Okay, for those who have seen my bike's pictures, you will notice that I have an early-90s vintage Wolfman Tank Bag. The 'backpack' style clips that it came with broke after many years and I was forced to 3D print replacements. Well, those replacements are not so good. Without taking the time to do finishing bakes with acetone, they break eventually.
So I decided to fix this problem with a couple old hard drives. Or at least with their magnets.
This looked a bit less-than-optimal to me, so I decided to put the magnets inside the little flaps which keep the buckles from scratching paint. First I opened up the end, and then I stuck the magnet inside.
Then it was just a matter of stitching up the ends. I also sealed them a bit using a lighter and pinching the hot rubber/vinyl/petrochemical together.
As you can see, my hand stitching skills are rusty and more for function than appearance. But I did my best and it looks good enough on the bike.
And there you have it. The magnets I used are strong enough that one of them will hold the fully loaded tank bag to a vertical surface, so 3 of them make the bag quite secure at speed. In all, a successful mod which gets rid of my goofy blue and green clips.
So I decided to fix this problem with a couple old hard drives. Or at least with their magnets.
This looked a bit less-than-optimal to me, so I decided to put the magnets inside the little flaps which keep the buckles from scratching paint. First I opened up the end, and then I stuck the magnet inside.
Then it was just a matter of stitching up the ends. I also sealed them a bit using a lighter and pinching the hot rubber/vinyl/petrochemical together.
As you can see, my hand stitching skills are rusty and more for function than appearance. But I did my best and it looks good enough on the bike.
And there you have it. The magnets I used are strong enough that one of them will hold the fully loaded tank bag to a vertical surface, so 3 of them make the bag quite secure at speed. In all, a successful mod which gets rid of my goofy blue and green clips.
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