DIY Gear porn thread

214723 Views 684 Replies 138 Participants Last post by BastrdSonOfElvis, 6 h ago

missiongravity

Discussion Starter · Apr 5, 2018

8

I am a person who enjoys making their own gear and I am sure many of you others are as well! Let's see those homemade drop bags, drag bags, tables, utensil holders etc. DISCLAIMER: I am not a gear company looking to rip your designs etc, just a guy who has a sewing machine and likes sitting in front of it!

Here are a few items I have made lately. Don't have any pics of my drop bags or gear bags but will try and get some.

Drag Bags(first design):

Map Book Case:

Sand Stake:

Med Kit:

Cup Holder:

See less See more

Reactions: 3

1 - 20 of 685 Posts

Shaft

· #30 · Apr 5, 2018 (Edited)

6

bwaters932 said:
I love these types of threads! Here is a barrel pump that I made. Planning on a few things this year, a drop bag, cargo net and whatever else I can think up!

Missiongravity, where do you buy the vinyl mesh?

Nice, I recognize the cutting board with holes cut out of it sitting on your bench. Making pumps is a real PITA but is pretty satisfying when they work. I figure that by making pumps I am losing $ based on the amount of time I spent...

That said, thanks to this forum, I have made some things.

Pumps, smaller top-off style pumps without a check valve and a large ABS 5" barrel pump with check valve.

Two 4" thick PVC pads, need to make some cooler pad covers next.

Dry bag for tent, and a longer one for the k-pump style pump:

I didn't really make this, just assembled from loop straps and a metal ring:

Need to check yard sales this spring for a heavy duty sewing machine....

See less See more

Shaft

· #32 · Apr 5, 2018

missiongravity said:
Nice stuff Shaft! Did you glue or hot air weld your pads? Valves in them? It's so cool seeing stuff others have made!

Sewing machines are so hard to find for a good deal. If people have a commercial machine for some reason they think they are worth retail.

I "heat welded" with a cheapo heat gun and silicone roller (that was about the same price as the heat gun) and put some halkey-roberts valves in which are good for rolling and to let water out if they get submerged, when using the heat gun/roller combo it is really difficult to get it 100% sealed.

Shaft

· #72 · May 17, 2018

Dustin Judd said:
Can you link the source please?

Knock-off:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/282316077087

Shaft

· #182 · Sep 28, 2019

A friend has this (https://www.downriverequip.com/rigg...er-equipment/down-river-crossbar-bag-pid-2025) on the front crossbar of his raft frame and its purpose is to store the last things used before shoving off, sand stake/mallet/k-pump/stern rope and then empty beer cans during the day, the bag is very well made and has a sheet of Hypalon sewn to the inside to protect the tight mesh material.

I wanted something similar so I ordered the Phiphertex plus mesh, YKK #8 zipper (Downriver uses a #10) and I already had the webbing and grommets. I sewed this up on my wimpy home machine. It lacks the pull tabs and webbing reinforcement of the Downriver bag, I used PVC instead of Hypalon to protect the inside. It's a little smaller but will hold all the items I listed above, pretty happy how it turned out...

See less See more

Shaft

· #186 · Oct 3, 2019

MT4Runner said:
What is the inside protection sheet?

If it covers the mesh, why not skip the mesh and make a PVC bag?

Since I was copying the DR bag, I ordered and used the mesh, there's no reason you couldn't use PVC.

With a heavier duty machine, seams in PVC should be as secure as the mesh, not the case with my home machine, I have tried both and my machine has an easier time with the mesh. The problem could be that I am a sewing rookie and need to play with thread tension more, the PVC also doesn't feed well, I suspect the feed dogs don't grip the slippery material very well.

Shaft

· #216 · Mar 22, 2020

ParabolicDestination said:
Yeah MT4Runner. It took FOREVER to make them (Not really that long, maybe 5-7 hours total from cutting/melting, and sewing. Would have been faster had I had a hot knife instead of a roller cutter and a lighter. One can never have too many straps! Shouldn't be that many left over really, 4-6 1ft per side board, 2 hinges for drop bag deck cover, 3-5 for the king cover hinges at the back of the captains bay for covering the gear and you're at 18-ish. The 3ft Reds are a probably a little overkill at 24 of them, but oh well, webbing is cheap. All made for under $150, DRE would have been over $250, and I wouldn't have had D-rings on all the straps longer than 1ft and have color coordination in the bag. Definitely worth it for making life easy at the take out!

Very nice! What mesh material did you use for the bags? Over the winter I have been making clones of the rocket box and water jug holders on the market but I ran out of multi-mesh from Seattle Fabrics...

Shaft

· #220 · Mar 22, 2020

MT4Runner said:
Shaft, when I made my everything bag, I bought mine from tarpsonline.com

I got a 72" x 2 yard multi-mesh textilene remnant from Seattle Fabrics but it was still $13.95/yard, I have also used the Joanne's pet screen fabric which is a little cheaper - will be interesting to see what holds up better.

Shaft

· #221 · Mar 22, 2020

5

I made some stuff over the winter:
- dish drainer that will fit my roll-o-table, plywood deck table or a friend's salamander table
- stitches n stuff style drink holders (lots of these to give out as gifts)
- junk drawer
- rocket box/nested water container holders
- scepter water jug holder...

See less See more

Reactions: 2

Shaft

· #222 · Mar 22, 2020

Man I wish I had a walking foot and a binding attachment for my machine, all of the items above were made with a thrift store find - a heavy duty kenmore, had to order some parts but for about $50 I am pretty happy with it.

See less See more

Shaft

· #229 · Mar 24, 2020

MT4Runner - let's see it!

I'm not sure my Kenmore is rated for heavy duty, but it has all metal parts and doesn't seem to have a problem with 4 layers of polypro webbing + 2 layers of mesh.

The Singer 4411 Heavy Duty can be less than $150 if you find it on sale, I'm not sure if it's truly heavy duty but it's gotta be better than the cheap home machine I started with (and inherited) that got through 2 layers of polypro, 2 layers of velcro, 1 layer of mesh, 1 layer of PVC...

Shaft

· #255 · Apr 16, 2020 (Edited)

3

Jamesdking, I like your idea, especially for a shower setup, pump it with a barrel pump while you shower.

A whale pump (or ebay knockoff in my case) is what I bought a while back so I'm sticking with it. I overbuilt the crap outta this handwash, I was tired of the hose kinks and water source tubing end coming up out of the water on my old one. The filter on the end is not as effective as I'd hoped, I do get larger sand particles in there though.

I did have to give the flexible coolant pipe a catheter to prevent leaks. The square buckets are smaller than the 5 gallon round buckets I was using, but more room in the gear pile is a good thing. A single lid provides support for the top bucket in use and seals it up for transport.

One of the buckets has a slot cut in it for the 90 degree elbows to drop in.

I do dry out the pump assembly after every trip by purging as much water as possible and hanging it in the garage.

The soap holder has some work hardened romex sewn inside so it hangs on the bucket...

See less See more

Shaft

· #260 · Apr 21, 2020

MT4Runner, no need to even ask, copy away.

This is the flexible coolant pipe I bought, I wanted the larger diameter and I'm glad that I did as I had to run some small tubing through the middle of it as it unexpectedly leaked at many of the joints. Go long on the flexible coolant pipe, you can always remove joints and reassemble.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NT5R5YS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The "catheter" tubing I got was a tight fit, I just bent the pipe until it separated, threaded the tubing, then heated the cup side and pressed it back together, without heat it is difficult to snap together unless you have a special tool.

Do yourself a favor and buy stainless hose clamps for handwash projects, non-stainless (zinc?) corrosion was impressive after just one season.

Shaft

· #282 · May 6, 2020

MT4Runner said:
yeah, I decided just to buy a pair of fuel primer pumps. $22 shipped with 6' tubing on each. I'll make a handwash for the groover, and a separate handwash for the kitchen.

Anyone got a line on convenient smaller buckets than the 4gal square or 5gal round? edit: duh, plastic frosting buckets oughta do it!

The green Menards buckets are typically taller than frosting buckets and you don't have to clean them out, especially if you get garlic butter spread instead of frosting, DAMHIK

Shaft

· #311 · May 23, 2020

MT4Runner said:
Got a pair of hand wash stations built. $22 for 2 fuel pumps/tubing, $12 for 3 bendy tubes, $1 per hose clamp. $18/ea with some free frosting buckets

Looks great, especially for how little $ you spent, did your flexible coolant pipe leak at the joints like mine?

Shaft

· #331 · Jun 11, 2020

Tired of your light beer cardboard case getting soaked in the gear pile and the resulting cans everywhere? Behold the dirty 30 holder...

See less See more

Reactions: 2

Shaft

· #345 · Jun 16, 2020

missiongravity said:
MT4Runner: I found some stuff that is far heavier than the pfifertex style mesh that DRE and ToughRiverStuff uses. It is a mesh from a truck tarp manufacturer. No home machine will sew it however, I have a triple feed Adler 67 and even it balks when you get to multiple layers of mesh/webbing/straps. But only in the thickest of parts. I just finished two drop bags with it and the thickest part of the construction was 8 layers of mesh/4 layers of seatbelt webbing(real deal seatbelts not the thin crappy stuff they sell online as seatbelt webbing). I am using a V92 weight thread for everything.

What do you suggest for us home-gamers that don't have access to an industrial machine? I am using V69 thread and a #18 needle on my all metal parts old Kenmore, sews Textilene multi-mesh and Phifertex Plus just fine. DRE is using Phifertex Plus on their XD line as far as I can tell...

Shaft

· #348 · Jun 17, 2020

I have done a little research in the past on walking foot machines, this blog was interesting:
https://www.yachtmollymawk.com/2018/06/barracuda-200zw-v-sailrite-lsz1/

Reactions: 1

Shaft

· #351 · Jun 18, 2020

Heywood said:
Not sure if this has already been posted.

I was looking through threads to dream up my table build and I really liked the idea of using conduit and I found this stuff in a google search

https://makerpipe.com/

Pretty cool stuff with lots of DIY potential. I am using it to build a new table and replace the shitty legs on an old one. Probably end up using it to build storage shelves in my new garage as well.

I will post back with results.

I think somebody posted about those guys before, I had previously visited the website but kinda forgot about it.

My plywood table (drop bag cover) with t-nuts and roll-a-table legs is way wobbly so I just ordered 12 of the t-connectors. I am hoping that without their anti-slip sleeves that the leg t-connectors will rotate around the conduit, also their "puzzle piece" t-connector ends might impede rotation, but a chisel will fix that.

Shaft

· #380 · Nov 10, 2020

craven_morhead said:
Totes sized to a 20mm ammo can for a captains box. Likely used for first aid, pin kit, and sundry day stuff, respectively View attachment 60919 View attachment 60920 View attachment 60921 View attachment 60922

Nice looking homemade gear! Kudos!

Shaft

· #428 · May 18, 2021

MT4Runner said:
Or the $7 WalMart Ozark Trail knockoff colster. Probably made in the same factory in between Yeti runs.

I need to build a dish drying rack and pot hammock
Tempted to build a new mesh seat for my camper chair so rain falls through it and I don’t have to try to keep it dry.

A dish drying hanging mesh "pocket" with a front pocket for utensils + pot hammock is next on my list of things to make. I am gonna try using black Sling Chair fabric with a 2" strip of PVC to line the bottom of the utensil pocket (with some drain holes punched) to prevent knives from cutting the mesh. I will be basically copying the dish washing hammock from Salamander with 1" stainless d-rings in the corners instead of sewn in cam buckles and webbing - this will make replacing the hanging hardware as easy as grabbing another strap out of the bag in case of meltage/damage.

Front porch for cot using sling chair fabric, it rolls up around the folded cot and fits in the pouch:

Blue Tent Rectangle Shade Tarpaulin

See less See more

Reactions: 2

1 - 20 of 685 Posts