It’s that time of year again! If you’d like to save some money on a DIY Packraft and give to charity at the same time, you can bid on a $200 (CAD) DIY Packraft coupon at my local Rotary Club’s annual online auction. At the time I write this, the minimum bid is just $5, so that’s some significant savings! Because the auction is online and what you’ll win is a coupon code for use in the DIY Packraft online shop, you don’t have to live locally (or even in Canada) to participate. If you know any Rotarians, you know that they’re always donating their time and money to improve the lives of people in ..read more

New orange and green packraft tube fabrics (standard weight only). I’m excited to announce that a new shipment has arrived with two new fabric colors, orange and green (or pumpkin and sage, if you prefer)! These will be used for tube fabric in all of the standard weight packraft kits. Nikki tells me these are her new favorite colors in the shop. What do you think? I’ve tried to take pictures that reproduce the colors as faithfully as possible, but the LED lights in my shop aren’t great for color accuracy. What I’m seeing on my screen is as close as I can get it to what I see in person, but wh ..read more

As part of my effort to continuously improve the DIY Packraft instructions, I’ve made a new, more comprehensive video about heat sealing. It’s pretty long, but it’s everything you need to know, all in one place, and my hope is that even experienced DIY Packraft builders will learn something useful from it. To make it more digestible I’ve divided the video into chapters, which you can navigate using the progress bar at the bottom of the frame, or by using the time stamps in the table of contents below. Video contents: Intro: 0:00 How Heat Sealing Works: 0:21 Heat Sealing Irons: 2:24 Work Sur ..read more

I have just received a new shipment of airtight/waterproof zippers from TIZIP, and this time I ordered some MasterSeal 10 zippers in addition to the SuperSeal zippers I have been using since 2016. Both zippers are the same size and have the same air pressure rating, but compared to the SuperSeal, the MasterSeal 10 is slightly lighter weight, less expensive, more flexible, requires less force to operate, and is easier to clean. It has only one seal and a somewhat lower cross-breaking strength than the SuperSeal (but is still very strong), and because it has exposed teeth, the MasterSeal may be ..read more

I recently added roll-top drybag kits to the DIY Packraft shop. I designed the drybags with a diameter of about 23 cm (9″) so they will fit inside a packraft’s side tubes, and they’re fairly long, with a usable volume of about 33 litres each. Assembling one of these drybags is a good introduction to all of the heat sealing techniques used in making a DIY Packraft, so people who are interested in making a packraft but aren’t confident about their abilities can try it out with something that costs much less than a full packraft kit. The kits contain everything you need except an iron, and they ..read more

In response to a request from a customer, I’ve started selling pairs of wooden heat sealing forms in the DIY Packraft shop. These tools aren’t required for making a packraft, but they do make joining the tubes together a bit easier compared to draping the fabric over an overturned bowl (see the Heat Sealing page for details about how this works). The original seam sealing form invented by Bruce Campbell. The pair of forms weighs over 600 grams (well over a pound), so adding them to an order may increase the shipping cost, especially if you’re overseas. Note that the forms pictured above are ..read more

Recently Guy Stuart of the Bikepacker’s Foundry was asked to give a presentation about bikerafting to a paddling club – apparently the presentation was a hit, and Guy made the slideshow available on his Bikerafting Gear List page. If you’re interested in combining cycling, paddling, and camping, then it’s definitely worth a look. Elsewhere on the site, Guy also shows the removable drip deck that he made for his DIY Packraft, plus tons of other cool gear that he has made or modified. Cool! Maps look different when you bikeraftGuy Stuart’s DIY Packrafts The post Bikerafting Gear & Tips first ..read more

Recently I’ve had a few customers send me some construction tips and build reports that you might find useful. Build Report: Barbara B’s Skeena build report is one of the most detailed I’ve received, and it contains some great tips from the perspective of a first-time builder, plus some stunning photos like the one below. Check out Barbara’s full report on the Customer Build Reports page. Tip: Laith Barnhill emailed me a while ago to ask if it would be possible to install an airtight zipper in the packraft’s rear center seam. I hadn’t tried it myself, but I was pretty sure it could work, so ..read more

The payment processor I use (Stripe) supports several payment methods in addition to credit cards, so I recently added them as payment options on the DIY Packraft checkout page to make it easier for people who prefer not to use credit cards. Most of these options are only available in specific geographic locations, so you might not see them all on the checkout page, but here are all the ways people can now make a purchase instead of using a credit card: Apple Pay Google Pay SEPA Direct Debit giropay iDEAL Bancontact EPS Sofort Another option allows you to make four smaller payments over time ..read more

Happy new year! 2022 was a difficult year in many ways, and I’d like to thank everyone who helped keep DIY Packraft afloat by placing pre-orders during those months when I was waiting for fabric to arrive and had nothing to sell except my promises. I managed to get all of the pre-orders into the mail before the end of the year, so if you haven’t received a notification email with your tracking number, please look for it among your spam. Looking ahead to 2023, I’d like to know if there’s something new you want to see in the DIY Packraft shop this year. If so, please leave a comment below. Have ..read more