Was thinking of purchasing a small scale to measure individual items that I place in my pack.

Any recommendations?

My wife is a chef, so she has a kitchen scale that does a pretty good job...

And I don't have to explain why we need more equipment!

I bought the inexpensive digital kitchen scale from Walmart. Weighs up to 10 lbs. Works great. I think they're $20 now - I got it for $10.

There are tons of small postal scales on Ebay as well.

Spring loaded kitchen scale. Tough, cheap, and last.

I have a kitchen scale as well, but notice that it's not very accurate in the lower ranges, say under 40grams or so. If you're really crunching numbers

Matt

I have the DYMO postal scale bought at Walmart (about $20). It has a 3 pound limit. I primarily weigh food bags so did not need a high weight limit. So far it is good. What I like the most is that it automatically turns off after a few minutes to save batteries. It is small and easy to haul around and I can even take it with me in the car to weigh last minute purchased items. Because it is small, it is hard to weigh big items because they slop over the edges. A postal scale will be more accurate than a kitchen scale. But it is more fragile.

I have had it a year. I previously had an expensive postal scale (from the USPS)and it quit working after I accidently put too much weight on it. I think the expensive scales break just as easily when abused as the inexpensive ones. Given my record of breaking stuff, I chose the cheap one!

Well, if you are going to go all gram weenie on us, there is a postal scale. For myself, I can tell which things are lighter than others on the kitchen scale. If I am worried about weight at all, I load the pack up and weigh the whole load. A really simple way to tell if item A is lighter than item B (A and B would be used for the same purpose) is a simple counter balance. You don't really need to buy a scale for that. But that's just me, and I do not count grams (usually).

It's nice, and saves a lot of math, to get a digital postal scale that has a "tare" function. That means you can weigh large or fluffy items that need to be on a tray or held down by something without having to subtract the tray (I use a cookie sheet) or whatever I hold the fluffy item down with.

Mine is a postage scale, Pelouze, weighs to nearest 0.1 ounce or 1.0 grams, has a tare function, maximum weight 5 lbs. (I hope nobody has a single item weighing more than that!). It was $25 when I got it at Office Depot but like everything else the price has gone up since 2006.

Of course, such a scale (like all good backpacking gear) has multiple uses. If you cook from European recipes (they weigh ingredients instead of measuring) it's absolutely essential (and, IMHO, more accurate for baking, especially measuring flour). It can, of course, be used to measure postage. That's how I check my scale's accuracy every spring just before April 15--weigh tax returns on mine and then at the PO. Dieters find an accurate scale useful for weighing portions.

My scale is small enough that I can cram it in my purse when shopping. The clerks at REI give me a lot of dirty looks as I go through weighing items and putting them back on the shelves. I never trust manufacturers' weights--the "cottage" manufacturers are pretty good about accurate weights, but most of the big-time manufacturers consistently understate their weights. I have several times returned items that weighed 4-8 ounces more than advertised!

I have this scale, by Salter. The upper limit is 7lbs and I do not know the lower limit, but the readout says 3 grams. I bought it at a fancy kitchen supply store for $30. If I need to weigh something large I can place a platter or bowl on it and re-zero it. The unit turns off after a few minutes of no use.


There should be something similar to this at big box retailers.

Thanks for all the advice! I found some on Amazon - postal scales - look to be what I'm looking for.