Musette Bag Mods - Leatherworking


Dadio

Dadio

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Last year, I bought a musette bag to function primarily as a way to carry my lunch, a book and some EDC stuff to work. Here's a link: [URL]http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MHPAY2/?tag=bcusa-20[/URL]

It was cheap and kind of stylish (barely), and it worked well. For months, the only mods I made were to wax the canvas (initially, it had all the structural integrity of a t-shirt) and to add a little snap thing to fasten the lid more easily.

Since then, I've transitioned to a work-at-home position (which rocks, BTW) and the bag has transformed to my bush bag, complete with quite a bit of leather work. Here it is in its current incarnation:
m1.jpg


Now, I'm not a "leatherworker", I'm just a guy who decided to mess around with it to help me get some improvements to a basic piece of kit. Everything I used, tools, materials, leather, came from Hobby Lobby or WalMart, with the exception of one tool that I could have obtained at HL. (No Tandy store nearby, unfortunately). I have maybe $50-60 in this project all told, including lots of materials left over for future projects. I hope you find this useful, because this will be a long post and, if past is prelude, I'm likely to accidentally delete this twice before I'm done.

I got a "farmer's pack" of scrap leather, about $8, a kit for rivets, a kit for eyelets, some artificial siniew, a leather needle, and a lacing chisel (all available at HL), and wax and some replacement quick conect snaps at WalMart.
1) Waxing. I just melted some paraffin wax and brushed it on, then melted it into the cotton with a hair drier. Did that three times. That was it. Some recommend mixing beeswax with the parrafin, but I didn't have easy access to it, and the paraffin seems to have worked fine. There is nothing in the pack in this pic, so it is strong, and of course is broken in now, but still acceptably rigid for use.
MusetteAfter-1.jpg


2) Swapped out the cotton straps securing the "lid" with leather straps with quick connect snaps. Just cut the old straps off, cut the leather to size, banged the lacing chisel to make the sewing reasonably straight, and sewed it on, then attached with siniew and hooked up the snaps. It's a VAST improvement in utility over the original.
m4.jpg


More to come in a few minutes, this post is getting long!
 
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3) Added a piece of braided leather for a loop to hang it from. One of the annoying things about the original was that there was no way to hang it neatly, without it hanging very low, from a branch or when storing it at home. I just braided some strips I cut from a scrap and sewed it onto the pack. Easy, and useful. (BTW, the blanket behind this pic is just there to hold the bag in position for the shot; the loop's not on the botom of the bag!)
m5.jpg


4) Swapped out the original cotton carrying straps for leather ones, and added a piece to cushion my shoulder and neck from those pain-inducing clips. Just like the original, there are several ways you can configure the straps so you can use it as a shoulder or back pack carry. The pics are pretty self-explanatory, but basically, just cut to size and use the chisel to make the sewing mostly straight. Used the snap kit - it has a hole punch, setting tool and anvil, you can get these at HL or at WalMart. For sewing through multiple thickness of leather, sometimes it's useful to drill out the holes using a hand drill and a very small bit (1/16?). I'm posting the "after" pic because it shows this mod well, and to keep you from having to scroll up.:
m1.jpg

5) Added straps on the side for axe carry (it's a 20" Wetterlings). I also sometimes use the straps to attach a knife in its scabbard. I used eyelets and some leather lacing, buckles would be better probably but I like how this looks, and I didn't have any buckles.
m3.jpg


One more post to come.
 
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Okay, home stretch!
After seeing jstalljon's ubercool bedroll carrier: [url]http://bushcraftusa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51340[/URL]
I added a version (not nearly as well done, but it works well.) Cut three one-inch wide strips of leather, made loops in the end of the "handle" to accept the straps that go around the bed roll, and secured the loops with rivets. Much easier than sewing and they look cool. Then secured eyelets in the straps to give some options on the circumfrence, and again used lacing to tie it together. Then I sewed some leather onto the bottom of the bag that will allow the handle to slip through.
m2.jpg


So.... all-in-all, it was great practice and really advanced my skills, and brought out my deficits. I need to figure out how to clean up the raw edges of my leather work, and I need to actually pick up a book or something and learn some better sewing techniques. At present, I just cut the holes with a chisel [URL]http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JAGA9W/?tag=bcusa-20[/URL]
and sew to the end, then go back and fill in the stitches so that the thread is visible between each hole both top and bottom. I think there has to be a better, more efficient way. I'm pretty pleased with the results and, although it adds some weight to the bag, it does make it more useful for my purposes. I hope you got something out of all this!
 
Ingenuity the mother of invention! Nice work!!!
 
karlhungusjr said:
the leather came from hobby lobby?

and great pack!
Click to expand...

Hobby Lobby has these packages of scrap leather called "farmer packs" that have nice sized peices for about $8 or so. It's a crap shoot about what is in there, different colors and weights are in different packs, but sometimes you can get lucky. Good way to start for small projects. The packages are clear so you can get a good idea of what's there. You can also find scrap leather on the web or order from Tandy. There is a thread here about how to find leather if you want to do a search, too.
 
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Dadio said:
Last year, I bought a musette bag to function primarily as a way to carry my lunch, a book and some EDC stuff to work. Here's a link: [URL]http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MHPAY2/?tag=bcusa-20[/URL]

It was cheap and kind of stylish (barely), and it worked well. For months, the only mods I made were to wax the canvas (initially, it had all the structural integrity of a t-shirt) and to add a little snap thing to fasten the lid more easily.

Since then, I've transitioned to a work-at-home position (which rocks, BTW) and the bag has transformed to my bush bag, complete with quite a bit of leather work. Here it is in its current incarnation:
m1.jpg


Now, I'm not a "leatherworker", I'm just a guy who decided to mess around with it to help me get some improvements to a basic piece of kit. Everything I used, tools, materials, leather, came from Hobby Lobby or WalMart, with the exception of one tool that I could have obtained at HL. (No Tandy store nearby, unfortunately). I have maybe $50-60 in this project all told, including lots of materials left over for future projects. I hope you find this useful, because this will be a long post and, if past is prelude, I'm likely to accidentally delete this twice before I'm done.

I got a "farmer's pack" of scrap leather, about $8, a kit for rivets, a kit for eyelets, some artificial siniew, a leather needle, and a lacing chisel (all available at HL), and wax and some replacement quick conect snaps at WalMart.
1) Waxing. I just melted some paraffin wax and brushed it on, then melted it into the cotton with a hair drier. Did that three times. That was it. Some recommend mixing beeswax with the parrafin, but I didn't have easy access to it, and the paraffin seems to have worked fine. There is nothing in the pack in this pic, so it is strong, and of course is broken in now, but still acceptably rigid for use.
MusetteAfter-1.jpg


2) Swapped out the cotton straps securing the "lid" with leather straps with quick connect snaps. Just cut the old straps off, cut the leather to size, banged the lacing chisel to make the sewing reasonably straight, and sewed it on, then attached with siniew and hooked up the snaps. It's a VAST improvement in utility over the original.
m4.jpg


More to come in a few minutes, this post is getting long!
Click to expand...

Just goes to show how we learn from each other. I've done leather work for years and yet the simple hint of using the lacing chisel on the strap ends never came to mind until this post. Guess that's why we get so much from these forums.
 
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