Welcome back to day 04 of the 30-day challenge.day-00-announcement: http://ift.tt/2saHDzI http://ift.tt/2ElyYiZ pouches: http://ift.tt/2sap0w0 http://ift.tt/2ElI6UL duffle: http://ift.tt/2saHE6K notebook: http://ift.tt/2ElyYQ1 dive into day 04! Today I'm working on a small fully lined duffle bag with a number of modular features and a Hypalon bottom so it's going to be a later post as the fabrication is quite involved. :)[EDIT/]This was a LONG day I started around 8 this morning and wrapped around 1am... and now I'm hungry and sleepy... and very happy with todays results! Later post than has been the past few days because I wanted to produce something particularly well finished with a number of modularity options. The result is a little TANK of a durable Duffle bag showcasing a LiteSkin LS42 exterior upper, a fireproof Hypalon bottom, and an ultra swanky merino wool softshell liner (The same, or a very similar, wool softshell seen in the new wool Veilance goods from Arc'Teryx)Gallery of the finished project can be found here:http://ift.tt/2skXOuD Log is up here:https://imgur.com/a/PCLSn[/EDIT]To keep the pace of things this afternoon I'm going to share a write up I put together last night on the future of Leather, and how it's earning a high-ranking position among the top tier technical fabrics. Most of the 'cool shit' in leather has been coming from one place: ECCO Leather! That's right, the folks who make your grandad's sneakers are paving the future for a whole new world of animal hide innovation.I've put together a gallery discussion of a selection of the most interesting leather samples that I have access too - sourced from ECCO - which you can check out here:http://ift.tt/2EpEIrG, the top three exciting new leathers to keep an eye out for are:Apparition Leather - this new ultra lightweight, semi translucent, water repellent leather is unlike any fabric I've encountered before. This stuff is really the bridge between tech and organic, and in the near future we will no doubt see this stuff showing up in a whole new generation of products. Lightweight leather coats, and bags excite me most, but already there are things like wallets and footwear making early appearances.Dyneema Bonded Leather - Dyneema (aka Spectra) is an incredible material in the same family as Kevlar and Nomex - although it does not share their Abrasion or Heat resistance characteristics. Technically called Ultra High Molecular weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) it's historically been marketed as 'synthetic spider silk' being that it is among the strongest lightest materials man has ever produced. The strength-to-weight ratios for these materials range from 8 to 15 times higher than that of steel! ECCO has found a way to bond these fibers into the leather texture during tanning, providing an incredible waterproofing and strength upgrade to typical leather; opening the door to a new market of waterPROOF lightweight durable leather goods.GLOW Leather - I unfortunately do not have a sample of this to share nor have I been able to see it first hand as yet - it's made strictly on demand. However from what I've heard and read this stuff is incredibly cool. There is a glow-in-the-dark element infused into the leather hide itself, providing a beautifully textured and subtle glow effect within the leathers natural texturing. Check out a pic from ECCO's site here: http://ift.tt/2saHFHQ for reading!Hopefully this is the type of content some of you have asked me for. If there's any suggestions on format or details I'm more than happy to do what I can to share.Tomorrow I'm going to play with Velcro... I think it's gotten a bad rep lately.Also I'll get into a discussion on Hypalon, wtf it actually is? and the types of variations on the market and in use today... because very little of it is genuine chlorosulfonated polyethylene (CSPE or CSM for short) and I find that to be very dishonest. The price variation between Hypalon-esque and genuine Hypalon is MASSIVE! <$20usd/yard for whats usually a neoprene based look-alike compared to $90-$200usd/yard for the real thing which has kevlar(aramid) core and is totally indestructible against water/salt/fire/acid/uv/abrasion and dragons too I reckon. It's become a marketing hype thing, and I cannot put the designers who use it to blame, the resellers of fabrics are the ones who are slanging the lies... several years ago Dupont stopped producing the materials and now there is only one reactor on the planet -in japan- that currently produces raw CSM and they do so in small quantities. Tune in tomorrow for that! via /r/DIY https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/7vupra/30day_diy_techwear_design_challenge_day04_modular/?utm_source=ifttt
