$4 Failure

OK. This was an experiement. I needed a light waterproof outer cover for my large sil-nyl stuff sack that I strap on my external frame pack. Because of the cost of the sil-nylon stuff bag, I simply wanted to prolong its life. It did not have to be exceedingly strong, because the inner bag basically takes all the stress. So I bought a $4 kids poncho (Coleman) at WalMart. I cut out a bag and sewed it up. By the time I finished sewing there already were tiny holes simply from handling the material. So, if you really want a poncho for your kid, DO NOT use the Coleman el-cheapo! It would probably last 5 minutes on a kid!

How big a piece of sil nylon do you need or what size stuff sac? I can sew ya one up or send ya the fabric I have lots of leftovers?

Wouldn't a plastic bag do the job? Or am I missing something?

I need an outer bag to protect my expensive sil-nylon bag from rips when I go off-trail. I do not want to trash a $25 bag everytime I go out. I have been using an old REI packcloth stuffsack and it is now full of tears and holes. I was looking for cheap material to make a cheap light outer bag. A plastic bag would just get ripped up. Anyway, the post was essentially about how flimsy and worthless the material is on Coleman ponchos.

Why have 2 layers of light weight material when a single layer of a heavier material might work out better?
@ layers of 1.3oz material = one of 2.6oz.

OK. I guess a lot of folks have never used an external frame pack. When using an internal frame, you put your sleeping bag in a light (say sil-nyl) bag and then put that bag in the bottom of your pack. Your pack acts as the outer bag. With an external frame pack, you use a stuff sack and tie this on the bottom, under the packbag. Bulky stuff goes in here - be it sleeping bag (stuffed in its own bag), tent, pots and pans, etc. The external bag takes a beating, so will not stay waterproof long. Similarly, an internal frame pack takes a beating and will not remain waterproof - hence - they are usually not made of waterproof material. Since the bag I want for my external frame pack will get ripped and poked, I am looking for something tough but light and mainly cheap -ideally cheap enough to be disposable - simply throw it out after each backpack season. Tyvak comes to mind, but it is hard to buy small quantities. The large size oxford cloth bags sold at REI weigh about 4 ounces. But it is not cheap - yes cheaper than sil-nyoln. I am just trying to think of a better solution.

daisy
you can get small quantities of tyvek from intothewind.com.

send me your info and the size of tyvek you are looking for...i think i have roughly 3 feet of the std width roll left from my groundsheet...i obtained for free so i will certainly share the wealth...and its pretty tough i imagine you'd get a few trips out of it...at least it would take nothing more than your sewing time to test

marknmielke@gmail.com

Could you use an Ursack as the outerlayer and then put your food into it in camp?

Hey Daisy, what about cuben stuff packs? I went looking for cuben to make a tarp out of, but when I went searching all that came up were cuben stuff bags. Not sure of the price though, I am sure more than 4 bucks

Thanks for the ideas. Cuben is expensive. I have an Ursack - do not want to stuff my sleeping bag in something that has food odors. Thanks for the tyvek offer - but I ran out of time - am leaving on my BIG trip Tuesday at the crack of dawn! So I bought a granite gear nylon sack- $12 and 3.2 oz. A bit over what I consider "Cheap" and certainly not as tough as I would like.

WD,
I have some remnants of old tent floors from some Eureka Timberline tents that I've hacked up.

How much do you need. I also have some tarp pieces from same tents.

Send me a pm if you're interested. Or I can whip you up a stuff sack pretty quick if you send me general dimensions.
I've been using them to replace the worn out stuff sacks of our troop tents.

Tango61