Hopefully this isn't a repeat thread.  I seached for what I thought I remembered about pad inflation topics to no avail, so here's the new post.  Hope ya'll like it.

Air pad inflation on steriods - The "Cubenflator".

There’s been a bit of discussion on the forum about inflating sleeping pads – by mouth, pump, bag, and other gizmo’s.  I’d been looking for a way to reduce my efforts on inflating the non-self-inflating pad I have…happens to be the latest Big Agnes Q-Core….3.5 inches of comfy goodness.  I liked the Instaflator (   (You need to Login or Register) that has been mentioned for its simplicity and light weight.  At the price ($3.95 plus shipping), I bought 4 of them.  They work as advertised, but I wasn’t happy with the length of the bag and its delicateness.  One scrape on sharp granite and you might as well use it for a trash bag.  Sure – duct tape to the rescue.  It’s hard to use inside a tent too, as one poster mentioned.  I decided to make my own using the original hard parts.  You could probably make your own out of some tubing if you’re industrious.

I thought silnylon would be a better material, until, while looking for some online, I found cuben fiber, or CTF3 – a nonwoven laminate made of Dyneema polyethylene fiber.  Look it up – it’s pretty fantastic stuff.  They make high performance sailcloth out of it.  Ultra light backpackers have been making all kinds of stuff out of it for a while.  I thought I’d give it a try and it worked out as well as I’d hoped.  One bonus is you can use high strength double sided tape and don’t have to sew it. 

I got my fabric from Bearpaw Wilderness Design on line.  It’s not cheap, at $13.50/half yard of .51 oz./yd  material plus $1.00 per half yard of the tape.  The material comes 54” wide, so I got a yard of it and 3 yards of tape, plus shipping for $38. 

First, I made a tube by taping the two long sides with a flat seam.  I thought that might be a bit weak, but it’s worked great.  Tip – apply tape to one edge, line up the seam and weight the fabric so it doesn’t move/slide around.  Then slowly pull the backing off the other side of the tape at a 45 degree angle on the horizontal, pressing down the seam to seal as you go.  Use this method on all seams and avoid working with two sticky surfaces at one time.  This eliminates wrinkles, gaps, puckers, etc. – also known as screwing it up.

The original has a tapered end to it, but I thought it a waste.  Next I flat seam taped one end on the inside surfaces.   Since this seam would take the most pressure, I doubled it over and added one more pass of tape.  Now the one end had an unfinished edge, so I simply doubled it over and taped it – nice and clean.  Then I turned it inside out so the pressure would compress the end seam vs. pull it apart.  Where to put the valve?  Now I had two tapers to use.  I put the collar inside one corner and just pressed the nipple end into the collar, then cut the material out of the center with an Exacto blade.

Done.  How does it perform?  A light breeze or a couple breaths fill it.  It’s short enough to use inside a tent, but nearly twice the volume of the original.  It’s tough, light and packs down really small.  I put as much pressure on it as I dared (not quite full body weight) and it’s held up fine.  It takes about 1.5 times to fill my 3.5x20x72 inch BA pad.  It survived 10 days and 3 pads a night in Wabakimi last month and performed flawlessly. 

If I can figure out attaching pictures, I'll add some.

pd