Home-made detachable camera straps
Today I decided to make my own affordable detachable camera and equipment lanyard straps. I used some cheap generic “Peak Design compatible” buckles, bought direct from China via Ali Express, together with some generic anchors from the same source. I also used some 25mm nylon webbing I’ve had kicking round for ages. Granted, perhaps bright orange is not the world’s poshest colour. But at least I can always find the straps. Besides, I have another 20 metres of the stuff kicking around in the garage doing nothing. And for a cheap fabric, it actually feels remarkably nice in the hand. It has a 2000kg breaking strain too, allegedly.
All you need to do is measure or guestimate the length you want. Cut it and seal the ends. I use a hot air solder station set to about 150°C. But you can do it with a flame if you are quick and careful. Then thread the webbing though the buckle, overlap the webbing on the other side by about 5cm and run a couple of lengths of machine stitching over the join. Obviously you need to overrun the end of each seam with a few extra stitches to ensure it doesn’t work loose. I used a near-matching orange poly-cotton thread in my mother’s old Bernina 830 sewing machine, c/w a fairly standard 120/19 needle. But pretty much any reasonably decent quality thread will do, though I would favour a synthetic or part-synthetic fibre. You could probably even stitch it by hand if you don’t have access to a machine. But that’s it, basically. Job done!
Peak Design
I actually like the basic Peak Design design itself. I just don’t like the horrendous price! Hence my interest in Chinese “PD-compatibles“. So far I’ve been able to covert to “PD-compatible“: 5 DSLR/MILC or bridge-sized cameras, 2 point-and-shoots, and about 25 assorted pieces of other kit (radios, torches, compasses, pocket-watches, penknives, MP3 Player etc.) all for less than the cost of one genuine posh Peak Design strap. Granted all but one item weighs well below 1kg. And my Pentax K20D c/w 16-40mm lens only weighs 1.3kg.
Whilst most of my camera neck straps have involved simply fitting PD-compatible buckles to existing straps, I really like the idea of making one’s own hand lanyards and doing so literally for a few quid.
