I carry a water filter but for day trips or even overnight, I’d rather save the $40 filter for longer paddles and haul my water.
I’ve been using those 1-liter rectangular juice bottles because they are free and don’t roll around in my boat.
But they do take up space in car and boat and are not ment to be reused.
And i read about people resuing the bladders from boxed-wine but I am totally unable to get the cap off to wash & refill without destroying the thing.
So am resorting to Platypus bags becaue they collapse and so tak up little room when transported. I can take them to a lake empty then fill them at the put-in and save space…
But they cost!@!!
So, as I am finding a bunch of camelpack bladders really cheap at yard sales etc, I was thinking of sewing some bags from old jeans I save for scraps and replacing the long drinking tube with a small valve, shoving them into the bag for protection and useing them as a water carrier that folds flat.
Does anyone have any experience with this or other similar jury-rigs?
Old jeans
I made a bag for clothes pins out of an old jeans leg and left over webbing, from re-webbing a lawn chair, as a strap. My oldest stepdaughter saw it and “oooohhh, cool!” Who thinks of rigging stuff these days? Go out and buy something. Come to think of it, does anyone re-web lawn chairs in these days of throw-away?
Those fabric softener sheets don’t work well in my solar dryer. I hang them up with everything else and they just don’t do a darn thing.
I have one that need re-webbing
Now if I could find some webbing, i’d be in bidness.
The chair,BTW, is a 50 years old child size rocker.
I also used a old jeans leg to make a pouch, pay attention if one end is larger than the other. It make for a pretty tough sack.
Last time I saw webbing
was at Ace Hardware. Not sure if they still sell it.
reweb chairs
I usef to reweb the chairs but after teaching my ex-gf how to do it, gave her my webbing-gear.
I use folding captains chairs now… buit collect the broken ones, take them apart and use the parts to fix/repair other broken ones. I have 6 repaired captains chairs in my camping gear and a box of parts to repair more.
water bladders
to remove the spigot from a wine cask is tricky but doable.
Use the back of the blade of a large kitchen knife.
Insert the blade between the bladder and the spigot (at the tip of the blade) and slowly slide along the joint.
Be careful not to cut yourself but as you slide along the blade of the knife it thickens and separates the spigot from the bladder.
Once removed you can fill the wine cask and refit the spigot, just don’t push it back in all the way.
I have used those bladders for years but nothing beats the MSR Dromedary ones.
Camelback bladders are OK but prone to puncture, so your idea of bag protective bag is good. I would not use jeans since cotton takes so long to dry when wet, a nylon fabric would be better.
On the other hand jeans would be ideal if you wanted to have your water cooled.
By hanging the jeans covered bag in the shade with a bit of breeze and wetting the jeans the evaporation will cool the water, quite a lot actually (that’s how “swamp” coolers work).
Box-O-Joe
An alternative to the wine box bladders is Dunkin Doughnut Box-O-Joe bladders.
Nice big cap for easy washing.
I like the . . .
. . . 3 liter Platypus bladders.
I expected this discussion to include
issues about the dangers of some kinds of plastics when exposed to the heat and sunlight outdoors. It seems every time we buy water storage containers for trips, some new expose comes out warning of the dangers of the plastic container we are currently using.
At this point, I think we have the Nalgene containers, which I think are either safe, or they have been recently exposed as gassing out some noxious substance in the elements.
Maybe somebody here can bring us up to date. I do know that we felt compelled to avoid bottled water, or re-using other fluid containers because of those health risks.
One clue that the current container material is out of vogue due to health risk is a sudden change in the policy of the stores selling them. The “cheap” stores just mark them down for clearance (I’ve learned to avoid canteen and hydration container close-outs), while REI just flat-out pulls the offending bottles from the shelves and offers only the newer material.
platypus
bladders no more expensive than a box o wine, but then again you don’t get free wine when you purchase a playpus.
I have one MSR and a 3-L Platypus
but they are more expensive than I can afford right now (Kid got medivaced home from Africa and cannot find a job so I am paying her bills…)
Thus I am trying to find a cheap alternative as i paddle in the desert.
I’m thinking of those collapsable as they will fit on the bottom of my kayak without being so bulky and will compress when empty to save weight and bulk when I am tired and fighting to get home.
If cost is a factor . . .
. . . you can’t beat 2l pop bottles. Only downside is they ain’t collapseable. They stack pretty good.
Try a Boatabag
I use them for water. They are very easy to fill and dispense water. They are perfectr for me. Check them out online. boatabag.com
about the same price
as a MSR Dromedary bag.
Is it as tough???
though the price is higher than I can afford.
plastic soda bottles
if you are really cheap, plastic soda bottles work good. You can dig them out of a recycling bin so you don’t have to buy the soda. :)) Nalgenes are the best in my opinion. Buy the wide mouth ones so you can wash them easier in the feild.
BTW, the plastic Folgers coffee cans make some real great storage containers. The small ones work good for a roll of TP. You can also get them from a recycle bin.
no to soda bottles
About the only thing they are good for is test-cutting with a sword.
When filled with water, they roll around inside the boat.
Which is why I liked the rectangular juice bottles (Ocean Spray, etc).
Over the weekend, I dug out all my old camelpacks (I collected them because my kidw as in Africa and i was mailing her a replacement (stolen) one every month it seemed.
I found two were Platypus, the rest Camelback…
Since I prefer my military canteens, I kept three of the best camelpacks and sewed denem bags for the bladders I wante dtoconvert.
Cut a 1" hose and replaced the drinking hose with that 1" and a twist’valve then shoved them into the bag.
The Platypus were a problem. I removed the cap (had a hole for the tube), cut a plastic disc then covered that with cork and used that.
I am hoping to find people to go camoing with this weekend (share gas) and will test them over that weekend.
BUT, the MSR and Platypus are still on my Amazon wish list.