So I recently made a helmet with a wave design on it taken from a famous Japenese painting the 'Great wave of Kanagawa'. After making it I remembered I'd picked up a cool looking rusty belt buckle from Tandy leather store and decided it would make a nice design to use with the buckle.

Here is the helmet and wave design:

Here is the buckle:

So I have made a start. The leather I have at hand was very thin so I decided to double it up, sticking it together to stitch after I have tooled and dyed the belt.

I drew round an existing belt I had onto some leather I have, having mislaid my tape measure and metre stick some where!

I cut a straight edge:

Then used a strap cutter to cut two lengths out:

Then I stuck the two pieces together. That is as far as I got today.

09/02/15 I stuck the two lengths I had cut together over night. The leather I have is old and seems quite dry and the edge of the hide is very thin. I trimmed the edges so both sides were equal and edge beveled the outside edges.

I then cut a groove down the edges with a stitching groover set to 4mm.

When I did the edges unfortunately the top layer of the hide started to crack in small arrow like shapes. I want to dye the edges so didn't want to add any wax or gel that might make the effect unbalanced. Due to this I dyed the edges black and then added some wax before burnishing with a slicking wheel.

That is as far as I got today.