The Duct Tape Messenger Bag How-To

(Editor’s note: this post was updated on Oct. 12, 2009 to add in pictures lost long ago. To see those pictures, click here.)

In the second duct tape project of the month, I decided that it might be a good idea to make a messenger bag. Why? Because I can, that’s why. Anyhow…


Here’s how it begins. First, you’re gonna need to make a few sheets of duct tape fabric. (I added a link if you don’t know how to make duct tape fabric. If you don’t know, stop here. Right now. Learn how to make fabric first and maybe do another project that won’t be so hard. If you know what you’re doing, continue then.) I sort of eyeballed it based off of the size of my largest notebook, and added at least two inches on each side to accomodate for the need of space.

So now that you have a few panels of fabric made, you need to put them together, right? Wrong. Now, I did my bag a little backwards and added the pockets AFTER I had assembled the bag together. Big mistake. Very. Big. Mistake. Why?

Well, it has to do with the way, once you put everything together, that duct tape will hold better when you attach it flat than if you do when you, well, don’t attach it while the fabric is flat. Mind you, there are two parts of the bag you won’t be able to attach in this way, but we’ll get that.

try to consider which parts you want as the flap (which also works better if the flap and the back are one large piece) and which part you want as the front underneath the flap. I’d suggest a large pocket there. It will work better in the end for your bag if you add the pockets first. I did my pockets in a nice red with a silver backing to go on the interior. Attach on three sides, the opening up. Now we get to the tricky part. Making it into a bag.

This part of the project I also did not consider as well. However, structurally speaking, it might work better for my way in the ending than making the strap and the sides and bottom independent of each other. Why? In my opinion, it has a lot to do with strap width. But… this is a consideration that we could argue over all day. You’re gonna need to make the sides and bottom at least three strips wide (or to how wide you want the bag to be, which will dictate how much you can carry at one time) and to match the height of the main pieces of fabric. This works the same way for the bottom.

Attach the bottom to the two pieces of fabric on BOTH SIDES. This is also a critical step, because if you’re bag and sides are not sturdy, it will probably end up falling apart on you. To ensure that my bag doesn’t fall apart anytime soon, I used two layers on each side of the fabric so that it was sturdy.

Now attach the side pieces to the bottom piece you just attached to each of the main pieces. You’re gonna want to do one side at a time, and if you have one, get a piece of cardboard to hold up the bag in the middle while attaching both sides. When you do this, and this is also critical, make sure to tape on both the inside and outside of the bag.

Ok, your bag should look something like this at this point.

If it doesn’t look like this, something went wrong. You can probably redo a step somewhere around this point, but I wouldn’t try it.

Now, another issue I had with making this bag was the front flap. I didn’t take the length into account when making the fabric for the back of the bag so the flap would be integrated completely into the design. This ended up working into my favor, because after making another piece of fabric that would completely cover the front, I was left with the perfect length I needed. Now mind you, I’m doing this design without much measurement, so adding a front flap to the small flap that was already there allowed me to correct for how much I needed. But that’s not important.

Now, for the strap. This is a big step as well, because this is a part where I should probably have used a measuring tape to figure out a good length for me. Alas, I didn’t. Width is also a key issue here, because the messenger bag sometimes is not always a comfortable bag to lug around. Especially when it’s heavy. So on a regular messenger bag with that thin strap, it can be a bit combersome and dig into your shoulder. With this bag, I wanted a wider strap to accomodate for this problem and to give some better stability of the bag in general. I also wanted to do a stripe of red into the design on the strap, so doing the strap three strips wide of duct tape turned out to be perfect for me. The strap, depending on your height and where you want the bag to be placed on your waist (or lower) should be about at least twice the length of your arm. I’d say around, oh, three feet is about perfect. Maybe, just maybe 40″.

To attach it to the bag, you’re going to have to attach the edges to the bottom of the bag using two pieces of tape on each edge (one over the edge, and one immediately behind it to make sure it doesn’t move) and then two pieces on the sides so the strap doesn’t move around a lot when you’re carrying it. I don’t have a picture of the straps being attached, but it needs to have two pieces of tape on each side.

I then placed a pocket over one side after the strap went on to hold miscellaneous objects.

Now for the coup de gras. At this point, you should have at least three pockets. We’re going to add another one, on the BOTTOM. That’s right, a pocket on the bottom, about as wide as the bottom is (at least three strips wide by the length of the bottom piece.) For what, you might ask? A small umbrella.

See, this is an idea I had that hasn’t ever been implemented on a messenger bag that I’ve seen yet. They make messenger bags (the larger ones) with pockets for an umbrella on the side, but it can still leak into the main pocket and get your stuff wet. This, of course, is what I’m trying to avoid. So thus, we need a bottom pocket. Attach it on the bottom, make sure that there is ample room for the umbrella to fit, and there you have it. A fully functional messenger bag!

If you click on one of the pictures, there are more of the messenger bag there. Now go make one. It’ll take between 3-6 hours to complete one, using about 1 1/2 rolls of duct tape after everything is said and done. I’d especially use colored duct tape to add a my stylized vision to the bag. See, now wasn’t that cool? Yeah, yeah it was.

The next bag I’m going to do, I’m going incorporate cardboard and foam into the design so that it’s padded and can hold a laptop snugly. That one I’ll actually measure out. Other items I’m eventually going to incorporate are loops to hold carabiners, a place to put a bottle, and incorporate velcro into the front flap to keep it from going all over the place.