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[Ron Henningsen]

I have made a few sand or shot bags for metal working. I presently sew in some velcro to close the opening where I add sand or shot. What do other do? Using velcro doesn't seem to be the neatest way to do this. Just wondering what may work better. Thanks

[BigRig]

I sewed a lot of zippers and some are really strong. Maybe a zipper would do the trick?

[John]

Hey @Ron Henningsen welcome to the forum!

Great question. So on the cheaper bags I have seen and used have Velcro like your talking about. You might be able to use a super strong Velcro like dual lock and have better luck.
Here is a picture of an Eastwood bag with velcro.

Screenshot (37).png (1.78 MiB) Viewed 3597 times

The nicer higher end bags Ive used are closed in the corner with what I call a screw rivet. They are also called Open Back Screw Posts or Binding screws. You have to make a smaller hole but this works nicely. Also the big time sheetmetal guys all recommend using lead shot instead of sand. Its a lot more expensive but you can shape panels much quicker and the lead balls are bigger than sand so it wont come out easily. But lots of people still use sand.
Here are some links to the screw rivet things I'm talking about. You'll have to find on in the size you need.
https://amzn.to/2JYgK6i
https://amzn.to/2JX1u9y
https://amzn.to/2JYhbgW

Here is a picture of a bag that uses one.

formingbag_leather_lg.jpg (43.44 KiB) Viewed 3597 times

Some also have a tail that folds over like and is closed with a screw rivet.

rsb-16_web.jpg (61.14 KiB) Viewed 3597 times

I have also seen some with zippers but never used them. Not sure how well they hold up.

[John]

Dang It Ron! Now you got me thinking about how much I miss metal work.....