The Armour Archive

I remember a discussion a while ago about how to pack for events.
Alas I can not fined the tread anymore.
The part that I was in was that some wrote that they use vacuum bags for there bedding and garb and so on.
I think Vitus Atzinger was one of them.
My question is how do you suck the air out of the bags when Packing to go home from the Event?
Do you bring a vacuum cleaner to the Event? Doesn't the space it needs to be packed negate the space gained with the vacuum bags?
Are there small vacuum cleaners that can do the job as well?
Sorry for posting this hear but I could not think of a better section

Gottfried

Gottfried wrote:My question is how do you suck the air out of the bags when Packing to go home from the Event?

do it the same way on both ends. Ie, fill the bag with your stuff, sit on the filled bag, roll up the filled bag. Manually get as much air out of the bag as you can before closing the nozzel.

Then do the same thing at the event and you should not "loose" any space when repacking.

The issues start when you use a vacuum at home to get them super flat and then can not duplicate the same effect on site.

InsaneIrish wrote:The issues start when you use a vacuum at home to get them super flat and then can not duplicate the same effect on site.

Yes that is the Problem that I saw as well. Are there small vacuum cleaners that could be used for this?

thanks
Gottfried

InsaneIrish wrote:

Gottfried wrote:My question is how do you suck the air out of the bags when Packing to go home from the Event?

do it the same way on both ends. Ie, fill the bag with your stuff, sit on the filled bag, roll up the filled bag. Manually get as much air out of the bag as you can before closing the nozzel.

Then do the same thing at the event and you should not "loose" any space when repacking.

The issues start when you use a vacuum at home to get them super flat and then can not duplicate the same effect on site.

Yes. There are "dustbusters" made to plug into your car accessory socket.

OTOH, if you really are packing so tightly that the difference between using the vacuum at home to pull the bags down and doing the manual process of pushing the air out at the event means you can't fit your gear in to get home....well, then you have a different problem that the space bags won't help with

It's also been my experience that the bags leak a bit, and they don't stay so nice and flat as he vacuum makes them...

Kilkenny wrote:OTOH, if you really are packing so tightly that the difference between using the vacuum at home to pull the bags down and doing the manual process of pushing the air out at the event means you can't fit your gear in to get home....well, then you have a different problem that the space bags won't help with .

The Problem is Landsknecht Garb Takes up a lot of space. For loughs we once threw them in to the space bags and....... well all I can say is that it was less then half the space needed after that.
That's when my wife came up with the idea of packing our bedding in these bags as well as my garb.
My thing was just why bother if I have to bring a vacuum cleaner to an event to get it that small again.

My air matress pump has a small vacume port on the other end. I have the cheap one from coleman.
Usualy these need a bit of creative pluming to get the bits to fit.

often the vacume bags have the same type of valve that can be held open.
Hold open the valve and litteraly press the air out.
The valve on the better models will open on their own to let the air out as you press down.
These work well on cloths, bedding, and other bits without hard sharp corners.

Don't forget to pack your anvils so that they cannot shift forward under catastrophic impetus!

When I pack for an event they are placed flat against the forward wall of the pickup bed and on the side nobody is sitting on!.

Long items, spears, tentpoles, etc are packed so that impact from the rear does not drive them into people in the cab.

Thomas

We have gone back to using stuff sacks after the space saver bags started wearing out. You should be able to find a style that is a "roll up" style with a 1 way valve at the bottom of the bag.

We aso used to open the port, and hold it open with our fingers while rolling/laying/sitting on the bag. Then roll it back out. Very similar effect.

Thomas Powers wrote:Don't forget to pack your anvils so that they cannot shift forward under catastrophic impetus!

When I pack for an event they are placed flat against the forward wall of the pickup bed and on the side nobody is sitting on!.

Long items, spears, tentpoles, etc are packed so that impact from the rear does not drive them into people in the cab.

Thomas

very good point, as projectile tools& impaling objects are not desirable when in an accident.

You can buy a manual pump at Walmart (or wherever, since you're unlikely to have a Walmart nearby -- outdoors store of some kind?), which is what I use for the inflatable camp bed. Most of them will let you reverse the tube to deflate things.

Also, manual pumps don't require fresh batteries and give you a little extra workout.

Saritor wrote:You can buy a manual pump....

Nice one! Thanks had not thought of that.
I have never seen that actual bags so I really don't know what kind of adapter would fit in there. But I really like this Idea.

Gottfried

I used a dry bag style stuff-sack (I have a bunch that I use for packing for kayaking) once for packing my garb. I now call my stuff sacks and drybags "the wrinkler".

Gottfried wrote:Nice one! Thanks had not thought of that.
I have never seen that actual bags so I really don't know what kind of adapter would fit in there. But I really like this Idea.

We started doing it to compress the blankets and bedding, plus the manual pump lets you fully deflate any inflatable mattress, rather than risk popping a tube while you try and squeeze the air out.

Makes life easier, and you can even buy the foot-pump style with a short tube to save space if that's an issue.