Howies courier bag disaster!

[rogerzilla]

I've cracked a male side-release plastic buckle on the stabilising strap.  If superglue doesn't work, any suggestions for finding a replacement that works?  25mm buckles of this type are widely available but they are not of a common design.  The replacement buckles I bought don't quite work with the existing female buckle on the bag - which is not broken, but is non-removable, so I can't just fit a new female buckle that works with the new male buckle (they come as matched pairs).

Howies are likely to be useless as a source of spares as they only made a limited run of these, almost 7 years ago.

Does anyone make a female buckle that can be fitted to a sewed-in loop?

Without a stabilising strap, a courier bag is unusable on a bike because it ends up round your knees.

This is the sort of thing I mean:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/WMA-PLASTIC-WEBBING-RELEASE-BUCKLE/dp/B005OH83GW

[Canardly]

Messrs Carradice and Co?

[fuaran]

Is it the Howies bag made by Timbuk2? You can buy spare parts for Timbuk2 bags, which would probably fit.

[Jurek]

Readily available from Snow and Rock.

I used them to replace a similarly busted buckle on one of my Crumpler bags, not so long ago.
EDIT: They get round the 'sewed-in-loop' thing by having a diagonal slot in the moulding.
Or if they don't, you can make one with a Junior hacksaw.
It has worked for me for the last 3 years.

[JohnP]

Was going to suggest Craghoppers trouser belt and just use the buckle. Snow & Rock buckle looks far cheaper.  We have a Crags retailer in Hatfield, just 4 miles away.

[Kim]

Given a sewing machine, a supply of spare needles and sufficient determination, a sewed-in-loop isn't an insurmountable problem.

[John Henry]

Given a sewing machine, a supply of spare needles and sufficient determination, a sewed-in-loop isn't an insurmountable problem.

De Sisti OTP had the fasteners on his Carradice bag modified at a shoe-mender. Cobblers! They have heavy-duty sewing machines which will make light work of this sort of thing.

[Kim]

Given a sewing machine, a supply of spare needles and sufficient determination, a sewed-in-loop isn't an insurmountable problem.

De Sisti OTP had the fasteners on his Carradice bag modified at a shoe-mender. Cobblers! They have heavy-duty sewing machines which will make light work of this sort of thing.

I modified the webbing loop on my Rainlegs recently (to shorten it so I wouldn't be lying on the buckle), which involved sewing through two layers of webbing, two layers of faux-leather and 2-4 layers of thin nylon.  Impressively, with a bit of manual cranking on the difficult bits, my ancient Singer made surprisingly light work of it.  The hard bit was keeping it all properly aligned while turning corners.  That webbing stuff's a lot easier to sew through than you'd expect.

I expect the bag involves a couple of layers of something more substantial, but as you say, eminently doable with the right machine.

[Jurek]

Given a sewing machine, a supply of spare needles and sufficient determination, a sewed-in-loop isn't an insurmountable problem.

De Sisti OTP had the fasteners on his Carradice bag modified at a shoe-mender. Cobblers! They have heavy-duty sewing machines which will make light work of this sort of thing.

I modified the webbing loop on my Rainlegs recently (to shorten it so I wouldn't be lying on the buckle), which involved sewing through two layers of webbing, two layers of faux-leather and 2-4 layers of thin nylon.  Impressively, with a bit of manual cranking on the difficult bits, my ancient Singer made surprisingly light work of it.  The hard bit was keeping it all properly aligned while turning corners.  That webbing stuff's a lot easier to sew through than you'd expect.

I expect the bag involves a couple of layers of something more substantial, but as you say, eminently doable with the right machine.

You have sewing machine fu.
I envy.
I can drive all sorts of machine tools.
Lathe, vertical mill, horizontal mill, bandsaws in any direction, panel saws, table saws, etc, etc...
But sewing machine?
I've yet to conquer...

[iddu]

Does anyone make a female buckle that can be fitted to a sewed-in loop?

Trash the female buckle (leave the webbing loop intact). Attach new webbing + buckle to the loop.

[RJ]

Does anyone make a female buckle that can be fitted to a sewed-in loop?

Trash the female buckle (leave the webbing loop intact). Attach new webbing + buckle to the loop.

Or tie the buckle to the loop with some 2mm or 3mm tat.  (Necessity is the mother of invention  )

[Kim]

You have sewing machine fu.

Sort of.  While I'm reasonably competent at making the machine work, my actual sewing skills are rubbish.  Which is fine for simple repairs and stuff, but I'm in awe of people who can actually molish non-trivial items from scratch.

That and I always seem to end up sewing wacky materials (scotchlite, elastic, that sort of thing) that the machine isn't really up to, with disappointing results.

But, as in most things fettling, I'm generally willing to try.

[hubner]

If you're just sewing a strap, you don't have to use a sewing machine and in any case a domestic machine might not work too well with thick materials. I've sewn reflectives to my saddle bag and done repairs to bags by hand sewing with a thickish needle, and when needed using a thimble and pliers to push and pull the needle.

[Tewdric]

Does anyone make a female buckle that can be fitted to a sewed-in loop?

Trash the female buckle (leave the webbing loop intact). Attach new webbing + buckle to the loop.

I would either remove the female buckle and use an Alpkit mini krab:

http://www.alpkit.com/shop/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16304&category_id=250

Or order the spare from here and hope to get lucky:

http://www.mec.ca/AST/ShopMEC/HikingCamping/MaintenanceRepair/BuckleAccessories.jsp

Or cut  a small slot in a new female clip and put it in the loop, then soldering iron to seal.

[Paul]

Velcro? Stitch/staple/glue/nail/screw/weld/spit (etc) a piece to each end of strap.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I can't believe none of you have made the obvious suggestion.


Cable ties

[Perky]

The following needs a sufficiently long loop to work, and would be a lot easier to explain with a picture but I haven't sorted hosting yet so here goes anyway...

If the loop is long enough - pass the loop through the end of the new buckle, such that the buckle is free to slide along the loop of webbing.  Now, to illustrate the principle, stick your finger or something like say a biro through the end of the loop such that the buckle can't slide back off the loop and is now trapped in place. 

Then you simply need to replace the finger/pen.  I suggest a maillon rapide, available from all good climbing shops.  I normally get mine from hitchnhike.  A Maillon Rapide stainless long should do the trick.  The exact dimensions are on the maillon site, so it's normally not a problem selecting the right size. 

Once attached the screw part of the maillon should be under the webbing loop and the finished bodge should look quite tidy, and be fairly serviceable if it's a snug fit. 

An alternative ugly fudge to get the bag back in use whilst waiting for the maillon to arrive is to again pass the loop through the buckle, as described above, but then pass the buckle back through the loop as if tying a lark's head knot (or cow hitch if you prefer).  Ugly, but should hold, assuming the loop is long enough. 

And if you find yourself in need of a device for lowering yourself down a lift shaft then a maillon will hold a lot better than anything John McClane normally has at his disposal 

[JohnP]

Does anyone make a female buckle that can be fitted to a sewed-in loop?

Trash the female buckle (leave the webbing loop intact). Attach new webbing + buckle to the loop.

Or tie the buckle to the loop with some 2mm or 3mm tat.  (Necessity is the mother of invention  )

cable ties.

NOTE TO SELF - read all posts before making the obvious comment.

[Perky]

 ...cable ties    ...must restore balance to the force ...embrace your inner hippie, ditch that polyester strap, set to with your Inke loom, and personalise your Howies with the goodness of cards.

[Palinurus]

Posted so I can remember this thread later.

I've just broken the same thing on my Ortlieb courier bag.

[De Sisti]

Given a sewing machine, a supply of spare needles and sufficient determination, a sewed-in-loop isn't an insurmountable problem.

De Sisti OTP had the fasteners on his Carradice bag modified at a shoe-mender. Cobblers! They have heavy-duty sewing machines which will make light work of this sort of thing.

Those lovely people at Carradice sent the fasteners to me (for a small price) and I had the local
cobblers attach them to the saddlebag.

[iddu]

Without a stabilising strap, a courier bag is unusable on a bike because it ends up round your knees.

[wel'ard RZ] 6" nail through, into the hip. Gives you somewhere to hang yer hat & keys as well [/wel'ard]

[rogerzilla]

Thanks for the genius suggestions (and the pikey cable tie ones).

I think I'll try a mini-carabiner when the superglue gives up.

[Perky]

Old thread I know, but stumbled upon these Ortlieb jobbies that might do the trick.  Seems they can be fitted without any sewing.  Depends on how the buckle is loaded I guess.  And not too pricey as these things go. 

[rogerzilla]

I am the Thread Necromancer.

I found this when looking for something on Carradice buckles, but you may be interested in the eventual, and stupidly simple, solution.

Buy a male and female pair of "no sew" side-lock buckles.  Only the female one, which goes on the bag loop, needs the special "no sew" split, as the male one threads onto the end of the strap.  8 years later, cycle commuting may have gone in the pandemic-related bin of history along with office work, but the buckles are still fine.  I didn't even bother removing the sewn-in factory buckle from the bag loop.