, you can roll this up into a 20″ tube. Also roll up your tent into a 20″ tube. Put these on the sides of the pack with your sleeping bag, below and between them to keep them spread. You will have to experiment with sizes, compression sacks and what not to find the exact dimensions. Then load up your food bag and put this between them, with cloths/dittybag/pots and pans rounding out the top.

Either methode will flatten the pack a lot. I believe this will help with carry. You want the pressure inside the pack to be towards the *sides* and not the front/back.

Again, you can carry a too-small pack without a hip-belt. If it starts sitting lower on you, without feeling floppy, it will also start feeling tighter to your back. But in any case, I like a hip-belt for anything more than 10lbs.

[Jerry Adams]

maybe the pack needs to be taller so the bottom is at the hips

where the shoulder straps attach should be at the same height as the top of your shoulders.  So the shoulder straps go straight/level from top of shoulder to pack.  Pretty close to what you have.  Except it should be a couple inches higher.

add a hipbelt

[Aaron W]

James,

Thanks.  I’m not looking at making the pack dimensions any different as far as length or width.  It’s a standard 17″ torso and being without a hipbelt, it needs to be small.   It’s also already really narrow. and making it longer would mean a bigger pack, so not an option. I am also not looking for a pad to be necessary fix.  I would rather change the pack the fit correct in the first place.

I’ll try messing with the torso length to see if that helps.  There is not going to be load lifters or a waist belt on it.

This is a 7 ounce, small pack  around 25 liters for loads around 12-15 pounds max.

I’m obviously doing something wrong on the torso, even though I want it to sit on the small of your back, it may not be able to work that way?

[Jerry Adams]

I think 17 inches is pretty short for a torso length, just looking at one REI backpack, they had a range of torso size 16 to 23 inches

[Aaron W]

Yes, but that’s a backpack, not something tiny like I’m making.  The Z-packs is riding in the same location in the small of the back, but seems so easily ridding in the perfect spot???

[R]

I think the simplest thing to try would be mounting the top of the shoulder straps higher on the pack.  This could begin as simply as pinning on 2 pieces of webbing to serve as temporary straps to see if it helps and find the best place to move the real straps to.

 

[Jerry Adams]

maybe it’s just your back?

maybe just use it and see if it works?

[Daryl and Daryl]

Packs have a mind of their own.  I’m made small changes to packs and found they can go from comfortable to unwearable real fast.

I suggest you experiment some more.   Add or lengthen the straps temporarily by buckling or tying on some additional webbing.

What happens when you only partially fill the bag, wear the bag lower down on your back, wear the bag with the shoulder straps loose or tight, etc.  This non-thinking trial and error approach might result in some ideas/ insights…..or not.

 

[James Marco]

I don’t think I agree with you, Aaron. The pack is riding about an inch to two inches higher on the small of your back than Joe is picturing. If you set the pack straps at exactly 17″ from the bottom, they will need to be moved up to around 18-1/2″.

[Cameron M]

I also think that the pack length is too short, and I think that James has correctly identified the biggest problem of the tubular shape. Pack it differently, make it flat, or…make a frame. The picture of Joe shows a much flatter pack. I stopped bothering with frameless once I got my Arcblast. It just works.

[JCH]

I dont know jack about designing packs, but to me there are 3 clear differences between the 2 photos posted:

1. The Nero is wider than it is deep and thus has a much flatter shape front-to-back.  Aaron’s pack is appears to be nearly cylindrical.
2. The Nero’s shoulder straps attach at the very top of the pack. Aaron’s attach at least 4” below the top.
3. Joe’s back is fairly flat, whereas Aaron’s appears to have a more pronounced “s” shape, although this could be exaggerated due to the slightly different angles from which the photos were taken.

I would expect 1 & 2 to have significant effects and, if correct, 3 almost certainly would as well.

[Lester Moore]

+1 on the Nero being flatter on the back. The Nero also has a longer and more appropriate torso length and better side panel contouring (the pack curves top to bottom to conform to your back rather than being a straight cylinder). The Nero also appears to have a contoured bottom panel to help keep the load from hanging off your butt. A picture is worth a thousand words…

[Aaron W]

Thanks everyone.
The Nero looks very curved, which is funny because I put a 2″ curve in mine and it does nothing.
Although that nothing is more from being in the small of my back.

I’ll drop it down about 3″ and see what the outcome is.

 

[James Marco]

Aaron, try unloading the pack and reloading using the two “tubes” for structure on the outside of the pack. Then use your sleeping bag, cloths and food to help “spread” the load sideways as I mentioned previously. You *can* deal with a too small pack provided there is no hip belt. As I said, it seems to catch on the small of your back. Note that on the Nero it sits about 1-1/2-2″ lower…just on the larger butt muscles. I would hike the pack up, after reloading it, and place another dry bag (about 4″ of space) below that locked in front and rear with shorter lengths of paracord. A locked “slipery hitch” is easy to tie, about as fast as dealing with a snap buckle, pulling it tight and daisy chaining excess around the adjusting end. But, by raising the pack up where it belongs, you will have problems getting your water bottles out of the side pockets.

Anyway, try several different arrangements: all vertical, all horizontal, horizontal bottom/vertical above, vertical bottom, horizontal above. Not sure there is enough room to add a perimeter of tubes. You can also try sewing in two “arrow shaft” pockets, and making a couple of filler caps to epoxy into the tubes (or use a fitting to make two equal length tubes you can use as the lower pole on a modified “A” frame. Like this:

JCH, I believe the straps are both located at the top of the body/extension collar seam (your item 3 above.) Aarons top is only a bit more full than the Nero.

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