ferret

You could use wood hardener, has similar effect to hot water treatment without the shrinkage. Does leave a glossy coating which can crack under impact, but the surface can be sanded without weakening the leather.

there's a tutorial on handle braiding here

Another alternative would be to switch to stam fairs, always pleny of interesting vehicles to tow you out

Easiest solution is ditch the volkswagen and get a landrover. An ex military ambulance should give you similar carrying capacity and it's unlikely to get stuck.

Only ever used lemon juice for cleaning leather, it's cheap and easy to obtain. Does a good job with no harmfull effects on the leather. Can sting a bit if you get it in a cut or splash it in your eye, but otherwise no harmfull effects.

Rather than paying for shipping you may be better sourcing rivets this side of the pond. Try http://www.sapphireproducts.co.uk/

you could paint a layer of white pva glue on the back, that would stiffen them without any danger of shrinkage or overcooking.

Try neat lemon juice, works on lots of marks and doesn't mess up the fibres.

There's a good rescource for patterns here . Most of the patterns are intended for constrution in steel, but canbe done in leather (and a lot quieter than bashing steel)

That's brilliant , the ferrets loved it

Another thing to consider is the time taken to cut the straps. Not so important if you are just leatherworking as a hobby , but if you are selling stuff the extra cost of pre cut straps may be less than your hourly rate

You could make your own using a dremel on a bolt head