There is no account to create and no queue to join. If a repair note left you with a question, or you want a job looked at, the plain contact form is the only interactive step on this site. It records what you send and returns a technical confirmation page. Nothing else happens automatically.
Before writing, it helps to read the method notes below. Most questions about a fix come down to the same three things: where the material failed, which repair suits that fabric, and whether the fix is worth doing at all.
Use the contact form to describe the damage, name the gear and add a link to photos if you have them. That is the whole submission.
Open the contact formThe bench routine on this page explains how each fix is inspected, chosen and written up, including the repairs that did not hold.
Go to the method notesCommon questions about reading the guides, sending a job and how submissions are handled are collected in one place.
Visit helpFor anything that does not fit the form, the postal address and phone line below are the direct route.
The Firs, 32 Baker Street, Rosebank, Johannesburg, 2196, South Africa
Submissions are kept and handled as described in the privacy policy.
A few terms come up in every write-up on this site, and they mean something specific here. This page sets out what they cover, so a repair note is read the same way it was written.
Each guide describes one fix on one piece of gear, under the conditions noted in the text. Fabric age, thread type and how the item was loaded all change the outcome. A method that held on a Drakensberg traverse is a record of that repair, not a promise that the same stitch will hold on your pack.
When a note says a fix held, it means the repair survived the trip it was tested on without failing at the repair point. It does not mean the gear is now as strong as new, or that the surrounding material will not fail next. Where a repair only lasted part of a route, that is written down too.
Needle gauges, thread weights and tape sizes listed in a guide describe what was used for that repair. They are starting points for matching your own gear, not a catalogue. Availability at outdoor shops in South Africa changes, and a close equivalent usually works if the dimensions line up.
Some failures should not be stitched, taped or patched. A load-bearing anchor that has torn through the webbing, a delaminated shell across a seam, a boot midsole that has gone soft: these are cases where the honest answer is to stop and replace the part or the item. Guides say so plainly when that applies.
A patch that lifted after a wet weekend, a stitch line that pulled out on the second day, a slider that skipped again within a month: these get written up with the same detail as the repairs that worked. A failed fix tells you more about the material than a clean one does.
Repair jobs sent in through the contact form are read as submissions, not as orders or bookings. Nothing is scheduled and no work is carried out on your gear. A submission is only featured in a teardown post if the consent box was ticked, and the sender can describe the damage in their own words.
Where a note gives a temperature, a stitch count or a thread weight, treat it as the setting used on the bench that day. Adjust for your own fabric, test on a scrap piece first, and write down what you changed. That record is what makes the next repair faster.
Every guide on this site follows the same bench routine. It is not a service you order and it is not a promise of a turnaround. It is the sequence a fix goes through before it becomes a post you can follow at your own table.
The tear is rarely where the failure started. A strap usually gives way at the webbing-to-body junction, a shell at a fold line. We look for the actual break before touching a needle.
Stitching, heat-tape patching or swapping a small part. The fabric and the load it carries decide this, not preference. A laminated shell and a nylon strap do not take the same repair.
Needle gauge, waxed thread, tape width, slider size. Each post lists what the job needs, sourced from outdoor shops, so you can check your own drawer before starting.
The repair happens on a bench, by hand, with the steps written out and a stitch diagram where the sequence is hard to describe in words. No machine work is assumed.
A slow pull on a patch, a loaded strap, a zip run end to end. If the fix lifts after a wet weekend, that gets written down too, because a failure is still useful information.
The post goes out with the parts list, the diagram and a plain line on whether it held through a long traverse. Nothing is dressed up as more than it is.
If a repair is not worth doing, the note says so and points you elsewhere. The same routine sits behind the guides in the repair guides, and if you want to send a job in for a teardown, the contact form is the only place to do it.
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