Leather and Canvas Sling Bag

Details

A compact cross-body sling in 14 oz waxed cotton duck with full-grain leather ends and zip pulls. It carries a phone, a wallet, keys, a power bank and a compact camera, and nothing more, which is the whole idea. Waxed canvas has two cheats and both are easy to hide. The first is the wax. A genuine waxed cloth is impregnated, meaning the wax is driven into the weave and can be melted back in with a hair dryer for the rest of the bag's life. The common substitute is a polyurethane or acrylic film laid on the surface: it beads water exactly the same way for one season, then cracks along the fold lines, peels, and cannot be reproofed because there is nothing to reproof. An FTIR scraping tells the two apart in minutes, and we run one on every roll. The second cheat is the weight. Ounces are quoted for the greige cloth before waxing, or not quoted at all behind the phrase heavy duty canvas. Fourteen ounces per square yard is 475 GSM, and with the wax in it the finished cloth measures about 560 GSM. Both figures are printed below so the arithmetic is visible. The leather ends are 2 mm full-grain, not a split with a grain embossed on it and not the bonded sheet the trade calls genuine leather, which is ground scrap on a backing.

• 14 oz cotton duck, 475 GSM base and about 560 GSM finished, IS 1964
• Paraffin and beeswax impregnated through the weave, confirmed by FTIR, not a PU film
• 2 mm full-grain vegetable-tanned leather ends, uncorrected grain, ISO 17131
• Chromic oxide nil by ISO 5398, hexavalent chromium below 3 mg per kg by ISO 17075-1
• YKK number 5 coil main zip with a leather garage at each end
• Solid brass swivel hooks, strap fully removable and replaceable
• Bar-tacked and riveted at both hook anchors, seam strength to ISO 13935-2
• No PU-coated cloth sold as waxed, no plated hooks, no glued panels
• Waxed canvas creases where you fold it and goes lighter along the crease within weeks. Rub it with your palm and the wax moves back. It will never look new again.