Will the Alpacka inflation bag work with the NRS packraft???
I’ve found you can inflate a boat with a mismatched fitting if you have a second person hold the nozzle in place. There’s enough volume coming out of the inflation bag that even quite a bit of loss around the mismatched fittings is ok.
You can also make adapters for the inflation bag, Trebork2. The valve is 3/4" standard pipe thread. If you go to a hardware store, you can get PVC parts in that threat in electrical and plumping, and use PVC cements, tape, or glues to jury-rig the assembly together so it terminates in the fitting of the right size for your valve. Not that we can warrant or really say anything about how it will work, being as its DIY, but you get the idea 
Thanks for the tips! I made a rubber adapter for it. Works just fine!! Just bought a Yak though!!! No more ghetto DIY rigging!
A note that is slightly tertiary here…
I just refurbished an old worn out bag. One change I made was to make the sleeve that holds the sticks at the top continuous so the sticks can slide. This way the sticks move around on their own and don’t wear through the fabric as fast.
I have removed my sticks by cutting a small hole in the sleeve and then I store the sticks in my break down paddle and stuff the blow up bag minus the sticks elsewhere. This is worth doing if you are having trouble finding a place to put the blow up bag – like running Class IV creeks without any gear.
I removed the sticks as well and replaced them with 2 pieces of bicycle cable housing. It is rigid enough to hold the bag open and flexible enough to shove into anything. It allows me to carry the inflation bag in a pocket all wadded up. didn’t resew the holes but closed them up with tyvek tape which gives me a little extra in case I need a field repair
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My original inflation bag was one of the “small ones” from Alpacka, from ~2005/6. Lots of work to inflate a raft.
A few years ago, I made a new large one from silinylon and the ribbing that they use for holding up strapless dresses, along with a standard plumbing fitting… .
But, to the point…
Over 20yrs ago, I made my girlfriend, now wife, a strapless dress, and this ribbing was wonderful, as it kept the breast pieces of her dress in place very nicely!(perfect from her point of view…others might have liked a failure!). It stuck in my mind as having alternative uses…
Over the years such uses have become evident .
It is perfect for inflation bags, as it “twists and curls” up into a small circle, without having to take it out and store it in a paddle. It is also perfect for giving the rigidity to the tops of home made dry bags.
The only time it failed, was just before our wedding, and , in the effort to look as svelt as possible, when my beloved had lost a few kg than she needed to, we were walking into town, and the ribs just weren’t enough to hold it up…!
Lucky it was winter, and she was wearing a cloak over the top!
AA
One of the sticks in my inflation bag wore a hole very quickly and escaped. The other was on the way out. No fault of the design,I don’t like to baby gear and silnylon has horrid abrasion resistance.
Yesterday I saw that our neighbor had thrown a few old fishing rods in the trash. I nipped 6" off the top of each, removed the guides, and wrapped each in a fair bit of athletic tape, all around with plenty on the ends. I cut a few inches off the inflation bag, then resewed the new sticks into it, with each stick free to migrate around the circumfrence.
The shortened bag seems easier and faster to use, and the padded flexible sticks will hopefully last a bit longer stuffed into the depths of my pack.
Packing the inflation bag when you have no pack and worry about poky things around the boat prompted me to cut the sticks free from my inflation bag and store them in the paddle. By cutting them free I mean I just made a little hole and slid them out, then burned the nylon with a lighter to keep it from faying.
When i want to inflate I just slide the sticks out of the paddle shaft and back into their sleeves and blow up the boat. Without the sticks in the bag, I can shove it in a pocket or my dry suit…
I lost the sticks that go in my inflation bag mid summer last year… since then I used it without the sticks and it worked fine for me. YMMV of course.
On occasion I’ve lost or broken sticks and had to use the bag without… I didn’t like it nearly as well, though it’s certainly possible.
I don’t know why just removing the sticks when not in use didn’t occur to me. Good idea. I’ll go with my sliding sticks thing for a while and see if I like that better though…
A fairly simple field fix if the stick is falling out but not lost is to put it in place, and then wrap the end with thread (using a needle) so that it’s bound to the sil nylon.
If you’re ever without a bag at all and have to mouth inflate, use the big valve not the mouth valve (except at the end)! Take short breaths that are less likely to lead to hyperventilation. I learned this from Gordy Vernon, who I watched inflate a standard Alpacka in 6 minutes by mouth… The main problem is drooling into the boat, so sometimes I lie on my back. Also you can get a fair amount of air in just by tugging on the raft with the valve open (thanks to Roman for that one.)