So I signed up for a light-weight backpacking class to be taught by Steve Sergeant of WildeBeat fame. Turns out one of the homework requirements is to weigh all my gear, so I’ve been busy the past few days tracking down devices through which enable previously sane people to become gram-shaving lunatics.
I tracked down this company called Old Will Knott Scales, based in Enid, Oklahoma, and ordered a mechanical handheld hanging scale with 50 pounds capacity. Twenty bucks including shipping, and no fuss over batteries.
Because I have a rare disability which prevents me from noticing essential details until after my order is on the UPS truck, I failed to discern Old Will’s plain-English notation that this scale has a half-pound resolution, which means the little points on the dial are 8 ounces apart. I wouldn’t be able to hold my face up at Steve’s class having weighed my gear with such an imprecise instrument, so I went back to Old Will’s site and found a really swell mail scale with tons of features (my wife mails tons of stuff to family back east, so we have a legitimate use for it, which takes some of the fun out of it, I admit). Old Will’s marketing copy, apparently plucked from discarded Petticoat Junction scripts, is pricesless.
This scale has a tare feature that let’s the display “zero-set” after ya’ put an object on the scale. This MIGHTY TECHNICAL feature let’s ya’ measure the weight of the stuff inside a container. This scale actually ignores the weight of the container, and displays just the weight of the stuff inside.
and …
PRICE SCALES LIKE THIS AT THE OFFICE SUPPLY? GO HOCK THE KIDS !
If ya’ have, ya’ probably did a little gaggin’… over 70 bucks worth of gaggin’. Better to save a BUNCH, get treated right by a long-time merchant who knows what it takes to make ya’ happy, and buy yourself a new 7001 DX from Ol’ Will
Old Will lays on the old-timeyness a bit thick, but his operation moves at Internet speed. I got emails saying my orders shipped within hours of having placed them.
Now that I’ll soon have two scales I will be able to mingle with the gram-weenie elite with pride. Next up: Putting it all on a spreadsheet!
Tom, I’ll be really interested in hearing about how you get one. I’ve yet to weight my new, lighter weight gear combination; the only place I can think of doing this is at the local post office.
I’ve done the spreadsheet thing. The only thing that I have noticed is that it just encourages you to go out and buy more stuff – a lot of expense just to see the spreadsheet creeping slowly downwards!
Good luck!
The post office is a good, low cost alternative to buying a moderately-priced postal scale or a triple-beam laboratory scale that only a drug dealer can afford.
That said, there have frequently been “ultra-light, ultra-cheap” contests on various backpacking forums. You don’t have to spend a lot. For example:
http://www.adventurealan.com/250_challenge.htm
http://hikinghq.net/300_challenge.html
Both of these are rather aged links, but they should give you some ideas for your own up-to-date version.
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