First off.  The below is my first attempt at binding tape.  This is the first prototype for a yoke.  I've sewn before, and can generally stitch a basic straight line, but this was my first serious attempt at sewing anything real.  You can see how rough my stitching was, and some major mistakes being made.





Below is the same yoke as above.  Again, you can see how rough it was.





Ok, so the below picture is a different yoke.  I think this was the 3rd yoke I did?  4th major item total.  I am currently using it on my personal rig.  You can see how much better the stitching is.  





Below is a belt prototype I was trying out, it was done sometime after the yokes above.  You can see how much nicer the stitching is coming alone.  






Ok.  So some general tips.  Remember, these are for people wanting to try to make their first attempt at this look good.  So you may want to consider pre-sewing the edges so that your fabric stack will stay together.  This is only useful if you have multiple layers that arent attached some other way and you want to keep them from shifting while sewing.  In this stack, there is a layer of stiffener interface and a thin poly batting sandwiched between 2 layers of cordura, one of them uncoated.  If it's just a single or double layer, ignore this completely.






The below picture.  Those little mini-sewing clips are your friend.  Get a couple hundred of them.  Use them on binding tape liberally.  Fold the binding tape in half, being careful to keep it even, it's easy to make the bottom half that is out of view too shallow, and you will stitch right past the tape on the far side.  Put a TON of clips on the binding tape to hold it firmly into place, and taunt.  I'd probably double what I put on there.  (This is the same yoke arm that I showed finished picture of above, the one that looked halfway decent)





And one more general tip.  I forgot what these presser feet are called, and there are other feet that can do the same job, but this foot in the following picture can be used to help you keep you first stitch line at the same depth.  You will eventually shift to doing it completely by hand, but this is a good first foot to try if you need your first attempt to look good.




Ok.  So first.  Doing straight lines are easy.  Just go slow, an inch or so at a time, removing those clips as you go.  Realize that as you go, no matter how tight you put the tape, the presser foot will create more slack in front of your sewing as you go.  This will probably only be apparent on much longer runs.  My belts have over 2 yards of continuous binding tape for example.  

If you are careful and slow - always stop with the needle lowered into the fabric btw, don't stop with it up - then you can make the straight lines decent looking.  The first issue you will probably run into will be the corners.  You have 2 options - round them, but they will have to be relatively wide roundings or you will get a corner anyways.  Or make a corner fold (I don't know the official name for it).  I suggest, since you are doing it by hand and you need it to look good the first time, go with the hard 90 degree corner and double check your work and go slowly.  

So as you approach your first corner, you want the binding tape to 'fold' like in the following picture.  Note:  I recommend you put a clip on top of the 'fold', SIDEWAYS, to hold the fold in place.  ie, see the clip in front of the fold?  Scoot that one over to the left a bit, enough that your presser foot will clear it.  And put another one directly on top of the fold, right on the corner, but SIDEWAYS, compared to the one you see.  Just leave it right on there as you sew.  Use the presser foot to slowly nudge it off the fabric as you go.  You should be doing this one stitch at a time - even use the wheel by hand for the last few stitches as you round the corner.  You have to get these just right.  Take your time.




Here you can see I'm starting to swivel (well, I started the stitch before) - you will go a stitch or two farther than you think you should probably before you should swivel.  Again, this is why you do this by hand.  After the first couple corners, you will quickly get the hang of when you want to start to swivel.  Don't be afraid to do a little 'diagonal' instead of a straight 90 degree hard turn - this isn't going to be a professional piece.  It will look better to do a diagonal in your turn (ie, swiveling 2 or 3 times in small turns, instead of one hard 90 degree turn)  Either way works.  I'm just saying don't be hard on yourself here.  It will look fine either way.

Note that you can see the clip I scooted over to allow the presser foot to clear.  The presser foot will mess up if you try to push one of them off head-on.  Sideways they come off ok.




So here I am, I've completed the turn and am heading towards the next corner.




This is how you want the corner to look like when you are done.  If you get your first folds to look like this, really good job!





Ok, so the following is how NOT to do a corner.  So coming towards the corner.... (actually, one good thing to point out - the clip on the right is on  'sideways' like I said to do above.  It's just not on top of the folded fold)...so coming towards the corner, there is no fold yet.....




....so you make your fold.  You pull it tight, getting all the slack out of it (good job!) and then make your fold!  But wait.  Here I have messed up the fold.  And I put the clip on diagonally, not sideways (it will get stuck under the presser foot, causing the foot to come up and screw up your tension, causing a birdsnest)  Look carefully at how the fold is folded over.  Compare it to the above CORRECT pictures.




So I'm coming around the corner here.  The mechanical moves aren't wrong - you will see there is a bit of a diagonal stitch to hold down the corner on this one in a second.




But here, you can see the fold was wrong.  Now.  There is technically nothing WRONG with this - it's not going to fall apart or anything.  The other way just looks better.  If you are going to do it, then do it right.




Ok.  So, next.  Inverse curves.  These are a pain in the ass.  Do NOT do 90 degree hard turns, unless you absolutely have to do so - just trust me.  Even with a curve, they are hard to do.  These still give me trouble now.  Note that these 4 pictures are using my industrial machine, but it's the exact same with any machine.  Also note the different style presser foot with a 'distance from edge' guide.  Though these don't help with an inverse corner.

Note that this is the same concept whether the inverse curve is wide (like around the inside of the neck area of a yoke or harness) or in a tight curve like in the picture below.  The tighter the curve, the harder it is to make it look good.  It is REALLY easy to make two different mistakes here - as you press into the corner, you will accidentally push it in tighter than you thought at first, which pulls slack from further on.  Which will loosen the next couple clips.  This will allow the tape to start slipping off, making it  'loose'.  The second issue is you can accidentally pull the binding tape un-even, making the top or bottom bigger or smaller than the other side, causing the stitching to come off the tape.  

So here's the setup.  This is one of my belts.  This is the curve right up in front of the mag pouches.  Diz has a similar notch on his belts, but his factory didn't do binding tape.  I'll try and post a picture of a closeup of a professionally done belt I have here that uses a binding tape attachment to show you how it's SUPPOSED to look.  Note the unfolded corner at the bottom - that's the corner we discussed doing above.




Clear focused shot of the curve itself.  Note how tight I have it in there.




Here you are, approaching the curve.  You will soon be swiveling.  You will need to CAREFULLY slide that plastic buckle off as you swivel.




Now, as you sew into the curve, you will CAREFULLY - and this will take a little practice - manually 'straighten' the curve, making a close to straight line.  Note that this is a bit difficult.  Don't try and force the stitching.  Make sure it's laying flat and not hopped up on ridges.  Sew right through the curve.  Since this is going to be for yourself, I'd consider going back and putting an extra stitch line through this section, maybe even one diagonally across the corner, going off the binding tape onto the fabric on both ends.  




So the following is one of the surplus PLCE pouches I have sewn to a modern belt.  I was using these belts to experiment with different ways of doing binding tape.  I tried doing a couple with the tape attachment device.  The other 3 I did by hand with different techniques.  You can see I had trouble with this inverse corner, one of them I did by hand.  Enough so I added a 3rd stitch line, running it off the binding tape on purpose.  

See the diagonal stitch NOT on the binding tape?  This was back when I was doing 90 degree hard inverse corners.  I would put a diagonal stich before doing the binding tape as a backup reinforcement for this corner.  I'm SUPPOSED to get the tape at least over the stitch line, but this one I was off a little.  It's still secure, with 2 stitch lines attaching the tape to the belt, but it just looks like crap.  This is why I switched to a curved corner, it's just way easier to make look good.  

If you HAVE to have an inverse curve, make it as gradual as possible.  The area around the neck on a yoke, for instance, is not going to be nearly this hard, but you still need to pay attention and go slowly or you will quickly mess it up.  Learn from me.  Avoid tight inverse corners.  I spent more time getting these corners done than the rest of the belt binding tape combined.  After doing a couple dozen of these belts with these corners, I'm not bad at them now.  These early ones, the stitching there all look rough.  Especially on the ones where I was experimenting with different ways of doing them.  On a couple of these belts, the 'experiments' went bad and I had to pop the stitches and redo the binding.  One of the belts, I had to redo ALL of the binding tape when I was fully halfway through it.  I spent over an hour popping seams on that booboo alone.  




Ok, so other mistakes to look out for.  This is the inverse curve along the inside of the neck of one of the harnesses I did.  You can see where I didn't measure the tape correctly and let the fold get offline.  This was on the bottom.  When I went and flipped it over, I saw this - that carefully laid stitch right along the edge of the tape on the top?  It slipped off the tape on the bottom.  Now, this doesn't affect the actual use of this harness, there's nothing wrong with it technically.  It just doesn't look professional.  But it's easy to make this mistake worse than just not looking good.  Be careful with your folding and holding the tape in place, especially around curves.




Here's a real boo-boo.  This is where I wasn't paying attention and allowed the fabric on the corner to slip up and fold over on itself.  You can see the batting peaking out from under the binding tape.

I had to go back and redo this section.  Pain in the ass, when I could have just been more careful and double-checked everything.




Ok.  So here's one to watch out for.  This REALLY messed with me on my domestic machines.  It's not so bad on my industrial, but it still happens.  This is sewing right along the edge, along a weird slope or where sudden vertical events happen.  Here, I'm sewing along, putting a 2nd stitch line on the binding tape on a yoke.  And it transitions from the flat, thin area back along the vented mesh area, moving up over the shoulder area, and suddenly hits a piece of webbing that tucked down under the binding tape.  There is a sudden vertical shift that happens, along with a relatively thick stack to begin with.  You can see where the foot suddenly slipped off the edge.  This causes a number of problems - it obviously messes up your straight stitch line.  You will have to redo it one way or the other.  You will probably also want to run another line of stitching over the area as backup.  And you can easily break a needle doing this just right.  




Another, better view of how badly it shifted off.  Note that this doesn't just happen along the edges.  This can happen anywhere you are sewing.  Just be careful and slow down with any sudden change in elevation, or other strange changes.