There was a period of silence in my Design Diary, from last June up to now, not because I was not having any design challenges and solutions to share here, but I was through two big moves, first one from West Coast to East Coast and second one from North America to Europe and all in six month.
But now I'm getting settled here and want to share what was up in my gear lab.
I'll start from the backpack of variable volume. Half of its volume is provided by front compartment that can be fully removed. And this compartment is not like a bag sticked to another bag, it blends fully when attached with the outline of the bag. Anyway, better see it in action:
It was one of my earliest ideas when I started making backpacks: a whole compartment that can be easily added or extracted from the bag, to eliminate the need of having a small day pack and a large day pack and have to choose which one to take hoping that it will accommodate the unpredictable. And I pondered over this idea every now and then for a few years, mostly the idea was to have a small base pack and a larger roll top compartment that would be attached via zipper located at the perimeter of the back panel. That was giving me a lot design problems that I couldn't solve without compromising something that I didn't want to compromise. Mainly what I didn't like about that configuration was that the volume inside large compartment would be in conflict with base backpack, predominantly around the bottom. And in the process of trying to eliminate this area I came to the solution that I am quite happy with: main pack and extra compartment share a flat 'wall' which solves the problem of conflicting curved spaces.
When I'll unbox my stuff I'll find sketches that will show more clearly what I am talking about.
I used this bag as daypack throughout trip around South West region of U.S., here you can see the base backpack, without extra compartment *looking over Grand Canyon from the South Rim*.
On this photo the bag has the extra compartment on and it is fully stuffed *looking over Bryce Canyon few days later and ~20 degrees lower*
And then I took it for a one night backcountry camping in Zion, I managed to stuff inside all the provisions (breakfast lunch dinner and snacks for two, plus a stove and a pot), my sleeping pad, down blanket and some extra clothes, plus I have attached a bowl and a water bottle on the outside via carabiners to the eyelets that hold hip belt.
