Blacksmith Camping; Aussie made Canvas Bags
If you like your camping, there’s a good chance that you own, or have used something made of canvas. It’s an amazing material that is used in everything from swags and tents to bags, clothing, seat covers, water bladders and rear wheel rubbish carriers.
Good quality canvas is waterproof, can breath well and will take years and years of abuse in harsh environments, and you can’t ask for much more than that. Today, we are super excited to share a new Australian made Canvas Bag manufacturer with you; Blacksmith Camping.
Some of you may recognise the name from the Snowys website, which has been selling them for a number of years.
Not too long ago, we were approached by the owners of Blacksmith Camping to see if we could help spread the word about their products. Now, for those of you who’ve been following us for a while, you’ll know we normally steer away from this, but we jumped at the opportunity for a number of reasons, which I’ll go into below.
Before we go any further though, know that the three bags you see in the photos below were supplied by Blacksmith Camping Supplies free of charge. Our thoughts on the bags are entirely ours though, with no input from Blacksmith.
EDIT – After using these for more than a year, we paid for a new toilet bag from Blacksmith, to house our second portable toilet for our lap of Australia, which we’ve also used extensively and cannot say a bad word about.
What products do Blacksmith Camping make?
Blacksmith Camping Supplies manufacturer a huge range of canvas bags. They make anything from tent bags to drawer bags, Weber and BBQ bags, Camp oven bags, Toilet bags, Firewood carrier bags, Towing mirror bags and more.
Blacksmith Camping are also working on a rear wheel rubbish/dirty gear bag that I have no doubt will be a huge seller.
Why are we happy to partner with them?
These days, we are even more selective than ever before of who we partner with, and it stems from the uprising of individuals, and travelling families who are quite literally selling their soul in order to promote a product, or service.
We don’t subscribe to that business model, and have been doing this for more than 12 years. Obviously this hurts our income, but we refuse to promote anything that doesn’t meet a strict criteria. Anyway, enough of that, and onto why we agreed to partner with Blacksmith Camping Supplies:
They are a small, fully Australian Business
What started off as a dream, is now a fully functioning small business operating right here in Australia. Laine and Erin started this business in May 2019, and slowly grew it to the 5 staff today working full time to make their canvas products.
We have the ultimate respect for anything that is built from the ground up in Australia.
Australian materials, made right here.
As above, 5 people help to make these products in Keswick, South Australia, and all of the materials are Australian made with exception of the zippers, which are made by YKK (the best in the world). The canvas is DX12, and is locally made by Wax Converters Textiles Australia, right here in Rutherford, NSW.
They are backed by Snowys
If you’ve never been to the Snowys website, you’ve been missing out. They are the best camping and outdoor store in Australia, by a long shot. They sell only brand name products (as in the best of the best) at prices that make me wonder how other camping stores are still in business, and they have the customer service and knowledge to tie it all in together.
Snowys was started in 1995 by Richard in Adelaide, and today have two brick and mortar stores and a brilliant online store with delivery throughout the country. Blacksmith Camping Supplies was started by the son and daughter of Richard, and Snowys have been selling these canvas products for 2 years.
Their bags are top quality
I knew even without having the products in my hands that they’d be as good as it gets. Aussie material, made by Aussie people and designed to last a life time; how could you go wrong?
Of course, when they arrived, and I gave them a hard time my opinion didn’t change; they are extremely well built, and money well spent.
Without mentioning another companies name, a good friend of mine purchased an imported rubbish bag (to store rubbish in) from another canvas supplier, and even with his extreme care it lasted a mere two trips, and then fell apart. I’m certain even with the abuse ours cop that they will last a very long time.
Would we buy them?
Without a doubt. Ironically, I had actually been looking for some canvas bags, so it slotted in just perfectly. We had an Oztrail portable toilet bag that broke, and I’ve been putting our toilet in the Reconn R2 storage without anything around, or under it, which I never felt great about.
We’ve also just re-done the Dmax Canopy storage, and I wanted to make our first aid kit portable and easy to use, so a small drawer bag covered that just perfectly. Lastly, they sent over a coffee kit bag, which we’ve used for our coffee, and we’ll set it up to be able to make a brew away from our Hybrid Camper.
Just quietly, we are gearing up for a lap of this great country, and it will be imperative to have things stored properly; I’m sure we’ll be back to Blacksmith Camping Supplies (which we did, and purchased another bag with our own money).
We’ve had 4 bags in service now for more than a year, and are really wrapped with them.
Where can you get them from?
As mentioned above, if you want a quality canvas bag, you can buy them from snowys.com.au, or direct from blacksmithcamping.com.au
