Since build threads have become rare, I thought I would start a thread documenting the making of hand carved leather strap. It has been about 15 years since I have done any leathercraft so I don't have any real high expectations but I need a strap to go with my new American Deluxe Ash strat so I'm hoping it turns out well.

Ok so I am going to strat with a kit that includes the precut pieces that you need to make the strap. What I don't really like about the kit is that the main part of the strap has hole punched on both ends. This means that most of the hand tooling will not be visible when I am wearing the strap but it is a good place to start. If I make another one I will just buy a long 3 inch leather strap and cut it to fit my needs. Tooling leather is tanned with natural products like bark which is a different preparation than how you tan leather that you would use for upholdstery or other projects. This veg tanning process cures the leather but still allows it to absorb water which is critical for tooling. Ok here is the kit, a design book and a trace outline of the final length I want.



Ok the first step is to come up with a pattern. I used the celtic pattern book as inspiration and just started drawing different designs on graph paper. Here is what I came up with.



So the next step is to transfer the drawing onto the leather. The leather needs to be wet in order for the tracing to show up. So that means that I can't just trace through the graph paper. They do make tracing paper that works really well for this but I forgot to pick some up when I was at the leathercraft store so I improvised with a 1 gallon freezer bag. Here you can see that the leather had been wetted down and is ready for tracing.



To trace the pattern to the leather you can use any blunt pen like object. Again they do make a specific stylus for this but it costs $7 and the stylus from a pda, Ipad, etc works just fine. Here is the pattern traced on to the leather.



First thing you should know about working with leather is that there is no erasing! Once you put a mark on the leather it is there for good. As my dad would say a good craftsman knows how to cover up his mistakes.

The next step is the initial carving of the lines of the design. You need to make these cuts so that the other tools can be used to sculpt the design into the leather. The tool you use for this called a swive knife shown here.



Here is how you hold it. It is best if you can make the cuts in a single smooth motion. You should try to always draw the knife toward your body.



Here is what it looks like afterwards. On the left is the traced design on the right it has been cut into the leather.



Remember the leather needs to be wet in order to be worked. I'm not sure if it shows up but here is the whole design cut into the leather.



Well that is where things are at now. The next part will show some of the tooling using a mallet.

_________________
'09 Am Deluxe Ash Strat
'09 Mex Standard Strat
'10 Mex Standard Tele
Champ 600
Blues jr.
'65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue

I,ve been thinking of doing this myself. I was just looking at that same kit but it wasn,t what I was wanting in a strap. I,ll be watching

Hi Briese: this is a very cool thread. I never thought of doing this till this moment: now my head is filling with ideas.

Hungry eyes will be watching for your next posts! Thanks in advance.

Cheers - C

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Hey Briese: Unlike Ceri I have had plans for this for months, but I've never got round to giving it a go... this could well be the kick up the backside I needed for this project. Cool! Thanks for posting!

I saw this at a stall in London a while back and thought well a custom strap should be doable! This is the stall I took the business card from... http://chaosleather.co.uk/

Anyhow. Looking forward to learning more!

Nutter

I quite sure you guys could make your own custom straps. The main thing you need is patience. Plan out what you want and test your ideas on some scrap pieces. The leather store I go to sells bags of scrap pieces that you can practice on.

I have started the tooling part. Usually the first tool you will use is called a beveler or beveling tool. It is used to depress the background areas of the design and in my case to show which strands of the celtic knots go under the others. The face of the bevel tool is placed in the cut that was made with the swivel knife and then you tap on the tool a couple of times. The general idea is to hold all tools as upright as possible but once you learn how it will mark the leather you can adjust the angle for different effects.

You use a mallet and strike the tool with motion from your wrist. It is best to have the face of the tool facing you so that you can make sure that you are not marking up the part of the image that you want in the forefront.





I have found it is best to use a couple of smaller taps to get the depth right so you tap, tap, tap, move the tool a few millimeters (about the width of the tool) and tap,tap, tap again etc. Do this on all the cut lines to distinguish foreground and background.

You can see that I have an good size chunk of concrete to use as an anvil. The piece I have is a concrete block that I bought at my local lumber yard for $3. You can buy a nice polished piece of quartz or granite for about $50-100, but the concrete serves the same purpose. I don't recommend using a metal anvil because the leather must be wet and it will absorb rust, oil or color that is on the metal.

Here the right side of the pattern has been beveled and the left side is the swivel cut.



Here is the whole pattern beveled.



You want the image to be 3-D so you are trying to mark the leather to a depth of about 1/2 the thickness of the leather. If you look at the underside you should be able to see where you have tooled.



I'm not sure if you can see it but the tool marks are a little more than what I like to see. This is because the first bevel tool I bought is smooth on the bottom. I was in town again today so I bought a bevel tool with a cross hatch pattern on the bottom that I think will look better. I'll try it tomorrow.

I also picked up a couple different colors of dye, a bag of scrap pieces, and couple of belt blanks that I plan to cut into a better guitar strap shape.



Talk to ya soon,

Lee

_________________
'09 Am Deluxe Ash Strat
'09 Mex Standard Strat
'10 Mex Standard Tele
Champ 600
Blues jr.
'65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue

In case you are wondering here is website of the store chain where I've been getting my supplies.

http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com

_________________
'09 Am Deluxe Ash Strat
'09 Mex Standard Strat
'10 Mex Standard Tele
Champ 600
Blues jr.
'65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue

Is it just the server's interpretation of my browser settings for the link you posted or are you too located in the UK? At any rate: Thanks for that link! Browsing along right now!

Much to learn - much to see!

Thanks again for a really cool post -

Nutter

Great thread Briese, that's another medium I'd like to have a go at.
Interesting stuff, the possibilities are endless. Thanks mate.
....Mark.

Cool thread. One of my straps is hand carved black leather with
red dice, but a friend made it for me. He's also made straps for
several others and is quite the craftsman and tech guy for many
other different things.

_________________
Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

I finished the tooling today. I used a backgrounding tool, which does what it says it adds a texture to make the tooled area look like a background.



Then I added a few accents in the middle of the knot with a tool called a seeder. Since a lot of leathercraft projects are decorated with floral designs the tools are called seeders and veiners.



I went back and tried to smooth some of the tool marks and decided to stop there. Some times the hard part is knowing when to stop.



I spent a couple hours mixing dye colors to try to come up with something that will match to color of my guitar but I didn't have much success. I may need to get a couple more dye colors or just pick a brown that I like and go with it. I don't know yet.

I think I'm gonna cut a piece off of the front side and add a longer piece to the back to bring the tooled part more the the front. I might do that tomorrow.

Later,
Lee

_________________
'09 Am Deluxe Ash Strat
'09 Mex Standard Strat
'10 Mex Standard Tele
Champ 600
Blues jr.
'65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue

Nutter,

I'm in the US. I'm not sure why it looked like I was posting from the UK.

Maybe google has profiled me enough to know that I would love to visit there?

_________________
'09 Am Deluxe Ash Strat
'09 Mex Standard Strat
'10 Mex Standard Tele
Champ 600
Blues jr.
'65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue

My browser briefly opens a .com website for Tandy Leather Factory, and then is automatically redirected to a .co.uk one.

A glance at their Contact Us page reveals them to be based in Fort Worth, TX, with franchises in the UK, Canada, Spain and Australia.

Which is handy - at the start of this thread I was wondering where to purchase the right sort of leather for this work. Now we know!

Thanks for that useful link, Briese.

Cheers - C

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[quote="Ceri"]Hi Briese: this is a very cool thread. I never thought of doing this till this moment: now my head is filling with ideas.

Hungry eyes will be watching for your next posts! Thanks in advance.

+1

cheers

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It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting - paulo coelho

So today I cut some off of the front side of the strap (about 8 inches) and added a different piece to the back of the strap. This will bring more of the tooled part of the strap to the front. I still need to punch the holes for the strap buttons.



I will not be buying the kit again because I don't like the design and for about the same money I can buy a 3 x 50 inch strap, or for just a little more I can buy a 3 x 66 inch strap. Since I like all of my guitars at the same height I don't need to make it adjustable.

I need to pick up some more dye colors tomorrow while I am in town for a meeting. I hope they have the colors I'm looking for in the store because the shipping when ordering online is pretty expensive. There might be a higher charge for the dyes because they are not supposed to freeze, but I couldn't find anything that explained why the shipping would have been almost the same price as the products that were in my cart.

_________________
'09 Am Deluxe Ash Strat
'09 Mex Standard Strat
'10 Mex Standard Tele
Champ 600
Blues jr.
'65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue

My girlfriend bought the started kit from Tandy. She wanted to make a strap for me and some belts for her. She killed the keychain. Liked killed it do bad they had pull out dental records, but I showed her this thread and she got inspired to give it another shot.

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Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.-Khalil Gibran