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[Omega_Tahu]

Hello all. I’m planning to start working on my flak vest pretty soon and I recently had the idea of using magnets to attach the plates. In my mind this seems both a simple way to attach plates and also guarantees that the vest itself looks nice and presentable without plates attached. However in considering this, I’ve run into a couple of concerns and issues that I figured I’d ask about to see what y’all recommend.

The first issue is that I’m not sure what the best way to attach the magnets would be. At first I was considering just gluing them to the inside of the flak vest and being done with it, but after doing a little bit of reading it seemed that wasn’t recommended in case the vest needs to be washed. However the alternative, interior pockets, would presumably leave visible stiches and I fear that would ruin the “presentability” of the flak vest.

The second and larger issue would be allignment and precision. I’m guessing that getting everything lined up properly with the magents is pretty important for this attachment method, and any help or suggestions on how to do that well would be greatly appreciated. I definitely don’t want to put a bunch of effort into integrating magnets to then figure out that a piece is permanently skewed because of a slight mess up

Any suggestions or help regarding this would be appreciated, even if it’s not regarding the questions specifically and just about magnet attachments in general.

[cheesmouse]

You could do a two layer vest, and attach the magnets to the linning. So the stiches for your pockets would be to the inside, and the outside would be presentable.

Or you add some quilting, and try to include the pockets there.

For my vest I will try something else. I made a 3 layer vest (Inner layer, middle layer for some quilting and outer layer) and i want to try ironing the magnets between the inner and the middle-layer using something like this
Hope it fullfills my expectations

[Celtkhan]

Any stitching on the vest where the magnet pockets would be are going to be underneath your armor plating, so presentability should be a minor concern unless you’re planning on walking around without pieces of armor on (which is possible, if you want to remove extra plates to switch between light/medium/heavy armor types).

As for placement, that is a significant concern and a major reason velcro is recommended unless you are experienced at crafting costume armors.

[jethroskull]

My thought is to run open-ended horizontal channels and use steel washers in them. The will go where you want them when you use them and come out for washing and general wear.
Quilting them in also works.

[OriKad]

I taped my armor plates together with proper spacing, glued magnets to the back of the plates, rubbed chalk on the magnets, then set the taped-together plates against my body while wearing the vest.  The chalk made little circles on the vest where the magnets go...  so then I glued the other magnets on the circles (to hold them in place), then put thin leather circle patches over the magnets and hand-sewed the circles.