Hasta La Ideas

Is this…

…made by this?

Once you design a bag and want to go into mass production, chances are you start looking at China. But that’s not an option for the U.S. military, and since seeing military gear designer Rich Landry’s IFAK project, we’ve been wondering where they mass produce their stuff once Landry perfects the prototypes.

We can’t say for sure which company the Army contracts, but we believe we’ve found the American company that at least makes the machines to manufacture the stuff. A New-Jersey-based company called Camatron combines CNC and pneumatic technology to modify industrial sewing machines for highly specific purposes. The results are like a wickedly cool descendant of Steampunk, where compressed air and electricity drive precisely-machined parts to perform pre-designed operations. As one example, check out this machine that’s been modified to double-fold and stitch shut the ends of webbing straps at industrial speeds:

Once the straps’ ends have been “sealed” thusly, to prevent fraying, they can then be incorporated into a larger design. Again we’re not 100% sure the item being constructed in the video below is the actual IFAK bag, but it certainly has the MOLLE strap system and looks similar:

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