Cloth is the foundation of any fabricated textile product; it comes in many materials and weights and defines the product. We use only the highest quality and most durable fabric available meeting military specification, DuPont CORDURA nylon. Cordura nylon is ten (10) times more abrasion resistant than ballistic nylon, and the best choice for military load bearing equipment. Most offshore sweatshop manufacturers use a blended "mystery" cloth; the mystery is what’s in it. A "Nyla-boog-aloo-tron" cloth could have recycled polymer fibers extruded from pop-bottle, plastic shopping bags, carpeting or whatever’s handy in the fiber processors garbage dump. The real low-end cloths are air textured vinyl and polypropylene, the same materials used in inflatable splash pools and cheap rope. The cloth looks like heavy nylon duck but don't come close to the abrasion resistance, often falling apart from exposure to sunlight’s UV (ultra-violet)rays. Military specification cloths must meet rigid guidelines for color fastness and reflectance, UV resistance, weave, weight, and coatings. Military specification camouflage pattern cloth is acid dyed so the pattern will not rub off. Commercial imported camouflage pattern cloth is just printed with paint that contains lead and rubs off in small flakes you can inhaled or injested.
Thread selection is critical to the function and durability of a textile product. Too light a thread will create weak seams; too heavy a thread will rip the cloth under stress. We use size F (92) nylon thread in all our products for seams and bartacks. It is the only suitable thread and has been called out in military load bearing equipment specifications for over 40 years. Other manufacturers try to get by with the smaller and weaker size E (69) thread for equipment fabrication seams. Size E (69) yields 6000 yards per pound compared to the 4,800 yards per pound for size F (92). Not only do they get 20% more thread for their money but you get product seams that are 34% weaker - the breaking strength of size E (69) thread is 9.5 pounds compared to 14.4 pounds for size F (92). Size E (69) is the standard thread size for bartacks, and the offshore sweatshops standard thread for all fabrication seams and edge binding.
Webbing is an integral part of military load bearing equipment, adding necessary attachment points, suspension, and reinforcement.
We use only military specification nylon webbing for its strength, durability, and chemical resistance.
Cheaper materials like polypropylene webbing are standard for offshore sweatshop manufactures, but are unacceptable due to low strength and UV (ultra violet) ray resistance.
Webbing chemical, UV ray, and abrasion resistance is an important factor in designing for the military environment.
Binding tape protects the cloth edges from fraying. Military load bearing equipment specifications call out a one (1) inch nylon tape that is folded around the cloth edge and sewn in place with a single row of stitching gauged 14 to 5/16 inch from the finished edge. Some manufacturers tout their "double stitched edge binding" as an improvement, but it only sounds good. In reality they use narrower than specification edge binding tape and HAVE TO use duel gage stitching to apply the binding. The binding tape is usually 3/4 to 7/8 inch wide and is cheaper to buy than military specification called out 1 inch binding tape. Duel gage edge binding is another offshore sweatshop standard practice. The unfortunate truth of "double stitched edge binding" is the outer row of stitching usually never makes it onto the cloth edge and is so close to the cloth edge that it actually promotes edge fraying, so the practice is essentially worthless for the intended purpose on military equipment.
We use only hardware meeting the rigid military specifications for materials, finish coatings and strength. All plastic hardware meet call outs in their drawings provided in specification equipment, and are made from virgin acetal or nylon. Materials, finish, and function are critical to hardware performance so we don't cut corners and use any imported parts.
Fabrication is the process of assembling the myriad of parts into the finished product. We use the specification called out type 301 stitching, with the standard called out gauging of 2.5 to 3mm stitch width. Our bartack exceeds the type 304 standard because our bartack machines are modified to use the larger and stronger size F (92) thread. Additional bartack strength is derived from all parts being bartacked are double stitched in place before our bartack is applied. All webbing and binding tapes are fused or overlapped and stitched to prevent fraying of the parts.
