(Click on illustrations to enlarge)
How to Make Your Own Green Bar Bill Pack
Decide on the kind of material you want to use. When this pack was designed, a heavy waterproof duck was considered the best, but consider modern heavy duty nylon materials.
In addition to 96" of 34-inch wide 12 oz. duck or canvas (or other material), you will need 4 boxes of No. 9 split copper rivets, 24 1-inch D-rings, 36" of 2-inch webbing, 66" of 1-inch webbing, 14' of mason line.
Lay out the pattern on your material as suggested in the working drawing. If your material is of another width than the width shown, it pays to make up a paper pattern first, then lay it out on the cloth in the most economical way.
Cut out the pieces, then put them together, as shown in diagram, with the copper rivets. Make the body of the pack over a wooden box, 18"x16"x6". Turn inside out. Attach the flaps as shown. When the pack itself is completed, rivet on the straps in the manner indicated on the diagram.
William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt's pre-1972 Handbook for Patrol Leaders features about 250 more pages of specific outdoor how-to Patrol Leader information that the current edition. Every outdoor Boy Scout Troop should have a copy in its library. Copies can be purchased at AddAll, a service that searches more than 40 bookstores and 20,000 dealers. Look for publication dates in the 1950s and 1960s. Avoid like the plague any editions printed after 1971.
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