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To me MYOG usually means "Modify Your OwnGear"


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Home Forums Gear Forums Make Your Own Gear To me MYOG usually means "Modify Your OwnGear"

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  • #3624242
    Eric Blumensaadt
    BPL Member

    @danepacker

    Locale: Mojave Desert

    I’ve modified backpacks, tents, clothes, stoves, etc. since the ’70s and am still at it.

    Gear I use often “needs” modification to suit my personal requirements like a stronger, more wind-resistant tent, a better zipper baffle in my -30 F. parka, an entire flat aluminum stay frame added to a wimpy “frame sheet”, etc. And so far I’ve always made the gear better, at least IMHO.

    The first symptom of this affliction was in the late ’70s and usually as I was lying awake under my tarp  before dreamland. Thoughts of how I wanted to change this or that with my backpacking gear would pop into my head. At first I ignored these ideas upon returning home but then on the next trip, yep, same ideas plus a few more made me realize I’d better “improve” my gear.

    So I scratched the itch and began modifying. A North Face Ruthsac, one of the first internal frame backpacks and first project, was modified by turning a single compartment, zip open pac to a two compartment pack with a zip open divider between them just in case I still needed one large compartment.

    So, while having made only a few things like knee high gaiters and  two pouches, my list of modded gear constantly grows. The modded items I’ve sold were very well received by the buyers so I guess I do know “a thing or two”.

    I remember my first Tarptent Moment was a single wall tent. I wanted to run the crossing pole under the fly for more support. Henry Shires said it couldn’t be done B/C the poles would be stopped by the netting at each end. So I sewed a Velcro strip to the netting at each end, melted a hole for the X-ing pole through the Velcro and sewed a mating Velcro strip at its top end to the first Velcro strip so it would close the hole for the X-ing pole.

    Worked like a charm and the guy that bought it liked to too as it also made the tent free standing.

     

    #3624277
    Sam Farrington
    BPL Member

    @scfhome

    Locale: Chocorua NH, USA

    Eric, kudos on your for selling all those mods.

    Have never sold any of my mods, but a lady friend sold a Hubba mod (sil floor, sil fly, carbon poles) that brought it down to around 2 1/2 lbs.  (She retired from backpacking, but we still did trail maintenance together.)  One of the short carbon struts broke at the hub, so left the carbon ridge pole, but redrilled the hub and replaced the four carbon struts with Easton .344 tubes, which added back an ounce or two.  This was OK because the break happened at her home in the storage sack, and not during one of her long distance backpacks (Phew!).  Moral, don’t use hubs with carbon poles, even though I have found better carbon tubing now. (The carbon ridge pole was made from struts from a Tarptent Scarp.)  But was the tent sale still a sign of a cooling relationship?  She was impressed with the construction, though.  (‘All those neat little red sharpy lines.,’ as if a guy could not possible be so neat.)  She also thought I spent way too much time working in the basement workshop.  A cautionary MYOG tale?

    Long story short:  Would need an auctioneer to get rid of all the mods and materials in the basement.  MYOG is an addiction, and one must suffer the consequences.  There is no going back.

    #3624986
    Diane “Piper” Soini
    BPL Member

    @sbhikes

    Locale: Santa Barbara

    Long story short: Would need an auctioneer to get rid of all the mods and materials in the basement. MYOG is an addiction, and one must suffer the consequences. There is no going back.

    MYOG pretty much for me is limited to making my own clothing or clothing mods and small things like pouches and bags. And yes, for me all the materials in the basement, plus all the failures that contain just enough useful fabric for maybe some other project, form the consequences.

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