Udwin's old-timey kit

[Udwin]

Could i trouble you for a photo of the tumpline please?

Sure thing. How's this work for ya? Width is 2 and 3/8ths inches; 26 inches long.

[man_of_tanith]

Brilliant, Thank you.
is it secured with some leather thongs through the two holes?

[Udwin]

Brilliant, Thank you. is it secured with some leather thongs through the two holes?

Yup. 1/4 inch leather thong, twice the length of bedroll (plus a bit), overhand knot the two ends together, pull that through the left side, lay it across one end of the unrolled blanket. Roll up the blanket, secure with a few laces or pieces of cordage, then take out the hazel stick on the right^, put the exposed loop end of the thong (sticking out of the rolled bedroll) in the notch, and replace the hazel stick.

[Udwin]

Since my push towards creating a 'common' Middle-earth persona and my focus on the woodmen of the Anduin valley, I've refined my general kit to what I feel is a bit more in line with my interpretation of this culture.
I dropped the '76-pattern haversack (to be be reserved for 18th-century and/or Hobbit-specific scenarios), in favor of a proper knapsack. This one is a brown canvas copy of my soviet 'meshok', which is about as simple and functional a backpack as you can get.
It contains--during Spring, at least (clockwise from top right):
wearables (knit wool hat, a EmmerErfscheidenveen-pattern wool tunic, 2x linen underdrawers, spare pair of mocassins, birchbark snowgoggles);
edibles (2doz acorn flour&honey hardtack, bag of meal, bag of dried meats), spoon (I need to carve a wooden one!), brass kettle, turtle shell drinking cup which hangs outside the pack; the redware bottle will may have a woven nettle shoulder strap as soon as I can find my dropspindle;
hygiene bag (castille soap, wooden comb, horsetail (nature's toothbrush!), fresh mullein when I can get it, and cathole-digging tool (calf's scapula)
red manuscript book of verses;
bag of pipeweed and spare pipestem*;
linen bag of cordage, sewing kit, whetstone, tin of leather dressing, candle, and sewing kit.

Total weight of the above loaded into pack (minus water container) somewhere around 11 pounds, which is about 1/3 the weight of my modern setup!

Since taking these pictures I have determined that a tumpline isn't the best method for carrying my blanket when I'm fully loaded with the above kit plus my quiver. However, a horseshoe roll works pretty well, as does simply wrapping and pinning the blanket around me.

Last picture is detail of the sternum strap on the new pack--deer bone (inspired by the bone belt 'buckle' rings found in British Bronze Age sites) attached with nettle corage to the goatskin straps--without the sternum strap the pack bounces around terribly while running.

*I'm still not sure if an Anduin Man in the late Third Age would be a smoker of pipeweed or not. We know it was known in Gondor as a 'weed', and that there _was_ contact between Wilderland and Osgiliath until shortly before the War of the Ring, but I'm not sure it's safe to assume/extrapolate that Leaf could have been spread, much less cultivated, into Rhovanion.

[man_of_tanith]

very nice.
I like that a lot

[wulfgar]

Very nice kit. How does the blanket roll fit over the pack, or do you secure it to the bottom?

[Ringulf]

*I'm still not sure if an Anduin Man in the late Third Age would be a smoker of pipeweed or not. We know it was known in Gondor as a 'weed', and that there _was_ contact between Wilderland and Osgiliath until shortly before the War of the Ring, but I'm not sure it's safe to assume/extrapolate that Leaf could have been spread, much less cultivated, into Rhovanion.

The lower Anduin and the Gladden fields were supposedly the cradle of the Stoor population at one time, it seems o me as though the hobbits there may have already had the habbit, though they were considered to be less agrarian and more "hunter/gatherer" types, even though you might not pick that up from the Smeagol and Deagol scenes in the movies.
Perhaps they did not pick up the "hobbit habbit" until after they found themselves in the midst of Ereidor and its fertile feilds ripe for agriculture.
In any case, if Sarumon and Gandalf had interest in the stuff, it is likely that it spread throughout the area. And the Ranger's were not the only men in the Taverns that puffed on a pipe I am sure!

[Udwin]

Very nice kit. How does the blanket roll fit over the pack, or do you secure it to the bottom?

Thanks. Without the brass kettle, the blanket roll on tumpline carried normally (across the chest) works okay... the top of the pack in back pushes it up a bit, but it's not terrible. (This works great with a side-slung haversack riding under your ribs, of course)
With the brass kettle, however, the blanket roll is a no-go, carried normally at least; they both want to occupy the same space and it just doesn't work.

I've found the best way to carry the blanket is in a 'horseshoe' slung diagonally (how the Russians carried their coats when using this kind of pack), or as a 'matchcoat' just quartered and pinned around everything. These configurations work best for me because the only real other option (blanket attached to the bottom) has too much 'bounce' for my taste, especially when the blanket is bouncing off yer butt with every stride when you're running.

Plus, I don't think this pack was designed to have a five-pound blanket bouncing and pulling on its straps constantly, and the attachment point between the straps and the body of the pack is a definite weak point for my hand stitching.

However, if you just want to keep everything together, a blanket roll can be attached to the bottom of the pack without any kind of hardware. Just cinch the tumpline down extra tight, and re-tie the thongs around both the rolled blanket and the tumpline, then run the pack's straps under the tumpline before closing the pack normally: