1" Bra G-Hooks rather than ITW G-Hooks (pt.2)

Thought I should do a follow-up on this, and report my findings.

Regrettably, I fear these aren’t as ideal as I had wished.

As you can see, several months of tightening and being under tension has deformed them. I’ve sewn a few of these with two g-hooks, but doubt that will really be any better. Just not sure it’s meant to withstand the rigours I’ve been subjecting it to.

Bummer.

And, amusingly enough, I managed to bust a ladder lock. Something I scrounged from Canadian army surplus, so this could well be 20 or more years old. Weak plastic to begin with, years of abuse on a piece of issued gear before I got a hold of it, my being too hard on it - who knows.

1" Bra G-Hooks rather than ITW G-Hooks (pt.1)

A while back I mentioned Woo-Jin Tension Hooks as an alternative to the expensive and scarce ITW G-Hooks. Only problem....the Tension Hooks I’ve found pretty well impossible to get my mitts on. So I’m right back to square one.

I was down on Ottawa Street yesterday and searching for nylon edge tape. Futile, but I decided to check in to the bra supply store there. Worth a try. I had never been in before, even though my pal Yolanda shops there all the time for corsetry supplies. While they didn’t have any nylon edge tape, I browsed through their hardware, and came across these. 

1" bra hooks. I had only ever seen them in ¼" and ½" sizes. And usually in plastic. I wasn’t even aware these existed. In metal no less. (I’m guessing these are for the lasses with the really big boosums.) For 50¢ no less. Decided to give them a try. Now they might not be as rugged as the ITW variant, but I’m not doing HALO jumps or crawling through urban battlefields. I did my best to wrench one of these apart and didn’t have much luck. For my purposes these should do fine.

I copied the example of Kifaru’s K-Connector.

A scrap of webbing, a needle and thread and a few minutes of work to put in a bartack. I call them Bra’mups.

Made a few more.

Ouch’mups on the YakBakDekPak, front and rear. 

Release the tension on the buckle and detach.

Closeup. These are not nearly as beefy as the G-Hooks, but likely just fine for my needs. I’m still curious whether reefing down on the webbing will cause these to deform. But that is part of the whole design process. Figure out what does and doesn’t work. For the cost, I’m willing to give these a try and see what happens over time.

Ouch’mups and Slurp’mups on the sides of the YakBakDekPak, with the Map’mups on the front.

If you’re interested in these, the store I got these from has them (although they don’t list these on the site, but do feature other metal 1" ones, or the plastic version), or try SewSassy or FabricDepot.

And, a follow-up report.