Digger, from LFGSS (NOTP), and I, occasionally cross paths and pleasantries on parts of my commute.
One evening, not so long ago, he caught up with me on Wickham Road and before peeling off, advised me that my bag (back-up) light was positioned in such a way as would lend it to being spotted by someone in an aeroplane, rather than someone following me at street level.
I took his point. Once I am aero-prone, the light, which is attached to one of the buckle straps of my courier bag, is pointing skywards, and thus, next to useless.
Like so.
The light needs to be lower down on the bag.
Ideally, attached to the base of the bag.
Unfortunately, there is no hardware on the base of the bag to which I could attach my Leyzene KTV usb light.
I could (potentially) rivet some sort of strappage to the base, to which the light clip could be attached, but I was loathe to compromise the watertight integrity of the bag.
My day clothes travel in this bag and even though I've cycled through some torrential stuff, they've always remained dry - on which basis I was in no hurry to start making holes in the bag.
So, after some pondering, I figured that magnetic was the way to go.
One on the inside, one on the outside, and attached to the outside one, something which would embrace the clip of the KTV light.
One magnet / anchor point - not enough. What if the light catches on something? Bye-bye £12.00 worth of light
Two magnets - better. But still at risk if one anchor is caught, leaving just a single one deployed.
OK, so it is going to be 3 magnets arranged in, wait for it...... a triangle - a nice structurally sound shape.
Bisbell Magnets. If you order them as I did online onna Friday afternoon, RM will deliver them on Saturday morning. :thumbs:
14mm Ø x 5mm Neodymium magnets - these are seriously strong. You do
not want one of these either side of your ears lobe, nostril or nipple.
To give you an idea of how strong, one magnet will support another through the palm of my hand.
As I had a triangle in mind, I figured that tubular webbing might be a useful way of achieving the shape, and keeping of the magnets in place.
Sourcing tubular webbing of sufficiently large diameter to accommodate the 14mmØ magnets was a bit of an issue, but I finally managed to track down some 26mm wide webbing at
Dick's Climbing Store in Bristol.
Again, next day delivery service. No choice / option on colour (I had hoped for unobtrusive black) but when red turned up, I figured that it would do inna warning triangle kinda way.
A bit of experimentation in Adobe Illustrator produced some printable triangles in a suitable size to use as a template.
Cuts in the webbing were made using a No.10 blade in a Swann-Morton handle. Curved blade, natch! - doesn't drag like a pointy one, y'see.
Cuts were cauterised using a creme-brulee blow torch.
Stitching was, alas, by hand as I haven't mastered the dark art of the sewing machine. Yet.
If there's a sewing machine wrangler out there willing to teach, I would be an eager student.
And thus, the magnetic triangles were manifest.
One on the outside of the bag, one on the inside, and you end up with something which looks like this:
Attach the lamp powered by voles generally liberated from my employers USB ports and you get this:
One optimally positioned, highly directional, back-up lamp.
If I have one gripe, it is that I sooooooo wish I could use / had access to a sewing machine to make the thing about a million times tidier.