The “leather iron” from www.aliexpress.com is my preferred iron for assembling DIY Packraft kits. It’s hot enough, it maintains a consistent temperature, it’s robustly built, it’s the right width for heat sealing the packraft’s seams, and it’s affordable.
It’s not perfect out of the box, however, so I made this video to show how to make the necessary modifications.
To purchase an iron like this, type “leather iron” in the www.aliexpress.com search bar. The branding is inconsistent, so don’t bother searching for company names – just scroll through the pictures and pick the cheapest one that looks similar. Make sure it has a temperature adjustment knob.
2 Comments
unnamedpeaks · December 12, 2019 at 9:07 am
Is there some benefit to replacing the plug as opposed to using an adaptor?
Matt (Admin) · December 12, 2019 at 9:16 am
You can probably save a few dollars by buying a new plug instead of an adapter, but other than that, there’s no benefit. When I made the video the only adapter I could find was about $30, which seemed excessive, but since then I’ve seen them as low as $8, which makes that option more attractive.