Shaping a bag - sewing texon/bontex

[Klaken]

I am making a weekender bag out of chrome-tanned leather which is quite soft. Therefore, I need to stiffen the bag up to make hold the desired form when empty. After the bag is stiff enough I will also drop in a lining. To make it stiff enough I have been experimenting with texon/bontex. I was thinking if I can apply the same way of thinking as with the lining by sewing a box which I drop in the bag and sew at some strategic places? I have thought about just adding some thick leather to stiffen the bag but it will make the bag quite thick and too heavy. I have a few things I am still unsure of:

1. Saddle stitching texon/bontex - will it hold over time? Is it a better way to put two pieces of texon together?

2. Sewing corners with texon - Is there a good way of doing this so I can shape a box out of texon sheets?

 

[garypl]

You can buy bag stiffener from Tandy.  I bought a piece several years ago to use with a portfolio and it worked well.  I think it was about $20 for a 48 x 36” piece.  There are other products you can use and if you search for bag stiffener in this forum I am sure you will find many ideas.

Gary

[Klaken]

42 minutes ago, garypl said:

You can buy bag stiffener from Tandy.  I bought a piece several years ago to use with a portfolio and it worked well.  I think it was about $20 for a 48 x 36” piece.  There are other products you can use and if you search for bag stiffener in this forum I am sure you will find many ideas.

Gary

Hi Gary,

The stiffener I have, goes under the name Bontex in the US and Texon in Europe, is very similar if not the same as the one Tandy sells. I am quite happy with the product itself and plan to use it, right now I am mostly wondering about how. I have searched the forum but haven't really found what I am looking for, but glueing and then sewing trough the stiffener seems to work quite well which I think answers my first questions

[LatigoAmigo]

10 hours ago, Klaken said:

I need to stiffen the bag up to make hold the desired form when empty.

I face the same issue with most of the bags I make. On my last bag I Barge-cemented a piece of thin veg-tan on the inside of the body's front and back pieces, flesh-side to flesh-side. It provided the needed support and has held up very well. I use Bontex to keep the bottom of the bag stiff, as it is very cardboard like, and I wouldn't expect it to work very well on the other parts of the bag, at least in my case, as it could get bent or damaged, and not retain its original flat shape.

Edited March 26, 2019 by LatigoAmigo

[Klaken]

2 hours ago, LatigoAmigo said:

I face the same issue with most of the bags I make. On my last bag I Barge-cemented a piece of thin veg-tan on the inside of the body's front and back pieces, flesh-side to flesh-side. It provided the needed support and has held up very well. I use Bontex to keep the bottom of the bag stiff, as it is very cardboard like, and I wouldn't expect it to work very well on the other parts of the bag, at least in my case, as it could get bent or damaged, and not retain its original flat shape.

Thanks, that is really helpful. The part about the Bontex getting bent or damaged sounds worrying. I was hoping that I could avoid adding more leather as the weight quickly adds up, but maybe that is the best option after all. I just can't completely shake of the idea of using bontex as for this project it would make things so much simpler, I have it in 0.6 and 0.8 mm and I wonder if I can still reinforce parts of the side to give the bag the initial lift 

[blue duck]

Bontex/Texon is a good product to use for bags as it has been impregnated with a treatment to prevent mold/mildew. Depending on the structure you are looking for you could glue the two wts. together. They make it (well that I know of) up to about 1.25 mm (if I did the math right). That is really stiff. If you plan on turning the bag, it may not be the answer as you can not get the shape back if it is wrinkled or bent. The best application would be to glue with Barge as mentioned above to the inside of the stitch line. You will need to make sure it is smoothed out as you go or it will be a mess. Then your lining should be stitched where it will help hold it in place as well. Not sure about the box shape you are trying to make. Are you thinking something like a suitcase? Or not that structured?

[LatigoAmigo]

40 minutes ago, Klaken said:

I just can't completely shake of the idea of using bontex as for this project

If you try it, I would like to know how it turns out. The product I have is called Texon, and may not be exactly like Bontex, although it is supposed to be very similar. I purchased it at a Tandy store, and it came in only one weight, 2 mm, which is pretty thick. I am interested in what you are using, as it may exhibit different properties than what I have.

[Klaken]

42 minutes ago, blue duck said:

Bontex/Texon is a good product to use for bags as it has been impregnated with a treatment to prevent mold/mildew. Depending on the structure you are looking for you could glue the two wts. together. They make it (well that I know of) up to about 1.25 mm (if I did the math right). That is really stiff. If you plan on turning the bag, it may not be the answer as you can not get the shape back if it is wrinkled or bent. The best application would be to glue with Barge as mentioned above to the inside of the stitch line. You will need to make sure it is smoothed out as you go or it will be a mess. Then your lining should be stitched where it will help hold it in place as well. Not sure about the box shape you are trying to make. Are you thinking something like a suitcase? Or not that structured?

If only glueing would hold it in place that would be great, I can't sandwich it between two pieces of leather as then I would run into the weight problem again. The way I was considering to do it would be to create a box shape like I plan to do to lining and then glue it to the sides and stitching it together at the top with the zipper and on the sides of the bag (shoulder strap attachment and handle attachments). But maybe I am overthinking it here and it would work just as well to attach the pieces seperatly on each side?

The bag is inspired by the Mulberry Clipper (https://www.mulberry.com/us/shop/women/travel/holdalls/clipper-oak-natural-leather), and I wish to retain a shape as such pictured also when the bag is empty, - more or less. I think the shorter sides would benefit from using the thicker .8mm and for the longer sides I was thinking I would go with .6mm of Texon. The benefit of creating a box as I see it would be to avoid qurky corners in the bag but maybe that wouldn't be a problem anyhow? I have the outer layer of the bag completed, the lining I will be using is very soft and will unfortunately not add that much to the structure of the bag. Maybe I can try to upload a picture of the box I have created for testing purpose and that might be more informative of what I am trying to achieve

41 minutes ago, LatigoAmigo said:

If you try it, I would like to know how it turns out. The product I have is called Texon, and may not be exactly like Bontex, although it is supposed to be very similar. I purchased it at a Tandy store, and it came in only one weight, 2 mm, which is pretty thick. I am interested in what you are using, as it may exhibit different properties than what I have.

I think they are actually the same product, just sold under different names depending on where you are located. For me, living in Europe, it was sold under the name Texon. I would say that both the .6 and .8 are about as stiff as a 2mm veg-tan leather (very roughly), I can imagen that the 2mm is quite stiff and maybe in my case would be more suitable for the base of the bag as I believe you used it. I will update the thread if I decide to use the texon!

[LatigoAmigo]

34 minutes ago, Klaken said:

I would say that both the .6 and .8 are about as stiff as a 2 mm veg-tan leather (very roughly)

For point of reference, here is the bag where I used some 1.5 mm economy grade veg-tan as a stiffener on the front and back (but not on the sides). I like the result, so would look forward to finding Bontex/Texon that could be used instead.

Edited March 26, 2019 by LatigoAmigo

[Klaken]

16 minutes ago, LatigoAmigo said:

For point of reference, here is the bag where I used some 1.5 mm economy grade veg-tan as a stiffener on the front and back (but not on the sides). I like the result, so would look forward to finding Bontex/Texon that could be used instead.

 

Looks really nice! I will do my best to follow up on this thread as I keep working on the bag.If it works out with Texon I can see some nice benefits with it. I saw that you are based in the US and bought the product under the label Texon, I was so sure it was just a matter of different labels for different regions but I guess that proves otherwise