The New Project...

Well, today marks the start of my next project. My favorite site visit bag suffered some severe damage during the last site trip to Dillon. I would like to blame the extent of the damage on the cold temperatures compromising the vinyl material, but I think it was just old age and experience that caused the catastrophic failure of the bag. I was really attached to the bag, and have tried to replace it on several occasions but never managed to forge a long term bond and relationship with any of the replacements.

For those who don't know me, I am a picky man (hence why I am still unattached) so finding a new bag has not been just as easy as going shopping. I did manage to find a few bags that I could make work, but their price tag had three digits and my heritage wouldn't allow things to go down that way. Today I brain stormed with Mom and put some sketches down on paper on how I would envision my perfect site visit bag. There was even a trip to the fabric store, man how I used to hate the trips to the fabric store. I used to beg Mom to let me stay home and now I am inviting Mom along for these trips. Since I am so picky, I will be forced to make my own pattern which will make things really interesting. So there will be a lot of brainstorming, sample patterns, failures, sketches and discarded ideas, but I think I might just luck out.

I will keep everyone posted on how the progress of the project and hopefully the finished project is functional and satisfy my desire to have the perfect work bag. I plan on taking pictures throughout the process, so maybe it will be a future Do-it-Yourself blog.

Today I made a plan roll, but forgot to take my camera over to the house to take pictures of assembly. This was just a taste as to what this next project will be like. I even sewed the binding on all by myself; a project I would normally talk Mom into doing for me.

Keeping plans clean and un-tattered is a chore and often gets accomplished through the use of plan tubes. I personally don't care for the bulk that plan tubes have so I have created this device. Nothing more than a piece of Cordura with webbing straps that gets wrapped around the roll of plans to protect. The nice part is it can be folded or rolled when not needed and doesn't have the bulk of a tube. It will accommodate a 5" Dia plan roll which is typically more than one would want to carry around. It has attachment points for a carrying handle or a strap, and I hope to incorporate an attachment point for this on my site bag. It should help to keep the plan edges clean and protect the plans from getting wet in inclement weather.