Fitting Chinese arch style tube to real Neosteel waistband

geekchaste

Member
Oct 21, 2023
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Ohio
Just wanted to share how I modified one of those fake Neosteel Arch style tubes from a Chinese belt to my real Neosteel waistband. The holes line up perfectly with the pins on NS waistband except the center hole on the tube is much larger, it still has a good fit on the two side pins so I am not concerned.

I am testing out an Epoxy coating using a food-grade epoxy mixed with pigment. I need to rig up some kind of tumbler so the epoxy does not run too much if I do this again, you can see it in the finish but mostly just affects the appearance. The appearance of the tube ends up looking similar to the Neosteel AB coating except that it is shinier. In addition, I decided to fill in the breathing holes and drilled one large hole in the end of the tube similar to how a Fun tube is made.

I was able to get a near perfect fit making my own rear cable from 6mm stainless with 2 layers of marine heatshrink applied. Overall I think it fits nearly as well as my original Arch tube and as expected, it is slightly less comfortable when sitting due to the length and shape of the tube where the shape of the Fun tube improves this significantly. So far I am happy with how this turned out, but I still hope to find a real Arch/Fun tube one day - shameless plug but if you have one to sell please PM me!

I should have taken more pictures, but I just have these for now:

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ADCreHeP6eU2ZnMxfPsXWQQmiC5Xd1kTzkHP2rdPOoz-ufh1XzDtubWegMkNDaKK91zxbsncU4lIp_InH5N8nhCw4azlvOnyF2LgOjbWNdHx_TwZ4yoZqF0vICsej28Fr4CKRFS_XalVlrxRru1Qj-h25hD7euIv-6jIb5s7vAX3sd5wIkOVKqmPdXWXTSZpspM46O_QYkEHStsoA5Ga_wltoV7JxItP8OXGcsTfMHmKgYpUo7-ENZ8AXHSksdMsQDyrZbz1tKiNmq3clp60uxQ7hCELzvl95OLtfj1x5a_VLCRPf2TvEwMip1V7XUqfejyEYDrf5qVhw5k9eR6s3B5n7OahllXM8Wo0QUauXxqfFsHC680S0kttSwjAL6dSzB19OBW38D7SbNDeyESbCd7t3N-yiubPFgmxhPg8Lk9QKJ_GydSv6_XGm7RTFSE51H6qegScXrLhi7F4wLfFEaw5qe-fpU9MJxuqsySidZqBFlNOLx07xEXHme1krG6_1ZgulrxP9J5NIEKiGCum9TPTvUFy2769F6tpsRWYoZqph1vE4wHaBT5f4D_09Pnw1C3Qou_bhj9A6gBmdkbaf8ufpgSTfsJ4uxX8nb8hXkaqGCosjeWR_ETPs6f0Os-JxIjVubxE2RYvOQBQKTyD1ZxDM2CEVzTjMwSnoadWcae1R4-6XfcsLhgk52HzD1JafTOr3qQwJTPBFaA7Xl3JciATURwZp2lqRoVcGy7T8eueMuE4JJFJOvkSxoznfwjjnRkh5gIbTMzj6Zzszt443Jtufih0ZptWShHkryAH9OKDk93wRdueacI8_D7vhibyLAl7AAQDhbSl-hqaEjXHT8zL5sdGo7br-C53v7eo6xBtCbk40QwN_oJ8BE0150Y=w1666-h937-s-no-gm
 
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I should also mention that before coating the tube in epoxy, I roughed up the surface quite a bit. I used a grinder for the large areas, and a combo of Dremel, sand paper and files to get the difficult to reach areas. Then before coating the tube I bent the metal to the best shape testing the fit repeatedly so I wouldn't have to bend it too much after applying the epoxy coating. I thought I took some pictures at this intermediate stage, but I guess not.
 
this works very well did so on my female neosteel belt i paid 25 dollars for. problem you will find is making a pin and post BIG enough to secure one the bottom on one of these. i ended up cutting off the locking post of a chinese belt to have a large enough post. You also may need to make a new locking pin for the neosteel depending on how thick the original tube would be and if the belt accomdated it. This you can actually use a bolt for to get the legnth correct, then order a proper one or make it using the lock shield as drill guide. check my posts for images of this.
 
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