home made frame bag

[jimfab]

Everybody

I recently took up sewing to try and make myself a few things for my bike i was unable to go out and purchase. I have ben having a bunch of fun with it and have made some pretty cool things. I finally took some pictures of my last frame bag build to hopefully help others that may be thinking of giving it a go. I dont know if i am doing things the way a real sewer would, but it gets done and works just fine for me. this is my 5th frame bag, each one is better than the last. Now almost all my bikes have them, dont know how i lived without them before. steps in pictures...

1. Make a cardboard template of how you want the bag to look.
2. cut your material 1/2 inch bigger all around your template. I use heavy denier for mine. I like it better than the ripstop thus far.
3. next i cut a liner from thinner denier to make the Left side, wallet / thin storage side.
4. I cut my zippers to length. I use #3? standard plastic zipper. again for me works fine for me. you can use whatever zipper suits your fancy.
5. Next i sew the zippers in place, then i go back and cut the slot behind.
6. using 2 inch webbing, cut 3/4 inch long pieces and burn edges to sew on as a zipper stop.
7. sew on zipper stop. I sew a square then an X. Works great, looks good.
8. Sew lighter denier to left side pannel. i go 1/2 inch in to allow a good flange to sew other parts to and maintain size.
9. make velcro straps, this is where you need to pay attention that you dont sew stuff on backwards.
10. sew on straps
11. cut top / side strip to enclose bag, i cut the thick denier around 3 inch to get about 2 inch wide finnish product.
12. sew strip around one side then flip outside in.
13. sew other half together, now should be inside out.
14. inspect all sewing work, if happy flip right side out, and fit...
15 enjoy

[jimfab]

here is the rest..

[Cereal_Killer]

That looks really good!  Thanks for the directions on how you went about it.  I've been contemplating making one myself, but was unsure of how to go about it.  This helps a lot.  Good photos also.

[jimfab]

Thanks!

I am not sure if how i am doing things is " right " but I am more than happy with the end results and they work for me. I did allot of web searching for things like sewing zippers, stops, edging, all kinds of stuff. All i found out is that there is many ways to skin a cat. I am glad this helped someone. There were a couple similar post's in the past that were helpful to me. Forgot to mention above that i use 2" webbing for a backing to some of the velcro straps, longer straps get the same material as the bag with the edges folded over. Some bags get a center divider made of 2" webbing and velcro. this bag was too small for a divider.

Today i finished another bag for my fisher paragon. This one is my best work thus far, still room for improvement but i am happy. Jeff and Eric are pretty good at what they do. I have used my CDW bag as a template of correct sewing many times. Not sure how they do it, but Jeff's work is prefect in every way. I can sure appreciate there handy work more now that i have tried it a few times myself. Not sure how they make a living selling custom bags as cheap as they do ( i am not complaining  ). I also better understand the wait times involved, these things are time consuming.

anyway.. Here is my latest creation.... cheers-JF

[Done]

Excellent directions, thanks for sharing. I'm thinking about making my own gear, and this will really help if I go down that road!

Cheers,
Toby

[wunnspeed]

Very cool! Well done and thanks for sharing.

[12wheels]

Great work, thanks for sharing.   

PS - Men don't sew, they make gear.

[mzungueriki]

Nice work.

I have been using frame bags for ten years and wondered why they are not widely used.  In fact I find them so useful i am reluctant to go with full suspension because i would lose space in my frame bag. 
On my touring mountain bike I can carry up to 6 litres in the fram bag with domedary bags.

[eyecandyandy]

I have been using frame bags for ten years and wondered why they are not widely used.  In fact I find them so useful i am reluctant to go with full suspension because i would lose space in my frame bag. 
On my touring mountain bike I can carry up to 6 litres in the fram bag with domedary bags.

Yeah, going to full suspension required me to make my bag custom.  I think that's really why they're not widely used.  Too many unusual frames to effectively make them.  My bag is pretty shoddy and not nearly as nice as jimfab's but it does the trick for me.

Great work, man.