More Tapered Dry Bags

[Guest]

I had the pleasure of guide friend Joel in the shop, without the usual trailer full of boats to futz with. He did have a T-Formex Esquif Cargo square stern on the roof racks; that one will eventually get a recessed fishing tackle and etc platform made to fit. But we had other plans for the day.

Joel did not have his Sawyer Loon. But I had some blue heat sealable pack cloth left, and saved the template for decked canoe tapered bags. Those bags proved to fit equally well in a variety of decked canoes, the Monarch, Optima, Comrade and Vagabond. Ought to fit his Loon just fine, and be useful in his more slender canoes.

It is always a memory challenge, even with the template as a guide for cutting out and ironing DIY dry bags. We only screwed up a little on the challenging top fold over on one bag, and managed to fix that one

Our usually, well practiced shop routine. I had everything laid out and ready to go when Joel arrrived; big cutting table, iron, squares and ironing fence board, clamps, scissors and Sharpie. Joel and I have worked together in the shop for many years, and I still haven’t learned him to put the cap back on the Sharpie. At this point I’d settle for him tossing the cap somewhere we could find.

P9230002 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

As also usual Joel did all the cutting, ironing and grunt work, I just worked ahead of him laying stuff out, and behind him putting stuff away, sometimes prematurely.

We go at it hard in the shop, non-stop, and it still took half a day to make two DIY tapered bags. Not many photos taken, we were busy. Dog eared corners, with grommets added later.

P9240003 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Joel finished up with new scrap fabric wallet. He made a wallet from scrap the first time we ever made dry bags, gotta be close 10 years ago and he is still using it. If only his boats and tents held up that well. Everything we have made over the years; instrument bags, sleeping pad bags, chair bags and custom tapers, even the thinner Oxford cloth bags, are all still going strong.

P9240007 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Tapered bags do use up a lot of material; the last of the blue pack cloth was just enough. Because of the shape making tapered bags leaves behind a lot of odd scrap.

P9240005 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Well worth the effort though, a tapered kayak stem bag runs $60, and those skinny versions don’t fit for squat in a decked canoe. Those deck canoe tapers even fit OK in an open boat stem, including the soloized Penobscot.

P9250013 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Not as well fitted as the open canoe stem tapers.

P9250016 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Packed with lightweight stuff the capacity of a fitted stem bag in any shaped hull never ceases to amaze, and strapped in the bag provides at least some water occluding floatation.

I need to use some of that newly made scrap, the heat sealable fabric scrap box is overfull.

P9250008 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

 

[Guest]

Heat Sealable Campsite and Tarp Flags

I only had two fabric colors left in the heat sealable scrap box, but had foreseen that limited color availability and, what-the-heck, ordered a $4 sample pack from Seattle Fabrics to play with.

https://www.seattlefabrics.com/Heat-Sealable-Coated-Nylon-Sample-Pack_p_874.html

That Seattle Fabrics photo is very misleading. The sample pack I received had 14 (2 ½” x 4”) pieces, not the couple dozen shown, and only 8 different colors. I want a $2 refund dammit. Still, those sample pieces were something to play. Strike while the iron is hot, and the corrugated ironing base still out on the big table.

Fabric samples ironed atop a rectangular piece of blue pack cloth, with some remaindered scrap stripe separations. Ironed on rectangular and then cut along the diagonal to make two flags. I want my flags tapered to sway gently in the breeze, and I like that the two flags are non-fraternal twins.

P9250010 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

A grommet each, and a couple pieces of reflective tape, just ‘cause. Grommet and tape edges beaded with E-6000, not just ‘cause. Length of Lawson GloWire cord and a Gator clip as usual. Having a spare Gator clip is awfully useful if you blow out a tarp grommet or just need an extra guyline on the tarp.

P9250019 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I used the last of my red heat sealable scrap a few years ago, ironed together to make red flags for the canoe overhang, and having that softening perimeter bead of E-6000 around the metal grommet edge has helped prevent it from tearing the fabric. Helped thoroughly adhere pieces of red High Intensity tape too.

I still wonder of that red reflective tapes flapping blinks on and off in trailing vehicle headlights. I have a bunch of miles on those canoe overhang flags and they seem good as new, including the E-6000 beaded reflective tape.

P9250012 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Woo-hoo, one small piece of scrap heat sealable fabric used up.

That split multi-color flag used a single 20” x 7” piece of blue pack cloth scrap. I still have a full box to go, including a half dozen or more already V cut pieces in yellow or blue. I think I see a couple of winter shop days, maybe making simpler to iron two tone yellow/blue pendants, if only to get rid of the otherwise useless narrow vee tapers.

I might even buy another sample pack and see what colors I get. I’d like to lay out a Roy G Biv pattern, or some country’s national flag, just to see how long it takes someone to notice.

 

[Guest]

More tarp flag blahblah

The original 3 foot long heat sealable flag was annoying hung from the tarp edge. It was too obtrusively big for that use and more suitable for marking camp at the water’s edge. The little split rectangle scrap & sample color pendants were perfect as tarp edge hangers and indicative windsocks.

I recieved two more Seattle Fabrics heat sealable fabric packs. Much bigger sample pieces this time, 14 each 2 ½” x 5”, with more color selection in the sample packs

I’ll be slaving away with a hot iron and scrap heat sealable fabric soon, and hoping we do another Canoe Tripping raffle. Same scenario as last year; the donatee PM’s and mails directly to the lucky winner, and all Doug has to do is video the random drawing and learn to pronounce anonymous. Anomousness. . . amonamaolus. . . .

Put your thinking caps on for DIY raffle prizes. With the recent board hack and subsequent recovery costs we will need some coin in bank to keep this community running.