My $7 Belt Gizmo! with bonus complete belt equipment pic

Equipment Uniforms
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So I set out to make a better gizmo for my belt. My pack completion got all of my attention last year, so my gizmo for Halloween consisted of a literal circuit board hot glued to a piece of crappy leather I had. Not ideal.

Of course I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on this, but I wanted to make it look as awesome as possible. I used Rockman and Alan Hawkins build threads (TheRockman's (El Cheapo) Illuminated Belt Gizmo (Pic Heavy) - Uniforms - GBFans.com and My scratch Gizmo Build (pic heavy thread) - Other Props - GBFans.com) as reference and inspiration.

I am really really bad at taking pics of the build itself. By the time I realized I should have been taking progress pics, I was already half way done. So here is the final product:

The only things I bought for this build were the tape measure holder (4$), the clear pens for nixie tubes ($2), and a black telephone cord ($1).

I glued two pieces of card stock together to give it some strength. Then I cut out the shape of the circuit board and glued a color print out of the real board to it. The shelf, the four black ‘sanyo’ rectangles, four white rectangles, and the red circular capacitors are cut from the same card stock, and hot glued in place.

I used paper clips bent to the desired shape for the wires under the white rectangles, and pushed them through guide holes made with a thumb tack, and hot glued them down in the back.

I hot glued random bits from old broken circuit boards I had. I also hot glued the nixie tubes (complete with a nixie tube print out inserted), and wires in place. I am unhappy about the unevenness of the tubes, but I dont have a dremel, and that was the best I could do with a small hack saw.

Here are some more pics:

and finally I cut the holster to shape, and used some leather dye to make it the proper black.

And here is my whole belt lineup:

All in all I am happy with it. IF you have some patience and a little ingenuity, you can really make great looking equipment.

Thanks for looking! If you have any questions, let me know!

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Awesome job, looks absolutely fantastic!

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Very very nice, impressive!

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Looks great.

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That’s a great looking gizmo! Good job!

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In all honesty, I think his whole belt set up is really well done!

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Looks good, making my own budget gizmo right now and hope it turns out looking as good as yours :slight_smile:

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Very cool indeed. May have to steal that idea…

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Thank you for the kind words everyone! I hope that this can serve as inspiration for others like Rockman and Alan Hawkins’ threads did for me. So n0c00lgamertag, steal away!

And searingidolatry, I would love to see your work in progress! Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

A few notes:

For me, found the building the shelf to be the biggest hurdle. Rockmans thread gave me the best reference for the shape of it. Other reference pics had bad angles, so you could not see how it was shaped. What you see here is my second attempt to make one.

And I used this tape measure holder from Lowes for the Gizmo holster as well as my PKE holster. I had gone to eight different stores looking for ‘better’ holders, but no luck. I felt I was settling for this one.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_120986-1492-1L-464-1_0__?productId=1006999

That is until I realized that the extra leather strap that swivels up and down to keep a tape measure secure, actually could be used to make belt fobs! I just cut it off, poked new holes, and secured it with a screw and nut. Works great and now I have three belt fobs AND a fob for my leg hose. Im really happy about that, because I was genuinely frustrated that I only had two belt fobs before, and not four.

Again, thank you four your compliments. Having this awesome community who is always willing to answer questions and give critiques really makes this hobby that much more enjoyable.