Evan Rodgers emailed me this simple and ingenious method of using a second Boston valve to create an inflation bag adapter that screws into the packraft’s Boston valve. Great idea! Thanks for sharing, Evan! Here’s what Evan wrote: I recently ordered an extra Boston valve to test out my theory of creating a better attachment point from the inflation bag and boat than gluing the silicone tube to inflation bag, and I’m extremely excited with the result. As you’ll see in the photos, I’ve cut apart the Boston valve in a few places so that I can sandwich the TPU material between two threaded connect ..read more

Some of the software I use to run the DIY Packraft Shop has recently been updated to enhance security and functionality, so if you encounter any problems making a purchase, please contact me to tell me about the issue! Thanks very much! Matt The post Web Store Maintenace first appeared on DIY Packraft ..read more

I made this video to show the current fabrics that I use to make the Ultralight and the standard weight DIY Packraft kits. In the video, I talk about some of their properties and show how durable they are. If you want to test the fabrics yourself, you can do so by ordering a fabric sample pack (use the free shipping coupon code shown in the product description). The post Video: The Fabrics first appeared on DIY Packraft ..read more

Customer Steve Gurney sent me these great pictures from his first trip in his DIY Packraft Skeena. Steve was one of the first people to order the new orange fabric, and I think it looks fantastic! The Caples River, near Queenstown, New Zealand, looks amazing too. “Lots of people comment that they love the orange colour,” Steve wrote. He also added, “I was going to make my own thigh straps, but the MRS ones were only $50 and so easy to add.” Steve included photos showing the location of the attachment points for his thigh straps, which will help anyone who is around 172 cm tall (5′ 8″). Well do ..read more

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