How to Customize Your Luggage - Can't Draw? Neither Can I. How to Easily Transfer Drawings.
Introduction: How to Customize Your Luggage - Can't Draw? Neither Can I. How to Easily Transfer Drawings.
It has been a while since I have been on a trip that required air travel and I forgot how annoying it can be to retrieve your baggage from the baggage claim carousel at the airport; when the majority of people own black luggage that all look alike. On this trip there were several instances where I was about to take another person's luggage off the conveyor belt only to realize at the last moment it wasn't my bag. This isn't a huge problem but nonetheless it could have resulted in an embarrassing situation that can now be easily avoided. "How you ask?" Simple all you have to do is customize your luggage with your favorite pop culture reference. "But <PERSON>, I can not draw!" you say. Neither can I but there is a simple way to transfer drawings on to your luggage or most things really.
Step 1: Pre-Instructable Instructable
Before we get to the main Instructable I wanted to add this short Instructable on repairing a broken wheel on your luggage. Upon returning from my trip I noticed one of the wheels on my luggage was broken so I decided to see if I could repair it. The wheels are held in with a long rivet. So I used a drill bit that with a slightly smaller diameter than the rivet to drill out the center. Removing the rivet will allow me to remove the broken wheel. The rivets were so thin that I didn't even drill through them so much just sheered them at the shaft which gave me the same result, a broken rivet.
Step 2:
I bought a pair of replacement wheels from Amazon. There are tons of options to choose from so make sure you measure your wheels to get the closest match. Also make sure the screw shaft they offer with the wheels is long enough to fit your luggage. I didn't find direct replacements but I was able to find some that were a couple of millimeters smaller than the original wheels. So I ended up replacing both wheels. The kit came with washers for spacers but they were too thin so I used my own washers to make up the gap on either side of the wheel. 929
You can see in the 3rd picture the order in which I assembled the wheel.
When you tighten the wheel make sure its not too tight or the wheel will not spin freely. Adjust the tightness so that they wheel still spins. And that's it the wheels are replaced and good as new.
Step 3:
The first thing I did was to clean the luggage using an old toothbrush. I just made sure to get rid of any dirt or obvious spots of dust.
Step 4:
In order to prep the surface of the fabric for color I sprayed the luggage with multiple clear coats of spray paint. I sprayed about 3 coats. I probably should have sprayed more coats but ultimately, here I am trying to seal the fabric so that it will hold the paint and not just soak in to the fabric which would cause blurry edges. I let the clear coat dry for a couple of hours. My garage is very hot so it dried fairly quickly.
Step 5:
First a little disclaimer. There is a link in this step that goes in to more detail of some of my process. Its fairly in-depth so I linked it below. Its not necessarily laziness on my part it just that it involves the computer so its essentially a screen recording of my process. And I feel like screen grabs don't do it justice and are harder to follow versus a video in this case.
I am a big fan of <PERSON> and the comic book artist <PERSON> so I chose the image above for luggage. When I do my Google image search I add the words black and white to the search bar as black and white images are easier to transfer. However they can be color images as well. You can print out a color image but this will waste a lot of color ink, which is expensive. If you want to know how to create a black and white image from a color image I have a Youtube video that shows how to do that using free software.
How to create black and white image from color drawing
Once you have your image you have to print it it out and in my case since it was covering a large area I printed it out on to several sheets and taped them together.
Step 6:
Before I could trace the image on to the luggage I had to stiffen the fabric otherwise it would droop down when applying pressure. So I cut a piece of cardboard and some other scraps to reinforce the inside of the luggage. I just shoved the pieces of carboard under the two rails which stiffened the luggage fabric. 929