Activity

Mountain Equipment Co-op has several paddling jackets/pants combinations, as well as one-piece drysuits to choose from – that’s probably your best bet in Canada (though I haven’t used any of them). One has a spandex collar, which sounds intriguing.

I took a gamble on a no-name drysuit I found on Amazon a few years ago for a ridiculously cheap…[Read more]

Not sure about designs explicitly for packrafting. I have a kayak touring setup already. I have a Stohlquist EZ drysuit with a neoprene neck gasket and front zip. It works well for me and I don’t get leakage when inverted, but the neoprene neck does not fit as wide a range of neck sizes as a latex one. A friend using one had problems getting the…[Read more]

Wonderful!

First time on the water today, worked great! Now just need to wait till your lockdown end, hopefully end of April…

I’m not familiar with that product so I can’t recommend it. I recommend Seam Grip+WP, Aquaseal, or Aquasure (all made by Gear Aid).

Alright, I’ll look into that!

Just to clarify the terms: By “sealant” on the outside you mean something like this? https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B000O71L6Q/ref=sr_1_8?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=aqua+seam+sealer&qid=1617367555&sr=8-8

Or just the regular Aquasure?

For anyone following: today I went for a paddle with a 5 inch PVC pipe laying down the floor center line like the alpaca gnu seat and I sat on top of my pack which was laid over the pipe. Test runs of that versus just sitting on the regular DIY seat with no pipe came out exactly the same! The pipe on the floor did improve tracking and reduce…[Read more]

Thanks! Beautiful work – I hope to see it in the wild when you’re able to travel north!

Yep, that sounds about right (see the “Note” about sealing different fabrics together on the Heat Sealing page). You don’t need to join 450 to 450 in any of my designs, so don’t worry about that. Cheers!

I think that would work fine, but I would probably just apply the sealant to the outside of the seams. It looks pretty good (glossy) if you let it cure fully before getting them dirty (if it’s at all tacky it’ll pick up dust).

Just got my kit and now have scraps to try out. Using the Aliexpress leather iron at max setting. I found that a test strip of 250GSM (tube fabric) on  450GSM (floor fabric) would separate by the TPU peeling off the floor fabric (see photo)

Joining 250-250 resulted in a very strong bond that eventually tore with some TPU on each side. Joining…[Read more]

Hey Matt!

Thanks for your quick reply. Unfortunately this was back in the day, when applying Aquasure on  seams wasn’t ‘en vogue’ so I’ve only used it at the bottom bits where the seams join the floor. On my next one I’ll be sure to do it on the seams as well.

I’m now thinking about fixing all leaks in my existing rafts as good as possible and…[Read more]

Not a bot…jussayin

Coming across Matt’s website was one of the best things that happened in 2020. Even though I was in the middle of another lockdown DIY project, after about 5 minutes I knew I just need to make one of these too…

As so many others here noted before, the instructions and a great forum make the construction a pretty straightforward perocess – big…[Read more]