![]() At the same time it’s not hard imagining how a passionate inventor is more interested in perfecting his invention than spending money on a patent. Surprisingly Dick Kelty did not patent the original Kelty pack design from 1952. The original clevis pins were made from aircraft rivets. The first shoulder straps were produced using wool carpeting for padding. Kelty packs first include aircraft-aluminum contoured frames, padded shoulder straps, waist belts, clevis-pin attachment of pack bags, nylon pack cloth, zippered pockets, hold-open frames, and nylon back bands. Dick hand-formed and welded each of the frames, and his wife, Nena, sewed each of the pack bags using WW II leftover parachute pack fabric. In 1952 after several years of making packs in his home garage for friends, Dick sold 29 packs in his first year of business for 24 dollars each. One of the biggest innovators in backpack design, Dick was not only one of the first to produce and market external frame backpacks specifically for civilian use, but Kelty is also considered to be the inventor of the rectangular aluminium framed backpack, the hip belt, using nylon, adding zippers to the pack pockets and the padded shoulder straps. ![]() The biggest leap in backpack development probably began in 1952 when Asher “Dick” Kelty and his wife Nena started the Kelty brand from their garage in Glendale, California. In Part 3 of “External Frame Backpacks – Applying the Old Ways to the New Journeys”, Markus Kittner looks at modern developments within the world of external frame backpacks…
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