From Garage to Strichtarn | Making the CGBG Kobold

One of the most highly anticipated collabs in our collaborations program. We teamed up with Garage Built Gear and our friends over at Ripstop By The Roll to bring this all-new design pouch to life.

Introducing…

Garage Built Gear x Carryology: Kobold Pouch

One of the World’s Most Sought-After Maker-Built Pouches

Like many success stories, this one started in a humble home garage back in 2015. And now, Matt Chambers (owner/founder) has gone from a small carry maker to an on-fire brand quickly. 

Working strictly from his garage in Tennessee, Matt has built up Garage Built Gear (GBG) into a community favorite, while making everything by himself, one stitch at a time. 

Why have these pouches seen lightning-fast sell-outs? Sometimes only a matter of seconds. What makes GBG products so sought after? If you ask his loyal customers, all ready to order whenever and whatever he releases something, they’ll all tell you: quality, functionality, style, great materials, and 100% handmade by Matt in Tennessee, USA.

GBG’s various sizes offer customers options for their loadouts, however unique they may be. From minimal EDC to med kits, tool kits, travel kits, electronics and cables, and more. GBG also likes to play around with fabrics, opting for colorful and fun options, so your kit can match your style or personality. The pouches can even match your gear’s “theme”, if you will. 

The secret got out quickly, Garage Built Gear makes awesome stuff and everyone who was in the know… knew about it. Our readers and our team all have been huge fans… whenever they’ve been able to get their hands on one, anyway. We figured, why not give it a shot? Let’s see if Matt would be up for doing something wild together. 

Blending GBG for the Carry Community

Between Matt and I, we selected different GBG pouch styles, and narrowed it down to two specific pouches: The Mighty Pouch + and the Small Medical / Notebook Pouch. Both were awesome in their own right, for their own respective missions. With a bit of finessing, we landed on a hybrid between the two designs, borrowing the very best features and benefits from each. The overall larger size of the SMP, the clever organization of the TMP+, and more. After a few more phone calls and rounds of physical prototypes, we were stoked with where it ended up. A brand new pouch design for GBG, inspired by our favorite two pouches in the Garage Built Gear lineup.

(Strichtarn camo, shown on soldier on the right)

Strictly (Custom) Strichtarn 

Next, Matt asked what kind of material we wanted to use. He’s no stranger to wild and fun fabrics, but for a collaboration pouch… something just off the shelf didn’t seem right. If it already existed, then it was too easy. Honestly, this part was proving to be difficult. One thing we have been wanting to do for years is use a custom Strichtarn camo on something. On anything. Why? Strichtarn is badass. Often referred to as “East German rain camo”, it’s from the year 1965 (used up until 1990 when that wall came down), and finally… well… because it looks like raindrops. Go figure. Matt loved the concept. But there isn’t a bunch of custom Strichtarn camo fabric printed on a modern high-performance fabric, just laying around on a shelf somewhere. 

We had a crazy idea. Let’s ring up our friends over at Ripstop By The Roll, and see if they might be able to build our fabric dreams. Now, this kind of request is right up RBTR’s alley. We went in thinking this was going to be some big ask. They replied with welcoming phrases like “sure, no problem” and “yep, we’ll get on it right away”. 

With their expert team of fabric geniuses, they put the wind back in our X-Pac sailcloth… sails. Though there were dozens of options that would work, we selected X-Pac V21RS due to its toughness, ripstop performance (and texture and handfeel), our mutual love of Dimension Polyant’s products, waterproof properties, and because it was awesome. Then, to go just a touch lighter, we opted for X-Pac V15 on the interior liner fabric. Strong and durable, but lightweight. 

In the end, we’d opt for two different versions, custom printed specifically for us and this project, utilizing RBTR’s OutdoorINK digital print-on-demand services. V21RS ripstop X-Pac custom Strichtarn in charcoal gray/gray for the exterior fabric. V15 X-Pac custom Strichtarn in blaze orange/orange for the interior fabric. RBTR started printing up our fabrics immediately and got them both shipped off and into Matt’s eager hands right away.

Codename Kobold

At this point, thanks to RBTR, this project suddenly became real. And then it hit us pretty quickly… this thing needs a codename. Meet the feisty Kobold, hailing from Germanic mythology. Oddly enough, the story of the German Kobolds spread across Europe and via translations from one language to another and the game of telephone before the telephone was ever invented, and the name evolved into “goblins”… they’re small humanlike sprites that, if treated nicely, are known to be helpful around the house and in daily life. Just don’t make them mad. Small helpful-but-moody EDC party goblins. Done!

Finessing the Details…

Next up, all the trims and little details, which really make the whole thing scream. Of course, the addition of the custom woven black and orange logo on the exterior. A small but mighty detail. But the orange on the label had to be tweaked a bit. We needed to color match it perfectly.

Then, like many GBG products, Carryology collabs, and various other packs from our favorite brands… we needed a big area to adorn our favorite patches or Ranger Eyes. 

Glow Goblin

Speaking of Ranger Eyes. We had to do one. Our first one ever. The CGBG (Carryology x Garage Built Gear) and its unique font came from a fun concept I came up with for an early teaser in our Carryology Classified Facebook group, a play on the infamous and iconic CBGB punk rock club in NYC. Of course, it needed a Kobold character. After a little refining and tweaking (from an illustration from the late 1800s/early 1900s)… our little monster was ready. And to pay homage to our Kobold character’s spritely origins, we made it glow in the dark.

Finishing off the design, we added paracord zipper pullers to eliminate the jingle jangle of metal zippers. And we added some shrink wrap over the pullers for grip, with gloves or without. 

And one last thing! Matt was wildly generous with his time and fully dedicated himself to this beast of a project. And so please note, he’s only a man operation and personally handmade every single Kobold Pouch in his small garage workshop. This is the most products he has ever made in a production run in the history of Garage Built Gear. So BIG THANK YOU to Matt for all his hard work over the past several months bringing this dream project into a tangible reality. Absolute legend.

The “CGBG” Kobold was born. A small but mighty pouch, inspired by our favorite two pouches in the Garage Built Gear lineup, with a Carryology twist, using custom-made printed X-Pac fabrics from the folks at Ripstop By The Roll.

Introducing…

Garage Built Gear x Carryology: Kobold Pouch

Launching 

The Release Article goes live on Carryology.com on:
Tuesday May 31st at 12pm Noon (New York City).

LIMITED TO ONE UNIT PER PERSON/ORDER.

The Release Article will contain a link to the GBG shop product page in it. The Release Article will ALSO INCLUDE THE PASSWORD to access that GBG shop product page.

1. Open Release Article on Carryology.com (this page you’re currently on is the Design Article; the Release Article will be a new article, posted at the time/date above). The password and GBG shop product page will be extremely visible right there at the top of the Release Article.

2. Copy the password.

3. Click the link to the GBG shop product page.

4. Input the password.

5. Order your Kobold Pouch!

Shipping to (cost based on actual shipping quotes from global providers):

USA, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Spain, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Austria, Mexico, Israel, Philippines