DIY soft sided cooler

Joined
May 9, 2012
Messages
1,232
Location
Bothell, Wa
A year or so ago I purchased the Costco soft sided cooler. It's for placing ice cream and stuff in so it doesn't melt on the way home. Yeti has something similar for $300.00 while the Costco one cost about 30 bucks. I have used it for storing my food in inside a big cooler. It has worked great on week long trips and keeps vegi's, meat and eggs and whatnot dry and fresh and out of the ice melt. The problem is it is huge and takes up way more room in the cooler than I need for the actual amount of food I keep in it which is why I'm going to make a custom sized version. I'm wondering if anyone has made something similar and if so what materials did you use? Did it work as intended?

Thanks in advance! Pics would help too!
 

SawtoothShooter

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
255
Location
Blackfoot, ID
I am planning to do the same type of project, but it's a ways down the 'to-do' list. The plan is to use 20oz SLIP-NOT non skid fabric for the exterior (questoutfitters.com), and a mylar rescue blanket reflective side out cemented to it. For insulation I plan to use some 1/2" poly foam sheeting (grainger.com). Inside will be 18oz vinyl coated PVC fabric (tarpsnow.com) with another mylar blanket cemented reflective side in. Zippers will just be the standard YKK #5 Uretek zipper.
 

GotDraw?

WKR
Joined
Jul 4, 2015
Messages
1,296
Location
Maryland
FYI- Those insulated large Costco bags hold approx 60 lbs of frozen meat per bag. I used two to bring back my weight limit of moose meat from Yukon. Checked them both for a 20 hr multi-leg flight back to the DC area. Meat was just barely starting to thaw from rock hard to still just frozen upon landing.

If I do it again, I will line the bags with an additional 1/2" of foam all around to insulate them just a little better.

Killer-good value proposition vs. two Yeti bags.

JL
 
Top