DIY copycat kifaru lite duplex

WoodBow

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Man this diy forum has been mega slow here lately. So i thought id share this recent project to stoke the fire.

A friend of mine is joining our group in CO this year to chase elk and mule deer. He has never done anything like that and has zero gear basically. I didn't want him to run a crappy pack so i told him i would have one for him to use. I have a frame i made a couple of years ago that actually functions very well, but it is a little bit ghetto and bags do not attach to it as easily. Since seeing tartan and some other guys on here build legit frames, i have had the itch pretty bad to build another. When kifaru released the lite frames, it was all the motivation i needed.

I based my design very heavily on theirs. I own a duplex that i used as a starting point for measurements and patterns. That helped a ton. Doing it so far away from season took all of the hurry out of it. I took my sweet time and enjoyed the process. Like every other project i do, design took 3 times as long as execution. Sewing is the easy part. I have 2 industrial sewing machines, a juki ddl552 and a singer 111w153, both which i lucked into for free somehow. I did finally give in and spend $100 for a servo motor. That was money very well spent! I used the juki for all of the lighter work and the singer for sewing through the foam and frame sheet. The sewing on the frame sheet is not what i would like it to be. I was tuning/fighting the machine as i went. By the end it was making beautiful seams. I will probably make another frame sheet because it bothers me that it isn't what it could be. Plus you learn stuff along the way that you want to do differently. My original design differed from kifarus a bit but eventually i realized the merits of their design and followed their lead. Pics are with kifaru composite stays in it. I had some that i took out of my duplex. I run arrows in the kifaru now. Though the kifaru stays match my back profile pretty much perfect, they kill my lower back for some reason. Like a severe cramping pain. They are too stiff to flex around my back when load is applied to the lifters as well. As i torque on the load lifters, they just want to pry the lumbar pad off of my back. I made composite ones for my previous diy frame. I will likely do the same again. It is not pictured here but i did add a brace across the top to stiffen things up. I did 2 arrow shafts bound together in a sleeve. It works fine but i plan to re work that aspect as well. I did not take many process pics but i will try to add the ones i did take.
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WoodBow

WoodBow

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WoodBow

WoodBow

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I tried to get the pics to show up un-rotated but eventually gave up.

I went through the design and build process planning to build more than one eventually. So I made poster board patters for every single piece and made notes on the patterns so I would remember what pieces were what, how much seam allowance, etc. I needed patterns for the fabric and separate patterns for the foam and frame sheet since those pieces do not have a built in seam allowance.

I got a little crazy with how I cut out the frame sheet but man it works awesome. I transferred the pattern to a piece of 1/2" plywood, cut it out and sanded it to the line. Then I shot some spray adhesive on the wood template and the HDPE sheet and stuck them together. With a patterning bit, I just ran the router right around the template and it cuts it to an exact match effortlessly. Pretty silly amount of effort in prep for one frame. But the next one or 10 sure will be easy. Of course I'm sure the design will change by then and I will have to do it all over again.
 
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WoodBow

WoodBow

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You can see the original frame design in these.
 
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WoodBow

WoodBow

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If you look closely you will notice small holes in these patterns. I laid out where all the webbing would go and then used an awl/punch to poke holse at the corners, seams, etc. Then I put the pattern on the fabric and used a white fabric pencil to poke into each hole and spin to leave a white dot. Then you can just use a straight edge to play connect the dots. For just one frame, I could have laid out the lines on the fabric, but this system makes the next one much easier. No measuring.
 
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WoodBow

WoodBow

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WOW, how many man hours do you suspect to have into this?

More than one. Less than one hundred! It is best not to keep track of such things. I enjoy these kind of projects so I do it as a hobby. I'm not concerned how long it takes. But I certainly invested many hours into this. Like I said most of it is figuring out design. I stared at kifarus belt for about an hour trying to figure out how things needed to me oriented to sew the seams and in what order to sew them. The next one should go much faster.
 
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WoodBow

WoodBow

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Sorry i didnt take more pics. I always have grand plans of doing a build along but it nevet happens. Secretly im always a little scared the project will be a failure and dont want to look like a fool. And posting pictures a real pain, at least the way i do it.
 

5shot

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Nice job. I need to either shorten my belt or make a Marge... it's about all I can do to get it tight enough. You did a great job on yours. It's really nice having industrial machines when doing this stuff. My Brother B837 is similar to a Juki 563 and I wouldn't want to attempt a frame or belt without it.

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5shot

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BTW...Getting those machines for free was an awesome deal!

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WoodBow

WoodBow

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BTW...Getting those machines for free was an awesome deal!

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Agreed! They both kind of fell in my lap. I needed something that would sew through the hdpe on my first frame and i remembered a knife maker friend of mine down the road had a heavy duty machine sitting in his shop. I asked if he still had it and he said yea, you want it? It needed a new timing belt and some other minor repairs. The good thing about fixing stuff is you learn how it works.

A couple of months back my dad texted me a pic of the juki and asked if i wanted it for free. Stupid question. A guy he works with had bought it in a storage auction or something but it wouldnt sew so he wanted to get rid of it. The timing just needed to be adjusted! I had it sewing in an hour.

Industrial machines will spoil you quick for sure. But man i need one with reverse. I can just spin the piece in most cases but that is a real pain when doing molle and not an option with the frame sheet. I will pull the piece forward a few stitches and start again when i have to but i am not a fan of how it looks. A consew 206-rb5 is on my wish list.
 
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WoodBow

WoodBow

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A little more info.

I bought fabric and webbing through ebay. It is very hard to beat their pricing and free shipping on most items. The down side is the coloration seams to be hit or miss. Everyone seems to call anything in the brown spectrum the same color. I had the same issue with the first thing of thread I ordered it was almost white. I didn't want to wait for more so I started with it. I sewed all the webbing onto the belt with it and hated the way it looked so much that I waited to receive some more thread and started over. A few sellers on ebay are starting to carry good itw buckles and good prices. The only ones I could not get on ebay where the "ruck" buckles on the ends of the belt and the sternum strap buckles. I did find the slotted sternum strap ones on ebay though. I had to order those 2 kinds of buckles from huddson supply. Shipping isn't AS bad from them for very small packages. I went ahead and ordered enough of those for 2 more frames to save future shipping costs.

I go the spandura and 1/2" xpe foam from seattle fabrics. Shipping was pretty steep on that too. I want to say like $20. They let you order those items in 1/4 yard increments, which is nice, because they are expensive and you don't need much. Your foam cuts need to be pretty clean because any deviations will show through the spandura since it forms to shape so well. I started with a razor knife and then went to the band saw. Wasn't overly pleased with the results of either. Add a hot wire foam cutter to the to build list.

Tartan hooked me up with a leftover piece of slip-not for the lumbar pad. That stuff is way better than what is on my old duplex. Thanks again.

Kifaru takes their molle one slot further forward than I did. I started mine where I did because the ruck buckle attachment gets sewn through those front slots, making them useless, if you start them where kifaru does. In hind sight I realized that the benefit is you get a ton of reinforcement to that ruck buckle seam if it goes through those 2 pieces of webbing. Live and learn.

Cosmetically, I think kifarus brace looks like garbage on the lite frame. It just looks very baggy and untidy. That is why I tried to avoid and added brace with my original design. I knew that design would force me to edge bind around the hole it would create. With my setup I was unable to achieve results I was proud of when edge binding it so I scrapped that idea and had to make a whole new frame sheet cover.

The way I used the elastic webbing to mitigate lateral motion of the shoulder straps was done after my original design failed. The way I did them works very well but I could have done them a lot more tidy if they were part of the original plan. Next time I will incorporate them into an existing seam.

I want some more attachment points sewn onto the stay sleeves on the next one. I use those a lot to attach a cargo panel up higher on my duplex. Very little weight and effort for a lot of functionality. I admittedly copied kifaru's lite design blindly without realizing I was losing some of the functions I use.

When i redo the brace I plan on just painting a piece of flat aluminum and attaching it with chicago screws. I talked back and forth with tartan some during the build and the chicago screws were his idea.

I ended up using the spray adhesive quite a bit to assist in laying pieces up to sew. It is very handy for tacking velcro and such into place.

I was most intimidated by the shoulder straps and the belt but they ended up being quite easy.

Don't be intimidated by a project like this just because it seems complex. It is very simple when you start breaking it down into pieces.
 
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5shot

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There's a good vid showing how to do it without spinning...if that isn't an option. I'll look for it.

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pods8 (Rugged Stitching)

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Nice job. You ever handle any durastretch? I'm curious how that is compared to the spandura.

PS for not having reverse nice job! And I definitely agree on servo's being sweet. Do you have needle positioning one (IE you can set it to stop need up or needle down)? That's pretty nice also.
 
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WoodBow

WoodBow

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Nice job. You ever handle any durastretch? I'm curious how that is compared to the spandura.

PS for not having reverse nice job! And I definitely agree on servo's being sweet. Do you have needle positioning one (IE you can set it to stop need up or needle down)? That's pretty nice also.

I have not handled durastretch. I don't know what they use now but I know my old duplex is def not spandura. It has some stretch but not nearly as much as the spandura. I feel the spandura is almost too stretchy but I don't think it will cause any issues.

I have never even heard of needle positioning so i'm gonna say no. Sounds fancy. Can you explain a little?
Even with the servo motor on the slowest setting, it still takes a fine touch to go nice and slow with it. I saw a video where a guy modded his to not start up so drastically by just adding a piece of tinted film to the trigger mechanism inside which involves a light. Not sure if mine is the same. Or I may just rig an adjustable pedal stop.
 
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