CurtisKemper

I like it a lot Mike! Can you snap a pic of it laying out flat to see the whole thing?

I hope to one day be able to do this type of dye/staining, carving and tooling. It is so impressive to me to see such a work of art come out of a piece of leather.

Thank you! No stitches across the top, just a grove for decoration and to allow it to deform there and not through the rest of the sheath where I molded the leather. Thanks!

I play guitar and bass and have for longer than I care to talk about. A couple things about guitar straps from my point of view. In my opinion there are two types of straps, ones that slide, lined or rough side not against me and ones that will not slide, rough side of the leather against my body or clothes. For me that is the first thing I look at. If I am putting a strap on a Les Paul it can slide, the body of the guitar is so heavy it will not move around and try to "neck dive". I have a Washburn 6 string bass and I have to use a strap that stops the "neck dive" or I lose the bass anytime I am not literally holding it up with my left hand and I have better things to do with that hand. Acoustic guitars will do this too. Almost all of my bass straps are not only lined but padded, basses are heavy and I am not sure what they are lined and padded with but the combination works to stop the neck dive and the lined side is smooth. These straps were purchased retail and they were expensive, $55-$60 or so for each one and they are so consistent that I believe they are made by a machine. I can snap a picture of one if you want to see it. My favorite guitar strap is almost 35 years old, plain Jane adjustable leather strap. I can flip it over for rough against me or smooth depending on the guitar I put it on. The leather has always been super soft and has not stretched or shrunk the whole time I have owned it. I have sweat through it many times to the point that I have literally squeezed sweat out of it. It has never stained me or my clothes. Again I can post a picture if you want to see it. Edit to add I would pay double what I paid for those padded straps for one more plain Jane that is like the one I described above. Once I figure out what the leather is and what dye was used on it I will make one just like it.

I was wondering if anyone uses a PC to make their patterns and if so what applications do you use? I have a small CNC machine from a company called Torchmate and I have been using the CAD application that came with it to make my patterns. Here is an example of one I made. I was wondering what others are doing.

Thank you for the compliments and the welcome wishes!

Thanks for all the welcome messages. I got a lot of help and good advice in the chat last night.

Hi everyone! I am really new to working with leather. My wife and kids got me a basic kit from Tandy earlier this month and I have been having a good time with it. I posted a couple things I have done (not from the kit) here http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=43936#entry274616 Some of the work I see here is really impressive! Thanks, Curt

Those are fantastic!

A couple weeks ago my wife and kids got me a Tandy basic kit and some extra tools to get started with. I did a couple of the little projects that came in the kit and decided that I enjoy doing this and tried to do a couple other things on my own. The first thing I tried was a key chain that has a logo in it from a computer game my wife enjoys called Skyrim as a bit of thanks for her getting me started with leather working. (I sure hope that image re-sizes, it is big) The next thing I tried to do was some wet forming. My grandfather gave me a pocket knife in the late 70's and I have always wanted a sheath for it. I read a few how-to's and watched a couple youtube videos and gave it a shot. I think it came out ok, it fits the knife well. I was really surprised that this wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. Now I am working on a wet formed holster. I will post it when it is completed. As I said earlier I am new to this, less than a month into it. I didn't see a place on the forums for newbies to introduce themselves. Any pointers on things to read here first to keep me straight and doing things correctly would be greatly appreciated.

Please add me too!