Seyntex Army Bivi Bag Makeover

I started with a review of the Seyntex Army Bivi Bag to try and understand the design and to understand what problems it is solving. With that done I feel OK about customizing the bag to make it more useful for lightweight camping.

The most obvious thing to do is to chop off the bedroll section of the bag and see how much weight is saved.

I've cut the wrap fabric leaving about a one inch (2-3cm) strip still attached to the bag so that I can machine something onto it later. Here it is after cutting:

Now that's quite impressive. With one cut we've gone from over 700g to just 415g. What we are now left with is a reasonably light breathable sleeping bag cover that would be ideal for use under a tarp. For £10 that's pretty cool.

The next obvious thing you could do is to replace the lost fabric with a much smaller piece of 4oz PU-coated Nylon or SilNylon to create a dry headrest or pillow area.

Headrest (optional)

I know that in practice I'm going to need a dry area underneath my head. I can do this with a piece of scrap SilNylon.

I've cut the SilNylon to be about 1/2-2/3 or the length of the original roll piece and a little bit wider so that I've got room to play.

With the nylon cut I sew it onto the strip of fabric that I left on the bag, I fold the fabric over and sew again to create a neat seam. Then I add a simple rolled hem to the outside of the SilNylon.

Finally I add a tent peg loop to the top-middle of the SilNylon piece using a 3cm x 3cm reinforcing patch flag-stitched onto the SilNylon and then a 9cm loop of 15mm webbing bar-tacked onto that. (If that sentence makes no sense then look at any of the other tarp projects such as this for details of how to do it.

Summary

The final bag weighs 434g. That's not ultralight but it is light and at £10 + scraps it's a bargain for a tarp-friendly bivi-bag.