However, before nixing that project, a friend of mine who does metal casting made a mold of an old bag strap buckle I'd sent him, and cast me two brass versions. I still had those laying around, and recently while going through some boxes I found an old MK VI bag I'd bought at some point along the line, and decided hey, why not make a strap with the brass buckle? so I did.
I usually don't distress things because I like them to age naturally, but the MK VI was surplus and pretty beaten up, so I figured I'd make a distressed strap. I made it from a leather strap I bought from Tandy a while back, dyed it a nice medium brown color (used the water-based Eco Flo dye because it's a lot easier to get a lighter, splotchier, uneven coating that helps with the 'distressed' look) and then did some wrinkling and light sanding.
The bag, with strap:
Closeup of the brass buckle:
Closeup of the strap distressing:
The bag, with my Todd's MK VII replica:
Anyway, that's my totally-not-screen-accurate-but-Indy-inspired-and-personalized piece of gear for the day.
](./images/smilies/Indy_wall.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
