Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

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Elleth
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Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Elleth »

This afternoon I got out for a short jaunt - mostly just for some fresh air, but also to test some things I've been working on.

First, I've added some reinforcement and tons of eyelets for a drawstring to my snapsack - it REALLY makes it more secure, with the possible cost of losing a bit of "Middle Earth" flavor. At first glance, all those round holes give it a bit of a "19th c. seabag" look to me - but it works much better and I think I'll adjust. Besides, this piece is probably going to be replaced in the not terribly distant future anyhow - it was always more a "proof of concept" piece than one intended for final use.
merf-snapsack-eyelets.jpg
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The skinny-bedroll and snapsack solution continues to work quite well. I had a minimal load and a wool hood, but didn't feel the least bit discomfort. In fact doing barn chores after coming back I distinctly felt it would have been more work to take the thing off than to just do my work wearing it. Which I guess is a testament to how well it carries.

I did find the bag hanging in front GREAT for quickly getting at something inside on the move, but it does flop a bit, and obscures my right side where I'd planned to keep my longknife. I'm not certain how to square that circle yet.
merf-snapsack-bedroll.jpg
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Thoughts for the future:
1. More straps/buckles, less ties.
Ties get knotted, get caught on things, are harder to open with stiff cold fingers, are easier to lose - straps are I think a better all around solution, especially if one assumes a relative surplus of small metal goods like buckles in Eriador, relative to say the American frontier. I'm not certain how I'm going to end up attaching my bag to my carry strap, but I'm strongly leaning towards something that doesn't need to be untied.

2. Likewise I'm rethinking the whole "tie the bedroll around the strap" model I've been using since seeing Mark Baker videos so very long ago. Again - messing with ties all the time is a bother, especially when the strap basically comes apart once I take the bedroll off, and everything needs to be re-assembled when I'm ready to go off again. I'm starting to think the "wrapper" WETA designed for Aragorn's bedroll might actually be worth a try.
merf-bedroll-aragorn.jpg
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Has anyone any real experience going this route? I'm wary of getting too modernish / larpish here, and of adding too much unnecessary single-purpose bulk - but being able to just buckle the blanket back in place without lots of floppy cords is a tempting thought.

Thoughts?
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Greg
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Greg »

If I'd thought about it before now, something like that could make a heck of a tool roll... *wink*
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Ursus »

Not ready to give details at this point but hopefully in about a month I may have something for you to go on as per the last pics.
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Elleth
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Elleth »

Greg wrote:If I'd thought about it before now, something like that could make a heck of a tool roll... *wink*
.... hunh. Now THAT is an interesting idea. I'd thought about putting a pocket in there for socks or something, but that is some serious food for thought. hrmmm....
I don't want to get carried away and reinvent 19th/20th c. fancy campaigning rolls, but there's some interesting room to explore here. Thanks!
Not ready to give details at this point but hopefully in about a month I may have something for you to go on as per the last pics.
GAH EVERYONE'S WORKING ON SECRET THINGS AND TEASING!!!!


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Manveruon
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Manveruon »

Great stuff here! And personally, I love the eyelets.
It's been a while since I did any serious packing of gear like this, but I can safely say that I too did not really like the through-the-middle approach. Instead, my bedroll was wrapped in my oilcloth tarp/hammock (similarly to how Greg has shown his own rolling up in several posts) and attached via two straps with buckles, as you describe, to my quiver. The chest strap (also buckled) went through the two aforementioned straps, rather than the center of the bedroll. The down-side to this is that the whole bedroll tends to sort of flop downwards - otherwise I wouldn't have had to attach it to the quiver at all (which I would have preferred, since this put a lot of stress on the quiver), but the up-side is that it's less awkward bulk right up against your back.

I want to experiment in the coming year with other variations on gear-carry, and since I'm doing that Viggo-Aragorn build, I'll be working up a replica of his bedroll anyway, so it'll be easy to give that a try in a functional capacity. I'm curious to see your results and compare them to my own.

Which reminds me... Does anyone know of a good source for brown oilcloth anymore? Or has it all gone the way of the dodo? JBook, perhaps? Anyone? Bueller?
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Elleth
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Elleth »

The down-side to this is that the whole bedroll tends to sort of flop downwards
That is a good point. Nothing I think some eyelets or a buckle or something on the the carrier/wrapper couldn't handle though.
hrm.. think think think... :)

Which reminds me... Does anyone know of a good source for brown oilcloth anymore? Or has it all gone the way of the dodo? JBook, perhaps? Anyone? Bueller?
I'll throw in a recommendation for Scarlet Scarab again -
http://www.scarletscarab.com/oilcloth.htm

and of course this ebay vendor -
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brown-Oilcloth- ... SwG-1WzOrD

Neither is terribly cheap, but oilcloth isn't cheap. :/

... all that said, now that I've seen how well my test piece of homebrew linen oilcloth worked, I'm disinclined to buy commercial cotton oilcloth again. The texture is different, the durability perhaps a bit better, and it feels much less "industrial" somehow if that makes sense. Totes different from the store-bought stuff.
merf-oilcloth.jpg
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I've not done a flame test between the two though, and the too-saturated edge on my home experiment seems to be permanent. I think there's a good chance I cut off the edge of this groundcloth and use IT as material for any bedroll cover/carrier I make in the future.
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Greg »

Elleth wrote:
Manveruon wrote:The down-side to this is that the whole bedroll tends to sort of flop downwards.
That is a good point. Nothing I think some eyelets or a buckle or something on the the carrier/wrapper couldn't handle though.
hrm.. think think think... :)
This is the very reason why I still run my tumpline strap through the center of the bedroll still, but I won't tell anyone they shouldn't experiment outside my base model for setting this up.

I use two dedicated buckled straps for containing my bedroll as a whole, and tie my excess tarp ties just around the middle of the roll so there's a place for them and it can't partially roll out in the center. I am, however, working on some custom buckled straps for more functional closures on the ends of the snapsack, involving a bit of ingenuity and some old tricks from Falconry leashes that look promising. Details at 11...

...err, whenever I have any, that is.

Loving the discussion! I'm sincerely thrilled that a few of you have adopted this. It really DOES work. I still won't say it's the end-all, but hot dang, it does a stellar job and looks the part.
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Kortoso »

I think that this may be along the lines of the "don't let Hollywood kill you" meme.

If you have a decently realistic cloak along the lines we see Strider and the rest of the fellowship wearing, try rolling it up into a "horseshoe pack" like what we see him wearing. It works fine, but it's way bulkier than what you see there.

Then make a rolled blanket the size of the "skinny-sack bedroll" you see there. It's not a full-sized blanket! Pretty much like the "blankets" you get on a transcontinental airline flight.

Then try surviving the night wrapped in these flimsy scraps. Maybe you are stouter soul than I, or you are bivouacing in Hawai'i....
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Greg »

Eh, I get what you're saying...but the thing is, no one's trying to mimic the exact size/look of Hollywood bedrolls. Instead, we're trying to make a bedroll work, in a real-world context. It'd be a heck of a lot easier to just put everything in a Rucksack and call it a day, but that just doesn't feel culturally right for Rangers in Middle-Earth for most of us, hence this experimentation process. A bedroll that's attached to the strap on its side instead of having the strap go through the center of the roll isn't unheard of...the Viggo twist is simply a different way to strap the roll together, and I don't think it'd 'kill' anyone.

Totally get what you're saying, though. When many of us go to Faires with real trekking gear on, the usual discussion is "Why are you carrying so much?" The answer is "Because no one in Hollywood carries enough."
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Elleth
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Elleth »

Oh yeah - no one's talking about using film-prop stuff in real situations; just experimenting with the carriage solution.
A bedroll that's attached to the strap on its side instead of having the strap go through the center of the roll isn't unheard of...
It's occurred to me that one of the real benefits of the "strap through the center" model - especially when used with your skinny-sack Greg - is that the strap traps between a third and a half of the mass of the blanket between itself and the body: this pulls everything in much tighter, and keeps the entire mass of the blanket from swinging out behind you and throwing your balance off. While I've not tried it, I expect that simply fastening the stowed roll to the strap would lose a lot of those advantages.

Tentatively I'm thinking a construction kind of like this (please ignore that the blanket / oilcloth isn't folded correctly here).
merf-bedroll-mockup.jpg
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Anyhow, I think it'll work best if the strap still goes through the center, blanket wraps around that, cover with buckled straps goes over that and cinches everything down tight.
The cover might still lash to the strap with cords or a buckled strap or something at one or both ends, but a significant portion of the blanket is still between the strap and the body.

Maybe?

edit -
working on some custom buckled straps for more functional closures on the ends of the snapsack, involving a bit of ingenuity and some old tricks from Falconry leashes that look promising. Details at 11...
REALLY CURIOUS! :)
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by SierraStrider »

Elleth wrote:I've added some reinforcement and tons of eyelets for a drawstring to my snapsack - it REALLY makes it more secure, with the possible cost of losing a bit of "Middle Earth" flavor. At first glance, all those round holes give it a bit of a "19th c. seabag" look to me - but it works much better and I think I'll adjust.
I'm inclined to think it looks absolutely fine. Would it be better to roll the hem to make a tube for the drawstring? in some ways it feels more modern, but it honestly seems like a lot less effort for a historical hand-sewer than embroidering all those little button holes. I'm having a hard time finding anything on the actual history of drawstrings.

Elleth wrote: More straps/buckles, less ties.
Ties get knotted, get caught on things, are harder to open with stiff cold fingers, are easier to lose - straps are I think a better all around solution, especially if one assumes a relative surplus of small metal goods like buckles in Eriador, relative to say the American frontier. I'm not certain how I'm going to end up attaching my bag to my carry strap, but I'm strongly leaning towards something that doesn't need to be untied.
I'm really happy with my use of button knots to form toggles. Alternately, wood, bone or leather toggles could also be a good alternative to buckles that have the right look, which are quite hard to find.
Kortoso wrote: Maybe you are stouter soul than I, or you are bivouacing in Hawai'i....
Having bivouacked in Hawai'i, it was one of the colder and more unpleasant nights of my life, probably because I was carrying a Hollywood amount of gear. Still, I think I prefer a snowbound forest to a rain forest in most situations.
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Manveruon »

Elleth wrote:It's occurred to me that one of the real benefits of the "strap through the center" model - especially when used with your skinny-sack Greg - is that the strap traps between a third and a half of the mass of the blanket between itself and the body: this pulls everything in much tighter, and keeps the entire mass of the blanket from swinging out behind you and throwing your balance off. While I've not tried it, I expect that simply fastening the stowed roll to the strap would lose a lot of those advantages.
Okay,yes, you're absolutely right. I had completely forgotten this detail, but when you posted this it all came rushing back in vivid detail. I can honestly say that having the strap on the side of the pack rather than through the middle did indeed cause the whole pack to lay farther away from my back, which in turn did indeed affect my balance, especially when climbing particularly steep slopes. I still don't think this is an absolute deal-breaker, because I believe one can learn to compensate if one were to become used to it over time, but it is a significant factor and not to be ignored.

Unfortunately, the last few times I tried to make my setup work with the strap through the middle, it just... didn't. I couldn't get it to lay comfortably, and in some cases I couldn't even get the strap across my chest to buckle because of the added bulk. Perhaps I simply need a larger strap, or perhaps I need to find a better way to roll my pack. I still have much experimentation to do.
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Manveruon »

As for the oilcloth, the ebay one you posted is a great lead, thank you! that said, I really wish I could find it in a lighter weight than 10 oz. at a similar price. I'll have to contact the folks at Period Fabrics again to see if they've ever gotten any more brown in.
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Elleth
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Elleth »

Would it be better to roll the hem to make a tube for the drawstring? in some ways it feels more modern, but it honestly seems like a lot less effort for a historical hand-sewer than embroidering all those little button holes. I'm having a hard time finding anything on the actual history of drawstrings.
Hunh - you're right, I never thought to look into where they enter the record but I think it's got to be really early.
I can't offhand recall pre-medieval examples, but I'd be surprised if they don't predate fabrics entirely.

And that is a good idea!

The one issue with running a drawstring through a channel is that you limit how tightly you can close the opening, as your're trying to compress all the material of the bag to close the opening.
This purse is an extreme case, as I made the channel too narrow (oops). Pull the cord really tight, it will never get more closed than this:
merf-pouch-drawstring-pucker.jpg
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A wider channel and less bulky materials let you get tighter, but the same issue is there with any drawstring closure where the drawstring is entirely enclosed.

With eyelets, the string gets to bypass a lot of the material, so you can completely close it, like this:
merf-pouch-drawstring-closed.jpg
merf-pouch-drawstring-closed.jpg (45.16 KiB) Viewed 15308 times
... so this is why I chose the eyelet method for a snapsack open on the bottom as well.
I can't say I like the accordion look, but it's a natural consequence of an even number of eyelets.

An alternate solution would be to use the channel method, but always pack something big and bulky in the bottom of the snapsack like a cookpot or article of clothing, so as to stop up the remaining opening.
But for brain-dead-after-work sewing, eyelets are routine enough I can pull them off when making clothes is beyond me. :)
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Re: Revisting the skinny-sack bedroll

Post by Manveruon »

Yeah, I think the eyelets are lovely, and the snapsack looks great closed. I don't mind the "accordion" look at all, myself. There are a number of Medieval examples of pouches with slits at the neck for a drawstring, and they tend to close the same way. For my arrow bag, I initially sewed a channel of leather at the top for a drawstring, then realized exactly what you've just mentioned, Elleth. So what I did to fix it was to simply cut some small holes in the outer layer of that leather edging/channel, and then pass the drawstring back and forth through these. The string only goes through the top layer of leather, rather than going back and forth through the whole thing but the bag closes much more tightly now.
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