You can adapt some of the inexpensive tool bags from the big orange store or its competition. There are some that compartmented and would work great.

Standard Disclaimer

My $.02

Forty poounds? That is a lot of lead. Why are you carrying around what is usually about two weight belts?

The bags come in a number of different weights [10, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1]. To keep balanced I need two sets of identical weights, one on each side of my weight harness. Depending on water temperature I wear more or thicker layers of wetsuit; my body weight and percentage of fat varies a bit over time; and as my gear load varies it can go from positive to negative buoyancy.

To achieve just slightly negative buoyancy for freediving requires a bit of weight experimentation each time. Over the years, I have needed as high as 32 pounds of weight and as little as 22, and most of the stops in between. To be able to get the right weight set, ranging so far from 16 pounds a side to 11 pounds a side has required assembling a collection of weight bags. Plus, to be prepared, I carry a few more pounds of weight than I have needed to be on the safe side - and occasionally to help a diving buddy get it right.

It sounds more complicated than it is in practice. You get suited and geared up, guess at the weight you need, load the bags into the pockets on the harness, and get wet. If you immediately bob to the surface or sink to the bottom, you adjust the weight load. I takes a few minutes but fine tuning lets you move almost effortlessly in the water column and prevents the use of energy and beath struggling to maintain position.

More than you ever wanted to know ....

I am a scuba diver too, but it has just never been that complex. I dragged a weight belt around and occasionally shed a weight or two if I was in fresh water, as opposed to my normal salt water venue. My belt was about twenty- twenty-two pounds. It helped that I was normally using steel tanks. I never required forty pounds, and I am not exactly slender.

These days SCUBA usually involve a buoyancy compensation or BC vest that uses air from your SCUBS tank to allow precise adjustment of your buoyancy. I freedive and no such device is used, so I have to physically make weight adjustments.

In addition to my seemingly everchanging weight, I am usually messing with new and different gear, each item of which has makes it own buoyancy contribution. Camera and camera light housings, large spearguns - particulary if with wooden bodies, foraging tools like abalone irons and crab or bivalve legal-size guages which vary with the legal season, gloves, booties, rash guard clothing, etcetera. It always seems to be a different buoyancy puzzle.

The puzzle is always quickly solved, but it is a step in my preparation each time.

Maybe I am doing something wrong!

Try one of the Swiss Gear packs. IIRC I was using one for about 30lbs if I was carrying the whole day's books & a laptop.

Art,

If you think it is wasting your time, please stop reading the thread. The rest of us are quite capable of deciding that for ourselves.

Respectfully,

Jerry

Art's comments took me a bit by suprise and seem out of character for him. For my part I am content to just move on, though I reserve the right to tilt at the occasional windmill.

My first thought was an old style external frame backpack to isolate you from the weight behind. But backpacks are all designed for distributed weight, and you are dealing with concentrated weight. A decent pack--not a cheapie--should be able to handle 30 pounds.

Try cutting up a half inch closed cell foam sleeping pad. Put a couple of pieces in the bottom of the pack to distribute the load. U-shaped, going up the front and back several inches. One of the layers could go up front and back, the second up both sides.

Try to find out what rock climbers use for packs nowadays. They tend to carry a lot of ironmongery, albeit probably not as heavy a load as yours.

Hey D,have a look at the French water buckets in Sportsmans guide site,they are Heavy duty canvas,collapsable & Cheap!