My folks planned to come down to Portland from Spokane to spend some time with my 8 month old daughter. I talked my dad into digging my old pack out of their basement to bring it down. It was fun to cut it out of its carpet padding cocoon and remember the build nearly 12 years ago, but the virtually complete inaccuracy of the piece made me shudder a bit. It really makes me want to finish my current pack build (on pause since last summer due to family time/money constraints.)
I built this pack and four others like it with some buddies between sophomore and junior years of high school in the summer of 2000. We had Norman’s plans to give us ideas, but none of us had jobs at the time so we were doing extremely low budget builds with mostly found materials and we cut corners at every… corner.
Fun times. Here’s hoping another 12 years doesn’t pass before I finish a more convincing pack!
For a little to no budget pack, that actually isn’t that bad… I have seen far worse. At least you can see the effort to capture the essential parts of the real packs.
Yeah, thanks Nick-a-tron! Wish I could take credit for that idea, but Norm mentioned in his early plans that he thought the thrower body looked like a Polaroid. At the time, it was common to see them for about a buck or two at the second hand store. Seems like I see them more often now for 15-20 in hipster vintage/antique shops. I digress…
I’m going to repeat what many have already said, this isn’t that bad. You can see the ingenuity and creativity in that pack, something which is lacking from people that just don’t care. Sure exact reproductions are cool, but when it comes to shear genius I actually prefer these types of builds; doing the best with what you have.
That looks great for a no-frills high school build. Like others said the camera thrower body is inspired. Too bad you can’t get those type of cameras anymore.
