SandMan
I think I might have mentioned that I was going to buy some sand bags for my upcoming Colorado gig. Sand bags are indispensable on the movie set. They’re used mainly for holding things- like tripods- down to keep them from being knocked over. When the tripod is connected to a thousand dollar microphone, it’s very important that they stay in one place. Consequently, you can find all kinds of bags on a set. They’re universal and hardworking. Unfortunately, they’re also unreasonably expensive for what they are-basically a thick-material bag full of sand. A decent one can cost you $40, and I need three.
So you won’t be surprised to know that I decided to make my own. They’ll look like this:
I started off by going to Jo-anne’s fabrics. I really like this place. It’s like a tool-world for the softer Maker skills. I picked up a yard of bright blue rip-stop nylon, a yard of black “duck cloth”, which is basically heavy cordura nylon like you find in backpacks and those cheap stadium chairs, and a couple yards of heavy duty nylon ribbon for the handle. I also got some Zip-loc freezer bags and a 50lb bag of sand from Lowes. All together I ended up spending less than $20 on all of the supplies, and I had enough to make three 30lb sandbags, which would have cost me over $170 with shipping (what, you think shipping a 30lb bag of sand across the country is cheap? Shipping alone is $28/bag!)
I came home and filled six ziplocs with approximately 7.5lbs of sand each, weighing them on our bathroom scale. Then I closed the bags and taped them shut… thoroughly. The last thing I want is for the sand to come out and get in all of my equipment. Next, I double bagged them all and taped them shut with gaffer tape, again, thoroughly. The I did it again. That may sound like overkill, but 7.5lbs of sand is a lot of sand, and if it ever got loose in the gear crate it would probably do several thousand dollars in damage. Laugh if you want, but I feel pretty good about it.
Next, I made a basic bag with the ripstop nylon. In addition to being ripstop, this stuff is also more or less sand-proof, so I don’t have to worry too much about any getting out if the worse happens (see above). I sewed the bags inside out so that I could turn them right-side out and not have any seams showing. Except, of course, the last one. Lydia, care to tell me how I can do a good job of hiding this seam? I know I can’t put it inside, but there must be some trick to it.
After the six bright blue bags were sewn together (which took about two hours), I put two side by side and measured for the large cordura outer bag. I cut the cordura and again sewed a three sided bag. Whoops. Forgot to sew the handle-strap on! I managed to get it sewn on but it took some finagling with the three-sided bag on the sewing machine. For bag #2 and 3 I sewed the strap on before sewing it into a three sided inside-out bag. Lesson learned.
From here it was an easy step to insert the blue inner sand-filled bags into the main case and sew it shut. Again, there’s a messy 4th edge to it, but it’s a functional bag- not beautiful. Still, I’d like to know how to make it look a little neater.
The end result? For $20 I have myself three very cool 30lb sandbags for the set! And I’m even more convinced that sewing machines rock. Lydia, feel free to chime in down in the comments if you have any suggestions (Lydia of patrickandlydia.com sews up a storm, so she could probably whip these up in half the time and they’d look twice as good).