Waxed Canvas Messenger Bag

Details

A flap-over messenger in 14 oz waxed cotton duck with a full-grain leather flap edge and base. It closes on two solid brass tuck-lock catches. Plastic side-release buckles are quicker and they crack at the tab, usually in the second summer, so this bag does not have any. Both of the standing cheats in this category are about a word doing more work than the material. Waxed canvas should mean wax impregnated through the weave, which is why it can be reproofed with a hair dryer and a wax bar for twenty years. What is frequently sold under the name is duck with a polyurethane film sprayed on the face: identical water beading for a season, then cracking at the folds, peeling, and no way back. FTIR on a scraping tells them apart and we run it per roll. The cloth weight is the other one. Fourteen ounces per square yard is 475 GSM, and quoting the ounce figure for the unwaxed greige cloth while photographing the waxed one is standard practice. Both numbers are below. The leather is the third place to look, and the grade is the whole story. Full-grain keeps the hide's outer surface with its pores. Top-grain sands that away. Genuine leather is a split from the lower layer with a grain embossed onto it, the second-worst grade of four, and it is called genuine because that reads like an assurance. This flap edge is 2.5 mm full-grain, confirmed uncorrected under a microscope.

• 14 oz cotton duck, 475 GSM base, about 560 GSM waxed, IS 1964
• Wax impregnated through the weave, FTIR confirmed, not a surface film
• 2.5 mm full-grain vegetable-tanned flap edge and base, ISO 2589 and ISO 17131
• Chromic oxide nil by ISO 5398, chrome VI below 3 mg per kg by ISO 17075-1
• Two solid brass tuck-lock catches, no plastic side-release buckles
• 45 mm cotton webbing strap on a full-grain shoulder pad, stainless triglides
• All eight load points riveted through and bar-tacked, ISO 13935-2
• Reproofing wax bar and a spare catch tongue in the box
• No PU-coated cloth called waxed, no plated hardware, no glued flap edge
• Brass tuck locks are slower to open one-handed than a plastic clip. That is the trade, and it is the reason the bag is still closing properly in year ten.