roo4u

i braid. i can do a variety of knots. i mainly work in kangaroo leather but can do rawhide as well. let me know what your looking for.

well, feedlots ruin hides for leather. cant remember where i read it but it said cattle fattened in feedlots dont produce good leather, animals gain weight quickly causes stretch marks.

well in my area i just found out that the company that buys by products, bones n trimmings n dead animals, wont pay for hides anymore. so im going to call some of the local butchers n see what i can get hides for now. ive paid 40 in the past.

ive sent a couple samples to prospective customers. made them pay enough to cover the leather etc. a bit less than my wholesale price. chose not to be out of pocket for a 'maybe' sale.

im interested in the 2 gail hought books. are they still available?

not the for the look. the core is for strength, and to lessen the stretch on the leather.

well the lanyard part on that website is a simple 4 strand round braid. you can google it and find instructions. the braid on the horn part is more complicated. it is along button knot, most likely a turkshead. i recommend getting one of bruce grants books for instruction but also there are you tube videos.

i just join the two 4 strand braids into an 8strand braid. then make a terminal knot as described by bruce grant in his books.

first thing i ever did with leather was replace the lining on my old saddle. long before internet, had a book called how to make cowboy horse gear.

do you have any of bruce grants books...i believe does show hobbles in a couple of the books.

yes y knot still going i have gotten a bit of lace from springfield leather it decent but does need to be split to even it out.

sadly this country has gone away from children learning crafts from their parents. we are an instant gratification society now. few are willing to spend the time it takes to learn to do something when they can have it in 5 mins drive to store. it is not the same quality of course but they dont care. im a braider and its only been recently that there is an interest in teaching the craft to make sure it doesnt die. whereas in other countries like argentina children learn to braid as early as possible.

i usually go 1.5 times the desired length. so say 30 inches 6 strand...i need 6 strings 45 inches long plus a little bit for finishing. now if your doubling your strings back like he shows for an aussie style belt it would be 3 strands each 90 inches long. hope that makes sense.

that looks pretty good. it will be a bit harder to hide ends on that round lace than on a flat lace but its good practice. soon you will be addicted to braiding lol

ok so once your string comes out from under as shown in fig 3 you take it around down and come up between the 2 strands. then your gonna take it around the back to the left over that far left strand and then it comes up from under and will end up right along the right side of the starting point. this is fig 4. that is the end of the single knot fig 5 shows that to double the knot you simply follow your strand around it should follow the same overs and unders. hope that helps a bit