As promised, a DIY belt buckle. This was a continuance of the quest for a simple, lightweight and reliable belt buckle, which you could check in with your luggage and have no chance found right before dive that it is broken.
The whole concept based on the plastic one I bought on the DongDaemun sewing market in Seoul last year. It consisted of two pieces of plastic, one of which goes inside the other one and holds it there, so there are no moving parts and nothing to break besides the plastic itself. Tried to replicate the original one in metal, but dropped the idea since it required CNCing and thus ended up about $50 a piece which is crazy. So I remodeled it in sheet metal, which is much cheaper to cut.
This is the 5th iteration, with a slightly larger buckle hole (1mm total allowance) - makes it easier to lock it without looking. The previous version had only 0.25mm allowance and required quite precise positioning to lock it. This version also added a larger 3rd slot on the static side (the previous only had two) and a triangle face on the moving side (the previous version was all rectangle, like the Seoul original). Comes under $10 a piece cut from a 3mm Aluminum, which I consider acceptable. Did about 20 dives on it so far, worked fine. Unanodized aluminum doesn't look very nice after saltwater exposure, so anodizing is highly recommended. Or cut from stainless steel (but then a 3mm gonna be heavy).
Attaching the DXF design.
The whole concept based on the plastic one I bought on the DongDaemun sewing market in Seoul last year. It consisted of two pieces of plastic, one of which goes inside the other one and holds it there, so there are no moving parts and nothing to break besides the plastic itself. Tried to replicate the original one in metal, but dropped the idea since it required CNCing and thus ended up about $50 a piece which is crazy. So I remodeled it in sheet metal, which is much cheaper to cut.
This is the 5th iteration, with a slightly larger buckle hole (1mm total allowance) - makes it easier to lock it without looking. The previous version had only 0.25mm allowance and required quite precise positioning to lock it. This version also added a larger 3rd slot on the static side (the previous only had two) and a triangle face on the moving side (the previous version was all rectangle, like the Seoul original). Comes under $10 a piece cut from a 3mm Aluminum, which I consider acceptable. Did about 20 dives on it so far, worked fine. Unanodized aluminum doesn't look very nice after saltwater exposure, so anodizing is highly recommended. Or cut from stainless steel (but then a 3mm gonna be heavy).
Attaching the DXF design.
