u/sugarshackforge

This is a quick follow up to my previous post. We ended up paddling our original planned route around the island. Chikanishing trail was closed due to a wash out, but we were able to park at the George lake parking after dropping our canoes at the top of the road, and portaging the 1600m to the put in. We were able to get on the water by noon on Friday. We didn't expect to be able to make it all the way around the island by Sunday based on the trip reports that we read. The weather was in our favor and we were able to easily make it around by 10am on Sunday without paddling terribly hard. Overall it was an amazing trip with some great paddling.

I also got to test out my new canoe packs and both were resounding successes. I might do away with the side torpedo pockets on the big pack because they ended up feeling underutilized. I may also remove a few of the lash points. The under seat packs were fantastic. They gave me a place to stash snacks and a way to hold my water bladder.

Setting up a servo motor on my barn find Juki LU-563 has been a journey. I got a lot of recommendations for different motors, primarily the Consew 750, but I was impatient and purchased the 750W Reliable servo motor with a needle positioner. It was readily available on Amazon (I know, boo) and would arrive before I headed out on a canoe trip. It had reasonable reviews and the company looked legit, so I felt comfortable paying the premium over the generic servo motors. It arrived quickly and undamaged. That's where the positives end.

I opened the box and immediately realized this was a Chinese motor with a Reliable label slapped on it. It clearly hadn't been inspected in any way. I installed it following Reliable's videos and everything seemed to go together fine. The motor turned on and appeared to work. Then I installed the needle positioner synchronizer, and that didn't go well at all. There was no clear way to set needle up or needle down. I followed a YouTube video that seemed reasonable and was able to get the needle to stop at roughly the down position, but it would jerk into place and randomly speed up. The foot control was also extremely sensitive. Needle up via back press or the controller just didn't work consistently -- sometimes nothing happened, sometimes it made a full rotation. I reached out to some mechanics and their conclusion was that the positioner was physically missing the contact that controls needle up. I called Reliable customer service multiple times and received absolutely no response.

I packed the motor back up and returned it.

After all of that, I called SewGold in Chicago to get their suggestions. They set me up with a 750W motor that worked perfectly without any fiddling. I've used this shop before and they are awesome -- their customer service is in a different league entirely.

I have a friend who offered to take photos of a few finished packs. He used to work in the fashion industry and worked on product photoshoots for a number of high end handbag companies. I was shocked by the amount of set up time that is spent for each shot.

Today I put together two pouches for an upcoming canoe trip. On longer paddle days I often feel like there isn't a good way to store snacks where they are easily accessible. I'm hoping these do the trick! The main fabric is XPac from a previous grab bag. The top and bottom panels have 1/8" eva foam as a bit of a stabilizer.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a specific servo motor? There seem to be a ton of options available, but not a lot of info.

I didn't need another sewing machine, but for $200 in my town I couldn't pass it up. This was sitting in a basement for at least 6 years, but with minor cleanup it's already sewing pretty well. If I can figure out how to free up the tension release pin, I'll be golden.

This is a massive pack. At 90L before accounting for roll top storage, it is designed to carry a heavy load and stay tolerable on long portages; some up to 5km in Canada. For those who have paddled before, this pack probably looks tall. It is, but I haven't found the height hinders carrying the boat at all.

My main goals were to provide plenty of attachment points for gear like a PFD or paddle, keep the pack reasonably water resistant, and maximize internal volume. I think I managed all three.

The body is XPac, the bottom panel is Ultra 200 with a PSA nylon inner layer from Challenge Fabrics, and the accent material is Venom Gridstop. The lash tabs and roll top stiffener are Hypalon. All the fabric came from Ripstop by the Roll, mostly out of one of their grab bags.

For the pack frame I went with a "X" design and used Ash wooden stays. I also have a 4# xlpe foam sheet behind the stays.

I haven't decided whether to make a tump line or a hip belt; maybe I'll just make both.