Gareth I'm interested aswell.
just looked on downeast's website and shipping $45 frame $35. mental!
Wow that does seem steep for a 790g item, suppose it depends who they ship with.. but its still only £50 for an excellent frame.
You need the following items to make one up:
1x Medium Alice pack
1x complete set of Molle ll shoulder straps
1x Molle ll kidney belt
1x Molle ll sleep system carrier
1x DEI 1606AC frame
Oh and my buckles were 3 a pair in Decathlon
Most can be picked up on ebay, but the frame you have to order direct from Down East. The components are all pretty cheap, 15 or 20$ each for good grade surplus. The frames are about 35$. You can therefore get all the bits for less than 100$ which is only about £65. (you'll obviously have shipping on top, but any pack ordered online will have P&P extra. It does though bump the price up quite a bit).
I'm in France and most of the gear I want needs to be ordered overseas, and shipping from the UK is not a whole lot cheaper than from the US. Surplus items don't seem to catch the eye of the tax people either...well mine didn't.
When all is said and done I ended up with a pretty large capacity pack, that is extremely tough, it may be an old design but it has a lot going for it, which is I guess why the US army still uses them and Down Eaqt came out witha new frame for them.
If an item breaks you can repair it. None of the main carry points are sewn, all are straps and buckles.
It has a cool retro look, is comfortable to carry and set out in a way that is great for packing your gear. I like the way I can change it around, add pouches, take the sleep system carrier off and use the pack as a day pack.... I can even take the frame off and still use the pack.
I've looked at the Karrimor packs or a PLCE Bergen, but many of them cost double what this cost me.
cheers
Gareth