Well, the 20Liter top loader is off to Pakistan on Thursday with Kelly Cordes on his trip with Josh Wharton. No doubt that they’re going to do something closer to the border of insane than genius, but I wish them the best and I look forward to seeing them when they get back. The 20 liter took a bit to get it together right-I think it was 5 iterations to date-but I think that it’s almost done.
As should be obvious in this picture, this pack is also the first ever pack I’ve made with the logo on the outside of the pack. I am a bit embarrassed about this advertising, but Kelly (and all the rest of my friends) insisted on it. I guess that I will continue putting the logos on the outside of the packs when they are sponsored gear. The bottom of the pack is X-Pac fabric–the same fabric used in the rest of the packs, and the top is the new silicon impregnated spinnaker cloth that I’m trying out.
The red fabric is interesting. It’s a 30d hi-tenacity nylon which is quite stiff due to the coating process it goes through. The silicon impregnation is something else: this stuff really does not want water on it. It almost seems hydrophobic, but at the same time, I’m not sure what’s going to happen with it in a real rainstorm. The lid is a work in progress: the final lids will have something a bit more substantial, with a zipper and a bottom part to actually wrap around the front of the pack.
I made some contoured shoulder straps for the pack that I liked. I have to make them an eensy bit larger and turn them out if I make them from regular fabric instead of the spectra. In this case, I suspected that Kelly would rip out the ‘padding’ and do his best to lighten them up. Since the spectra is a very very stiff fabric, I didn’t think there was much point in turning them over, so I just left them inside out. It looks kinda neat, but it wouldn’t last i don’t think…
The velcro and the quick release on the shoulder straps is so KC attach it to a gear sling. I might end up manufacturing a double gear sling that would go with this pack, but that is so fringe that I’m not too sure about it. If I can come up with 50 people who will actually buy the damn thing, fine, otherwise, well, I don’t think so. And with only fifty people buying the pack/gear sling combo, the price is going to be about $150 or so. If not more.
The pack ended up weighing 7 ounces. The production one should weigh a bit more, as there will be an additional D-Clip at the bottom near the triangle to clip the pack onto your big pack. The straps slide back into the pack so you can get them out of the way, and there is an additional pair of webbing straps–folded inside in the above picture–that attach to double gear slings.
Any questions?
