Sometimes people ask me if I can send paper or digital packraft plans (patterns, blueprints) to save them the cost of shipping a kit or because they want to make one out of different materials. Unfortunately, the answer is now “no”.
I used to sell packraft plans, but I stopped for several reasons:
- Lack of interest – very few people wanted them.
- A large amount of work for zero compensation: let’s say you pay me $20 for a set of plans and I spend an hour making them, packing them up, and driving the parcel to the post office, plus 1-3 hours on email support answering your questions about the choice of appropriate materials, tools, and helping you through the building process. After subtracting the cost of paper, pens, stencil materials, bubble envelopes for shipping, heat and electricity in my shop, website fees, credit card processing fees, gasoline, liability insurance, etc., I’ve spent 2-4 hours to earn zero dollars.
- A few bad apples out there have been trying to use the plans to make money for themselves. I have spent literally hundreds of hours designing packrafts, making multiple prototypes, improving the designs, making more prototypes, improving the designs again, and so on. I keep the kit costs low because I want packrafting to be affordable for everyone, and every time I get a few dollars in my account it motivates me to innovate more, make more videos, write more posts, and help you out. When someone tries to take all that hard work and turn it into profit for themselves, it’s pretty annoying. Selling digital plans would make this problem much worse.
I hope this gives you some insight into why I no longer sell packraft plans, and I hope you will choose to support the DIY Packraft project by purchasing a kit instead.
Thanks for your understanding, and happy packrafting! (And no, I will not make an exception for you.)