HOWTO: Heat Bend Your Belt

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

HOWTO: Heat Bend Your Belt
Original Author: Pandatrooper

This HOWTO describes how to get an even bend on your ammo belt or knee pack using a heat gun.

 

Below is an image showing what a belt look like if you simply heat the flat sections. There will be a curve in each flat portion, and it will not sit as nicely if the bends were at the base.

 

Required Tools
Hot air gun
Wooden paint stir sticks

Step 1: Acquire Paint Sticks
Get 2 paint stir sticks (un-used) from a paint store / Home depot, etc... They usually give them to you for free.
 

 

Step 2: Align Paint Sticks
Make sure you have the tapered ends together ensuring the angles taper towards each other.

 

 

Step 3: Tape Paint Sticks Together
Tape them together like below leaving a gap in between the exact thickness of your plastic belt armor. Just place one stick on top the the plastic, the other underneath, and tape them together. We'll now call this the "paint stick clamp"

 

Step 4: Place Paint Stick Clamp on Belt
Place the paint stick clamp in between 2 ammo blocks. You'll see that the width of the paint sticks are almost the exact size of the gaps! Obviously, armor will differ slightly, so test this to fit. On AP style, it fits great.

 

Step 5: Heat Belt
Heat up one edge / base of the ammo block and work the heat gun around the base. Do both sides GENTLY, you do not need a lot of heat. You only need to bend it a few degrees, any more and all the bends will add up to a tiny waist size. Do a little at a time. The added bonus is that if you hold the clamp right, you won't burn your fingers with the heat gun, and there's no need to wear gloves. 

 

Step 6: Bend Belt
Now bend the belt, keeping the paint stick clamp pinched with your fingers. This keeps the flat section compressed, while you force the bend to happen on the base of the ammo block.

Remember: do not heat up the plastic too much, and only bend a few degrees at a time. Do every base, then go back and make adjustments if necessary or bend more. It's better to have to go back and bend more, than bend too much, and have to redo the whole thing, and possibly warp the belt out of shape.

 

Step 7: Nice Bend
Presto! Nice bend, and the flat section stays flat. Now just work your way around to every edge of the belt, including the ends

 

Step 8: Finished Belt
Here is the finished bent belt, with perfect transitions all the way around! Fits perfect around the waist of the armor.

 

NOTE: for thigh battery packs, simply use an Xacto and cut the paint stick to a thinner width, to fit in between the battery packs for the thigh. use the same process described above.

Happy bending!