Okay, maybe it’s not a gear mod worthy of Make, but I modified my messenger bag the other day and thought it would be cool to share what I did and how I did it.
The bag has a pocket for an MP3 player, which is handy, but accessing it to pause it or change songs is kind of a pain. To rectify this, I purchased the iPod remote. It’s a wired remote for the iPod that has a clip on the back, just like the one on the iPod Shuffle. My plan was to clip the remote to the strap on the bag for easy access.
This worked well enough, except that any time something pulled on the cord the remote would fall off. The problem is that the nylon strap is too rigid and smooth for the clip to get a good grip on it. Time for some surgery.
Cutting a nylon strap with a knife is a bad idea because the nylon will start to fray. You can fix this by melting the nylon where you cut it. But what if you could cut… and melt… all in one step?
All the hash smokers in the crowd will be familiar with Step 1 here. Tip: don’t use the good silver.
Once you’ve got the knife good and hot, carefully press the tip against the strap where you want to make your cut. In hindsight, marking the strap where I needed to cut it would have made things a little easier.
Oh, and avoid breathing the fumes. They probably aren’t good for you.
Time to attach the remote!
The finished product.
Hope you’ve found this useful or entertaining somehow. Be sure to tune in next time, when I’ll be building a lathe from a vacuum cleaner and a bicycle. So long!
umm.. awesome! I hate (you) that I had not thought of that before! thanks.
Well, the clip on my iPod remote ended up breaking off after the cord got caught on something, so I’m not sure I can still recommend this particular mod. I still stand behind the hotknife method of cutting nylon webbing, however.