Tap’mups Mk. 2

After carrying around the Tap’mups (Mk. 1) for about ¾ of a year, I noticed the plastic sleeve was starting to crack.

More disturbingly, the bottom was cracking to the point where I feared the cards would fall out.

But before I could even make a trip to Toronto to buy a replacement pouch, something worse happened.

One afternoon after work, getting on the bus, I noticed that the card pouch was loose in my hand. Given that I made that particular version of the Swipe’mups in 2007, and carried it for quite a long time, I’m a bit surprised it lasted this long before the thread broke.

I went on a trip to Lee Vally with the idea I would buy one of these. I stopped into a Staples next door and found a (possibly ?) better solution. Certainly cheaper than the retractable lanyard at LV, and (possibly) a trip to Toronto to get a replacement pouch would have been. A Merangue Silicone ID Badge Holder and Klip-N-Pull Retractable Keycard Badge Holder.

Unscrewed the belt clip off the back of the “Klip-N-Pull Retractable Keycard Badge Holder”.

Now on to making a pouch for it. Tubular webbing wouldn’t work this time, as it was too wide to fit. Just took some 2" webbing and folded and sewed it to form a pocket and belt loop.

The one notable thing I did was to put tabs along the sides that I could put some bunjee cord through. I didn’t like how the card hung down. Wanting to avoid it catching on things, I added this feature so I could put it out of the way when needed.

After using it for a while, I noticed that the cards had a tendency to pop out from behind the clear plastic cover.

You can see here that the card itself isn’t much bigger than the slot it sits behind.

Made a pouch from some 20 mil marine vinyl, which so far, has done a great job of keeping the cards contained within the silicone pouch.

The Presto card doesn’t show at all, but it really doesn’t need to. Only the library card needs to have the bar code scanned.

(And a quick update on this. About three weeks after completing this, I was about to get on the bus, felt around, felt around some more, looked - the stainless steel wire, which I figured would be way more durable than the cord of the previous retractable lanyard, had broken. Library card and Presto pass – gone. I should have checked the reviews, because everyone seems to have the same experience – give it a few weeks and the wire breaks. Worthless piece of shit. Do not trust this. Your keys, cards, etc. are too valuable.

And Staples hasn’t posted my bad review of it more than a month after submitting it. Maybe they have a limit on how many bad reviews they’ll post. Lame.)