Home-brew gear??

steve-in-kville

steve-in-kville

Joined
Dec 25, 2001
Messages
1,139
Folks.... I've been doing some searching on the web for instructions for making my own gear. I specifically looking for links for a warm-weather sleeping bag, tents and a twig stove. I would like to hear from anyone who has actually made their own stuff.

Many thanks in advance.
 
On this site you can search gasification stove and pull up thread I did several months ago. It is a easy twig burning stove that I have used in the past with very good results.

I have not seen many home made tents but you can search some DIY Tarp threads.

Good luck.
 
Also do a search for Ikea. A couple threads using an Ikea utensil thingy. That's what I'm gonna try.
 
Do a search for the original tarptent plans, the bilgy tent, the ray way tent, and look through the diy subforums in the different backpacking forums. Ray way also has plans for making a backpacking quilt, there are several plans out there for making your own quilt.
If you're gonna be doing some actual backpacking (I.e. More than 5 miles a day, for more than 1 day) look into pepsi can stoves, supercat stove and the zen pressurized stove to save some weight and space over the wood stoves. Plus most parks don't allow camp fires or wood burning of any kind.

That being said, if you are just doing some car camping, it would hard to make something for less money, that would be as durable as just getting some Coleman gear. That's just about all I use for car camping, is Coleman brand tents, bags, lanterns, stoves, etc. They are hard to beat for the price, and they last forever.
 
Have you checked BCUSA forums? There are all kinds of tutorials on homemade gear and repurposed items. I know one recent thread where a guy made a very nice tipi out of half a surplus parachute.

Hope this helps
David
 
ray way also has a make your own mora knife kit... its a fun thing to do on a saturday afternoon and after you have a knife and leather sheath you put together in your own style.
 
Here's my favorite site for checking out camping gear, both homemade and store bought. A lot of the posters on there are very into making their own gear, and making it extremely light-weight.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/index.html?id=boahVhD4:24.105.186.89

I haven't made my own sleeping bag, but I did make a liner for my 32 degree bag that extends it's effective rating down to about 15-20 degrees. I've slept just fine at 25 degrees. My shelter is a 8x9 tarp with mosquito netting sewn into three sides. When the weather's rough I set it up tent style, and if it's mild I set it up like a lean-to. My walking stick doubles as a pole for one end and I've never had a problem securing the other. For traveling really light you can't beat a bivy sack, but it's not the most comfortable way to get some sleep, esp if its drizzling on you. For a twig stove I just use the heat shield for my pop-can alcohol stove made from aluminum flashing. It doesn't use a double burn method, but it works fine when I'm low on fuel or have plenty of time.

This is a fantastic site for homemade stove info:

http://zenstoves.net/
 
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I have been having to improvise and even make some of my gear lately due to financial issues. Learning to improvise and make due with what you have is very important.
 
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