Morale Patch Panel Offerings from HSGI and OC Tactical to Display and Store your Patches

You may have remembered back last year when I showed you how to make your own DIY Morale Patch Display Frame out of some Veltex fabric.

The process was fairly complicated, yet easy at the same time. The downside to the method I showed you is that with the Veltex being spray mounted to a hard backed surface, it has the propensity to pull away from the backer with repeated removal of patches.Veltex as a fabric will also hold velcro-backed morale patches, but over time will lose it’s “stick.”

Fast forward a year and I hear from my friend Gene at HSGI that he was putting together a patch panel for me like one he had made for Travis Haley. Gene was able to find a source for loop velcro wider than I’d even knew they made it. Ironically, right after I received Gene’s panel, I got an email from Mike over at OC Tactical with some sneak peek  photos of a MultiCam loop patch panel he was working on.

Awesome! I thought to myself. It’s great to see the industry creating dedicated panels to display morale patches. Gene’s Morale Patch Panel has been out for some time now, along with Mike’s Grande Patch Panel and Mondo Patch Panel. Today I’ll be comparing the two and discussing the different production techniques they use and what makes each unique.

High Speed Gear Morale Patch Panel

With Gene being the Johnny Cash of gear makers, his Morale Patch Panel is only available in black. Measuring  27.5″ x 35.5″ and made from heavy duty looped pile, it’s bonded to 1000D Cordura for stability and will hold up in case you need to use it for your superhero costume.

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On a serious note, the bonding is a nice touch and seems to add rigidity to the panel. For hanging purposes, HSGI has added corner pockets to attach a hard backed surface for even more rigidity. By simply slipping a piece of plywood or plexiglass behind the frame it be easily hung as a normal frame would be or simply screwed through each corner into a wall.

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The perimeter of the panel features black binding tape with a double stitch line on each side. Each side has an individual piece of binding tape and the termination on each edge is more of a sewn overlap which I feel may have the propensity to come off easier as compared to a folded edge, but that’s a very small detail and not necessarily important. It’s not as though you’re really going to use this for a cape, right?

The HSGI Morale Patch Panel is made in the USA and available directly from HSGI’s Website.

OC Tactical Grande and Mondo Patch Panels

Mike from OC Tactical took a different approach to the Patch Panel by first offering two different sizes. The Grande measures 18″ x 24″ and the Mondo measures in at 24″ x 36.”

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OC Tactical is offering their panels with a single piece of Mil-Spec Berry Compliant Velcro Brand Loop in either Coyote 498 or MultiCam. I’ve always loved how the Velcro MultiCam printed loop came out and glad to see it being utilized in pieces as big as this. It’s certainly not cheap to source either.

The mounting method chosen by OC Tactical was to grommet each corner for easy attachment to hooks, nails or even stringing paracord through. On the Mondo Patch Panel you’ll also find a mid-point grommet on the top and bottom of the long side for added stability when mounting.

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While the HSGI panel was bonded to the Cordura backer, OC Tactical has two stitched lines intersecting the panel to mate it with the backer. It also features a single piece of color-matched (MultiCam or Solution Dyed Coyote 498) binding tape around the perimeter of the panel. Mike’s attention to detail that I’ve touted in the past is alive and well with each panel, carefully folding the binding tape edge around each corner.

The OC Tactical Grande and Mondo Patch Panels are made in the USA and available directly from OC Tactical’s Website.

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