Accurately weigh suitcases before going abroad

[waqasahmed]

I've no idea why I didnt think of this earlier. Sure, you can get some suitcase scales, but they tend to be either inaccurate, or flimsy. For a good one, your forking out some money!

Any way, what you'll need are two objects:
Digital scales ie: Bathroom scales
Plastic bag

If you don't already have digital scales to hand, you can purchase them from eBay:
Salter items - Get great deals on Luxury, Weighing items on eBay UK!

And it would also mean that you could weigh yourself accurately as well

Any way, what you do is:
First weigh the empty suitcase and take note of the weight. If it doesn't fit on properly, then its probably wise to make a guesstimate of 2KG/suitcase. I suppose at this point, an inaccurate luggage scale may be your best bet at a guesstimate

Any way, what you then do is:
weigh each item individually
If each item does not fit on the scales properly, place them in a plastic bag. The bag should weigh under 5g or so, so its a pretty negligible amount, but if you want, you can subtract it from the weight(or on mine I can press tare)
Take note of the item weight, to as much precision as your scales allow ie: ours give us precision to 3dp
Do this for every item, and then total it all up, to make sure that you're not over

This way, you then know that when you get to the airport you will not have any suitcases that are over the limit, and won't need to pay any extra! If you're bringing something back, then you may as well pack the scales in as well

I have two scales(so I can weigh what each one weighs) My body fat scales weights about 3kg, and my parcel one weighs 1.1kg, so if you've got some more scales available(ie: non digital), then you could see how much your scales weigh as well!

[remote matt]

You could always just weigh yourself then weigh again holding the suitcase and work the difference out that's what i do lol.

[waqasahmed]

Oh yes that could work as well. I'll try that with my suitcases And probably less time consuming as well! I only thought of this when we put in the last couple of items

[remote matt]

I could just have read your post properly in the first place

[waqasahmed]

Dont worry about it. I wrote this to save people some time and hassle at the airport, but you've saved me and probably others a lot more hassle

Instead of individually weighing everything, you are weighing:
your weight(noted down)
your weight+suitcase
total weight-your weight=suitcase weight

[waqasahmed]

Thanks Matt, I tried your way for accuracy(and then added 400g on to the weight as a margin of error), and found that the heaviest suitcase was 29.7Kg. We're allowed 32Kg, however we're trying to get suitcases up to 30Kg in case they have uncalibrated scales at the airport

When we were moving things in and out of different suitcases, I opted for the plastic bag method, considering its less tiresome(and then did the calculations, and gave a margin of error of 10g)

[nvingo]

Originally Posted by waqasahmed

I...if you want, you can subtract it from the weight(or on mine I can press tare)...

Originally Posted by remote matt

You could always just weigh yourself then weigh again holding the suitcase and work the difference out that's what i do lol.

Stand on the scales yourself, press Tare, then pick up the suitcase ??

[waqasahmed]

Can only do that on the scales that weigh parcels And that only allows a max of 25kg. If I weighed less than 25kg, Id be seriously anorexic

[silverpalm]

if you have a wii and a balance board i use it to weight all sorts of things you hold it then take away from what you where or just try to weight the suitcase