I wear this pouch on my belt that holds some important things for me. I actually have three pouches on my belt, which means I have to wear suspenders or my pants will fall down. The pouch in question is the largest of the three, and it holds my camera, fire department pager, iPod, earbuds, and spare batteries for my camera and cell phone. I am opening and closing this pouch a lot.
I am a great fan of Velcro when it works. New Velcro grabs and holds, and requires just the right amount of effort to get it open with a satisfying, “squritchhh” sound. It almost never pops open when it is supposed to stay closed. New Velcro rocks.
Old Velcro not so much. You reach a point where only a couple of hooks are working anymore, and the chances of your valuable item spilling out at an inopportune time increases with time. Most of the time we toss the old pouch out and get another one. I thought this was unfair to my pouch, so I searched for alternatives. I remembered how a lot of the army surplus stuff I used to buy used snaps, so I thought I’d explore that avenue.
I looked around on YouTube and it seemed like installing a snap wasn’t all that hard. You just needed the appropriate sized hole punched in the cloth, a firm surface to put the item on, the correct snaps, and a quick tap with a hammer. I decided to tackle this project.
Punching a good hole through some thick material called for the proper tool. I looked at the hand held leather punching tools, and just didn’t bond with them. What was wanted was something sturdy that could be hit with a hammer. When I found this set on Amazon, and learned it was sharpenable, I was sold.
In the same transaction, I ordered a set of snaps. When everything arrived, I took it all out to the shop and went to work. The instructions were clear, the punch made four perfect holes in the Velcro thickened fabric, the snaps went together for me just like they did on YouTube, and I had my rehabilitated pouch.
Now some of you naysayers might suggest that I could have bought a new pouch for the amount of money I spent on the punch set. And you’d be right! But what is your point?