Pack Build-Along, Frame and All

[5shot]

These guys make the stays for the Marine ILBE, and they will make you what you need. Just send them a question and tell them what length you want. You can get them bent or not.

USMC Backpack ILBE Recon Corpsman Aluminum Stays | eBay

 

[GKPrice]

You ever haul an elk with that?

In the "old" days those are the packs we had to use and we got the quarters to the top just like we do nowadays with the $500-$900 packs - I vividly recall packing a hind quarter out of a particularly steep and nasty canyon with the hoof smacking me in the side of the head every time I slipped a step - This project is a very cool undertaking with some great innovative thought going into it -

 

[Felix40]

I experienced pretty much the same thing on my first elk hunt using one of those old frames. I went with the leg down so it was the hoof dragging the ground and tipping me over. Then I laid awake all night because I had a migraine from all the stress on my shoulders. It's fun to look back on those times but I sure would hate to have to do that again.

This is going to be quite the undertaking. My feeling is that you are going to want some padding on the shoulder blades because when you tighten your load lifters with a lot of weight it will suck the pack up against your back. If you don't then the weight is going to flop around quite a bit. Plus I would think it's more efficient to have the load closer to your body. Without padding it seems like it would rub. That's just my perspective though.

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

In the "old" days those are the packs we had to use and we got the quarters to the top just like we do nowadays with the $500-$900 packs - I vividly recall packing a hind quarter out of a particularly steep and nasty canyon with the hoof smacking me in the side of the head every time I slipped a step - This project is a very cool undertaking with some great innovative thought going into it -

Those old frames look like they'd hurt.

 

[Hunt'nFish]

Those old frames look like they'd hurt.

Compared to just throwing a hind over your shoulder and balancing it there, thor old frame packs were Cadillacs.
I still use a modern external frame pack for the heavy hauler needs.
Hunt'nFish

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

In the "old" days those are the packs we had to use and we got the quarters to the top just like we do nowadays with the $500-$900 packs - I vividly recall packing a hind quarter out of a particularly steep and nasty canyon with the hoof smacking me in the side of the head every time I slipped a step - This project is a very cool undertaking with some great innovative thought going into it -

Silly question but why did you leave the lower leg attached?

 

[DWarcher]

Those old frames look like they'd hurt.

You'd be surprised how comfy they were at hauling big loads.

 

[Tartan]

quick report. Learned a couple things after playing around with different layers of material this weekend and stitches types.

My Singer 6704 does in fact have some plastic gears. I was trying to do some more research on the machine. Couldn't find much of anything so I took off all the covers again to take a look. The two bevel gears driving the bobbin hook and rotating the presser feet are in fact plastic. Their coloring threw me off. From what I can tell, the rest of the gears and pully wheels are all metal.

No go on driving through the HDPE. Which is fine, I'll just make some tweaks to the design and I think all will be well. particularly after finding the plastic gears, I don't want to mess with it.

The machine had plenty of power to go through 2 layers of cordura and 3 layers of webbing, which is the most I currently have designed into the frame.

Any tips for settings for sewing on velcro? I need to play with my bobbin thread tension a bit and hoping that will help, but I was unable to get the stitching to pull up through the cordura when sewing on strips of velcro. Honestly not sure if this is a lack of upper tension, or too much lower tension.

I did get a little bit of puckering with 2 layers of cordura, so my gut tells me that the thicker thread has increased the bobbin tension significantly.

Overall, pretty happy with the results. Little bit more fine tuning and I think I'll be ready to start the serious work.

 

[Tartan]

Making some slow progress. Frame sheet is cut out, and I got half of the frame cover almost finished. Just need to sew on 1 more piece of webbing (the horizontal piece towards the top of the pic). Overall, I'm pretty happy with how its turning out. A crooked stitch here or there, but nothing I can't live with for the first try.

The 2" webbing will attach to the shoulder harness. The velcro in the middle is for the back padding. It will attach with some more velcro on the back side of the frame. I could just sew it in, but this way I can make a couple of different variations to try out.

2 1" sections of webbing with velcro towards the bottom to hold that side of the lumbar pad. The rings that are in there will be sewn into the lumbar pad.

The little tab on the bottom has velcro sewn onto it so that I can close it all up snug with the frame sheet in there.

Frame sheet

 

[WoodBow]

Your bobbin tension should be adjusted each time you change thread sizes. Hold the tag end of the thread between your fingers and the bobbin case in your hand. Drop the bobbin case. 1 or 2 inches of thread should pull out. If none pulls out, loosen the screw on the bobbin case until you are getting a couple inches before it stops. If it free falls, tighten it until you get a couple of inches before it stops.

If your top thread is showing on the bottom ( not pulling into the fabric) that is due to an inadequate amount of top tension. This is the most common limiting factor with home machines. There are some tips and tricks on how to increase the top tension on your machine beyond what it was designed to do. A lot of machines will start running out of power when you do this due to the increased force required to just pull the thread through the tensioning discs. The tighter weave of the material, the more tension that will be needed to pull the thread in. Velrco having essentially a solid backing, it will need a good bit of tension when using very heavy of thread.

Looks good so far. Keep it coming. How did you cut the frame sheet? It looks very precise and the rounded corners are well done.

 

[Tartan]

Your bobbin tension should be adjusted each time you change thread sizes. Hold the tag end of the thread between your fingers and the bobbin case in your hand. Drop the bobbin case. 1 or 2 inches of thread should pull out. If none pulls out, loosen the screw on the bobbin case until you are getting a couple inches before it stops. If it free falls, tighten it until you get a couple of inches before it stops.

If your top thread is showing on the bottom ( not pulling into the fabric) that is due to an inadequate amount of top tension. This is the most common limiting factor with home machines. There are some tips and tricks on how to increase the top tension on your machine beyond what it was designed to do. A lot of machines will start running out of power when you do this due to the increased force required to just pull the thread through the tensioning discs. The tighter weave of the material, the more tension that will be needed to pull the thread in. Velrco having essentially a solid backing, it will need a good bit of tension when using very heavy of thread.

Looks good so far. Keep it coming. How did you cut the frame sheet? It looks very precise and the rounded corners are well done.

I did finally get it sorted. I had to lower the bobbin tension as you described. Still had to increase the top tension too. I ended up running the thread once around the tension disc and I seem to be getting what I need. On most things I'm now able to use a tension setting of 6 to balance the threads and turned up to 9 (max) seems to be ideal for the velcro.

I still want to take a look at it and see if I can either shim the tension mechanism, or replace the spring. But for now, the loop around seems to be getting me where I need to be. I can get the lock to show on either side of the material depending on settings (except for the velcro of course)

I laid out some masking tape on the frame sheet so I could sketch the perimeter. I just ran a fresh razor blade along a metal yard stick, which got about half of the way through with light pressure. A quick bend at the cut fatigued the remaining material and it pulled right apart. The inside corners were cut carefully with a drill bit. The outside corners were just trimmed with a pair of scissors and everything got a light sanding to clean up the edge.

 

[GKPrice]

Silly question but why did you leave the lower leg attached?

didn't know any better at that time - I recall having to pack a couple of quarters over my shoulder too, now THAT was misery but we managed to laugh anyways

 

[WoodBow]

You can shim the discs but most times that will cause the tension to not release when you lift the presser foot. That's a real pain. A heavier spring would work. There are a lot of different tensioner designs. Most I have used have a conical spring, the end of which is straight and acts as a stop. A stop on the knob comes around and catches that. So you only get one complete turn of the knob of tension adjustment. Cutting off that piece of the spring will allow infinite adjustment.

 

[Tartan]

Thanks WoodBow. I'll have to take a dive into the mechanism and see what I can do.

I've gotten the frame finished up. Learned some lessons and had to pull a couple of stitches, but I'm very happy with how it's turning out so far.

Going to cut and bend some stays out of the 6061 that I have. I can always swap them out later. Then to start work on the rest of it.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Nice work. If the tension mechanism is like the one on my Kenmore it was noted to me on here you can remove the screw holding the knob on and remove it (pay attention to the placement of the internals), turn the tension 90deg (or such) w/o the knob on and reinstall it. That is what I did on mine, the knob goes to 12 (better than 11 ) and I was getting good stitches around 9-10 originally. Now I run it ~6.5 most of the time but have room to increase it still but when I back it off to zero it's like what was 3 originally (thus thin thread I run at 0 to 2 range now).

 

[TxTrapper]

Looks great!!!!!!

 

[5shot]

Looks great.

 

[Hunt'nFish]

Nice work. If the tension mechanism is like the one on my Kenmore it was noted to me on here you can remove the screw holding the knob on and remove it (pay attention to the placement of the internals), turn the tension 90deg (or such) w/o the knob on and reinstall it. That is what I did on mine, the knob goes to 12 (better than 11 ) and I was getting good stitches around 9-10 originally. Now I run it ~6.5 most of the time but have room to increase it still but when I back it off to zero it's like what was 3 originally (thus thin thread I run at 0 to 2 range now).

Yep, that's how I fine tune the tension mech.
Just a matter of finding the spring force range that gives you the results you desire.

Nice work BTW.
Hunt'nFish

 

[Tartan]

Got a little bit of work done this weekend. Took 3 tries, but I finally got something for the back padding that worked out. I'm not particularly happy with the stitching, but it will work. Sewing spandura has been a pain to keep a straight stitch. The good news is that everything is removable from the frame, so I can always make new ones. I initially thought I could sew everything together with the foam in there, which turned out to be a bad idea, so I ended up making it so that I could slip the foam in from the back.

Only got the one side done, but now that the hard parts done (figuring out how its actually going to go together) the second side should be easier.

I did take a good look a the tension mechanism. pics below. Please tell me if I'm seeing this wrong, but it looks like the dial is just changing the fulcrum on a pivoting arm. One end is attached to the tension assembly, the other end is attached to a spring. There is a small set screw attached to that spring. I attempted to turn that set screw in and out with no noticeable effect on the stitching.

Lowest tension

Highest Tension

 

[Manosteel]

impressive!