I’ve been messing around with some duct tape crafting.
Time to share some notes and make good use of this blog!
… Duct Tales, ♬♬WoooOOO-ooo!♬♬
When you read that, you’re hearing it in your head the way I was intending, right?
Laptop Jacket
Before getting into the cylinder shown above, I want to talk about my work laptop. It’s an extra piece of hardware that’s required for doing certain jobs via remote work. It’s also an extra thing I have to keep track of, organize amongst the clutter, and worry about it gathering dust. And that’s not some kind of euphemism; literally, worried about it gathering dust.
So like any sane man, I’ve resorted to solving miscellaneous problems with duct tape.
Well, duct tape and zip ties, but the discussion on zip ties is for another day.
Also, the term “man” is used loosely. Using the more accurate term, “man-boy-dude”, carries too much confusion and baggage.
Readers, I present to you the laptop jacket – for when you need absolutely everything on your laptop sealed.
Except for the screen. And except for the ports. Oh, and also except for the vents.
(We plan to have a talk with the marketing department on their aggressive large product number designations)
An external (BYOD) USB keyboard and mice are now mandatory, but such is the cost of wrapping this loaner machine in as much of a protective bubble as possible.
Ports
The slots for the ports and smartcard were left as afterthoughts, as they could just be cut through the sheets after the jacket was assembled. Although more work could be done to get a cleaner look because the simple cut regions buckled. This makes them look wobbly.
Venting
And of course, there must be considerations for making sure the air supply isn’t blocked. This is important because if not handled and the laptop breaks, I would have to come up with some lie to the IT department to cover up the true ridiculous reason of how I broke it.
In that scenario, a truthful explanation would probably be something like: “Well you see, I’m doing a work at home thing, and my dust build-up situation there is a travesty, so I took some duct tape and as a professional computer man-boy-dude I forgot how computers worked, did child’s arts-and-crafts thinking I was in any way clever, which lead me to metaphorically strangle this expensive engineering equipment in literally a very shiny way – using some middle ground method between how people dress their dogs and bondage with tape, and now it’s kaputskies. May I have a replacement?” Yea, no.
This involves more cutting into the sheets, but also reinforcing it so the cuts don’t easily grow into large tears. Especially at sharp corners.
Power
And last, there’s the power button. The laptop has a power button with a translucent glyph that lights up when the machine is on. I want to be able to visually locate the button, and see if it’s lit. To do this, a small square slice of marine PVC plastic was taped over a cut region.
Barrel Bag
Somewhere in all this duct-taping a jacket for my work laptop, I ran out of tape and bought more. Afterward, I had too much spare tape left. Well, I guess it’s time to make more stuff.
Mixed Media Goals
I decided to make some sort of bag, because – because that’s what you do with duct tape! But I wanted to involve some mixed media elements.
Rivets (or actually, grommets and staples) and other connecting materials (Chicago screws) were added as things to use because I had them. Plus it adds an extra dimensionality to structural design that I can play with.
If it’s just the duct tape alone, the only option I have to assemble things in a sturdy fashion is to use the tape’s glue, which only gets me so far. With more materials, I have more options to play around with for the aesthetics. With more methods of attachments, I can attempt to design contingencies for if the duct tape starts to delaminate. Tape delamination is likely to happen after old age and wear.
I also wanted it to have a zipper. The zippers don’t adhere to tape well, so some sort of stitching may have been required. In the end, I decided to create a product design lawsuit liability and simulated stitching with office staples. So additional parts of the challenge are to integrate staples in a way that gives me the closest function of stitching, as well as keeping the sharp lacerating bits insulated from the user.
Admittedly, I’m probably going to be the only user, so I have a vested interest in them not being lacerated.
And before you ask: no, the zipper wasn’t made by YKK.
High-Level Design
I wanted to try a cylindrical design, a style affectionately known as a barrel bag. AFAICT, this term covers round purses, thermos slings, sports bags, duffle bags, etc. If it’s a bag in the shape of a barrel, ya got yo’self a barrel bag. It’s a style you don’t see too often in duct tape crafting.
There are two main ways I could go about the sheeting: dual-ply layers, or a weave.
I went with the weave aesthetic because I’m a fancy man-boy-dude with standards.
Caps
The bag’s cylinder caps are arguably the most important structural part: it defines the cylinder shape and holds the spans that allow the weave to be possible. Each side consists of two circles that sandwich a bunch of strings along with the outer circles. They are riveted together with eyelets, those things meant for shoelaces to go through.
The cylinders were made by taking some eyeballed observations and then creating a stencil in Inkscape, including where the eyelets would go. In the end, cutting out discs exactly 6 inches in diameter turns out to be an elegant measurement.
In the illustration above, the measurements weren’t actually figured out and recorded until there was a real prototyped version to assess. A ton of things were decided by eyeballing by feeling it out. This also includes decisions on the duct-tape grain of sheets.
The Weave
The weave is kind of wonky. Some of the reasons are (as previously mentioned) that the design was being figured out while it was being made. But, now with known measurements, I’m hoping the second iteration could have a cleaner and tighter weave. This is because if you don’t know exactly what dimensions you’re working with, it’s hard to gauge exactly how well you’ve tightly packed the duct tape weave – especially to do it consistently across the entire product. Whereas if the strips are cut to a rigorous length, you just pack the weave as much as the portioned material allows it should all end up weaving consistently (in theory).
There are a few things to note in the illustration above. First, there is a series of holes punched along the bag’s opening. This is where the opening will attach to the zipper assembly with Chicago screws.
The next thing I want to point out is the weave on the outer edges, right next to the end caps. When opening and closing the bag, the ends of the mouth will be a lot more stressed than the rest of the bag’s opening area. The ring strips have been folded in half to reinforce the ends; these strips are half as wide but twice as thick. The thinner rings also mean we get alternating weaves in a more compact area, which is good for reinforcement. Hopefully, this will help the eyelets holding the spanning strips of the mouth last longer.
Inner Lining
There’s a sheet lining the inside. This lining is what the zipper is actually stapled to. I really wanted a weave on the outside, but I wanted a simple sheet on the inside. I didn’t like the idea of a storage bag with so many potential holes (from the weave) in it. Also, the busy weave pattern could make it difficult to blindly rummage your hand around, from a tactile aspect – as it makes things noisier for the user’s sense of touch.
Until Next Time
A few more photos, but there are additional details that I’ll save for another day, another post.
BTW, this was all done using Lockport silver tape. So far the best tape I’ve used for crafting – it’s got really good adhesion, a good tactile feel, and a clean surface finish.