Sheilajeanne

This is SO interesting! Please keep us posted! Making a pair of shoes is not something I'd ever have the guts to tackle. I draw the line at moccasins, and even those aren't as easy as you'd think. I sometimes go to cons (am interested in writing sci/fi and fantasy) and I have some friends that are into cosplay/anime. Though it's not my thing, I love watching them show off their costumes! You have a machine for stitching the straps, right?

Very true, roo! (Though I don't agree with the double leash method. If a dog is walking properly on the leash, there is no pressure on the collar. If it starts to pull, it corrects itself. As for the prong causing pain, put a prong collar around your wrist, and jerk on it. The sensation is not comfortable, but it's not painful, either. (And we don't have a nice thick fur coat the way a dog does.) Anyway, something else that should be added: prongs absolutely should NEVER be left on the dog when the walk or training session is over. Worst thing you can do is tether a dog using a prong. They can catch a hind foot in it when scratching, and it is also possible for the links to come undone. The ends of the prongs should be smooth, not sharp. Cheap prongs made in China can have sharp burrs on them that will hurt the dog's neck. If you see photos on animal rights sites showing holes in a dog's neck from a prong, that's the sort of prong that was used. I have never, ever seen that sort of damage from a prong, and I've been using them since the 1980's. Most of the people I train with also use them. I have a Herm-Springer prong - paid $50 for it. Quality doesn't come cheap!

I think it may have to do with the lower part of the boot being subject to friction, which would scuff off any waxes used in finishing the leather. Uppers aren't as subject to scuffing, so the waterproof coating lasts longer.

Yep!

Glad to be of help! I was just looking at your photos of the harness. Where /how did the D ring fail? Did the leather break, or did the D actually break? A D ring you use for something like this would have to be a solid piece of metal, with no joins in it. Cheaper D's have a join along the flat part, and will just pull apart under strain. If it was the leather -oops! Even with 3 layers on the centre section of the strap, the D ring attachment still only has 2 layers, so not sure it would hold. Anyway, shortening the middle strap will help the chest strap take a lot of the pressure, and you may be okay with the redesign. Hope so... Plannning to do a leather harness for my younger dog sometime soon, so this has been helpful to me, too. The dog in the photos turns 11 the first week of January and she is still very active and can be a real PITA sometimes!

Ah, okay, hay bag. Should have know it wasn't a cinch, as there would have been a bar at the top to distribute the tension evenly. But still, the COLOURS!!

Can't go wrong with that approach! Only rivets don't work too well on nylon....

Well done! Very nice! As a former horseperson, the purple and pink thing in the background of the third and fourth pictures caught my eye. Is that a saddle girth?? (Sorry, am used to girths being just plain ol' white, or made out of leather! (Yeah, I'm old...) Interesting to see how equipment changes over time!

Stetson, I mean just what I said: if I look at the top strap, the one that goes along the spine, it is THREE layers thick when viewed in X-section. The midline strap that goes along the belly is not as thick, and has a sliding buckle in it that can be adjusted for the size of the dog. But it is not the one that takes all the stress. If you look at the photo of my dog, you will see it's the strap with the Dee in it that takes the dog's weight. Which is exactly why the Dee ring pulled loose on the harness you made. Imagine looking at the harness from the top. It forms the letter H, with the bar across the middle being the strap along the spine, and the two vertical pieces being the straps that wrap around the chest and belly. The D ring sticks out right where the middle bar is - if the dog's head is to your right, the D is on the far left of the harness. Imagine the strap along the spine starts flush against the flat part of the D ring. It then goes forward, wraps around the chest piece, then goes underneath it, and wraps around the belly piece. It then goes forward again, and ends just before the chest strap, with the final bit of strap sandwiched between the top and bottom wraps, to make 3 layers. The strap is then zig-zag stitched on the top in 5 places. Yeah, it's not coming apart any time soon! Edited to add - the strap along the spine is only 2 thicknesses where it wraps around the front strap and belly strap: one layer on top of the strap, and one layer on the bottom. It is three thicknesses in the middle section. The strap begins and ends just before it gets to the chest and belly straps. In this photo, you can clearly see the line about an inch and a half in front of the snap on the leash where the strap begins, as I've described. (The D ring doesn't really show up in the photo, because it's painted black.) The black thing on the belly strap is a plastic buckle that can be opened by squeezing the sides. All the buckles on the harness are plastic. I've been using this harness for 10 years, and nothing has ever broken on it.

Steston, looking at my own training harness, which is made of nylon, 3/32 of an inch thick (Equivalent to 6 oz leather) ... The centre strap along the spine is triple thickness. The midline strap goes from the rearmost end of the front breast strap, around the D ring then back around the breast strap and ends just in front of the belly strap. The belly strap is also stitched in place, so it doesn't move. You need to take the slack out of the midline strap, as when the dog lunges forward, there will be a sudden jerk on it before the breast strap takes the force of the lunge. Akitas are very strong dogs. There were a couple at the kennel that had to be kept separate from the smaller dogs, or they would kill them. Two of them went after one of the corgis one day, and both the corgi and the kennel helper were seriously bitten trying to break up the fight. They do have a reputation for being dog aggressive, so Bo's owner really needs something that can control him. Sheltatha, what works for a pom may not work for a dog the size of an Akita. I am all for using positive methods whenever I can, and did try lemon juice to rehab a dog-aggressive German shepherd I'd rescued from a shelter. It didn't work with her. I also tried a shock collar on low voltage (tested it on my own arm). It was one that gave several warning beeps before shocking, and she'd ignore the beeps and the shocks. She eventually had to be euthanized after she escaped from her kennel and killed someone's shi-tzu. Worst day of my life... Large dogs tend to have a much higher pain threshold than smaller ones. This same dog once went after my own male GSD, and latched onto his hind leg. I could not get her to release her grip - shouted at her, jerked the prong collar as hard as I could, kicked her. She only released when the person in charge of my male let go of his leash, because he was in so much pain he bit her. Then, of course, he turned on the female, and nailed her. She finally released his leg, and we were able to get them separated before they did any more damage to each other. I wound up having to take both my male GSD and my helper (the groomer) to the hospital. Groomer was bitten on the hand and leg, and missed several months off work. I was also bitten by my own dog, but fortunately, suffered nothing worse than a graze across my forehead. When dogs are in pain, they will lash out at the nearest target, and many dog owners get bitten when breaking up fights. My suggestion to Bo's owner is that she consult with a trainer that is used to training strong, confident dogs like Akitas and German shepherds. It's not the equipment that will give her control, it's the training. The equipment is only the tool she needs to use to prevent the dog from pulling her off her feet until she is able to learn how to train it to respond to her.

You can read his full story here: http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/community.read?post=862489-its-time&p=2#862507 You might want to get the tissues out... Still miss him something awful!

I'ts all in how the collar is used. What's even crueler is having your dog totally out of control, and attacking another dog, then having to be put down. Or pulling its owner off its feet, causing broken bones, then running out into traffic and getting hit by a car. I know people who have had all of these things happen to them. I have been in the dog business a long, long time. But I don't have little lap dogs that cringe if you raise your voice to them. I have big, strong dogs that can be too much for the average person to handle on a flat collar. Yes, there are haltis, and Gentle Leaders, but some dogs can't stand those - the just keep fighting them until they are exhausted. I adopted a 85 lb. male GSD that had NEVER been leashed trained. He was far too strong for me to have been able to control using a regular collar, so I used the prong on him until he understood what I expected of him. The prongs are blunt, and only come into play when the dog pulls. They do not hurt the neck. After about a month using the prong, he was walking on a totally loose leash, and I was able to transition him to a flat collar. It's a tool, and any good dog trainer has more than one tool in their toolbox. What works for one dog may be a total flop with another. This dog was not trained using fear. I rescued him from life on the end of an 8 ft. chain, and an owner who said he didn't want him and was going to shoot him. He became my hearing ear service dog.

Yup, supposed to look like this: Another problem with harnesses: they don't give you very much control over the end that bites! Of course, in this photo, that's the whole point of using a harness...

Akitas are strong dogs and can be dangerous. They are also difficult to train. I worked with someone who bred them, and helped her train them. It took about twice as long to teach them to walk nicely on a leash as it took me to train my German shepherds. The problem with dog harnesses is they are designed for pulling. She may find the harness doesn't give her the control she needs. She may have to go for a prong collar, and get someone to teach her how to use it. A friend brought his dog into my kennel. The dog was towing him along, totally in control. Since the dog already had a muzzle order on it for biting another dog, this was not a good scene. Fifteen minutes with a prong collar, and the dog was walking beside me, as if he'd been doing it his whole life! Once he understood the new way of doing things, they were able to transition him back to a regular collar without him starting to pull again. Anyway, nice looking harness! I use the same style of harness for tracking and protection work.

Very very nice! What does the inside look like?

That looks very professional! How do you do a turned edge? And what kind and weight of leather did you use for the interior? Looks like pigskin.

Thank you! I wonder what purpose the soap/shampoo serves. Anyone know? I know glycerin is commonly added to hand lotion and lip chap sticks, so that's easy to understand why you'd want to put it on leather. But soap emulsifies oils and grease, so not sure what purpose it would serve.

Where can I find glycerin? I think I need to start using casing solution. The leather gets really hard and dry sometimes when I case with just water! And I find that treating it with neatsfoot oil darkens it too much for my liking.

That leash is sewn throughout its entire length. Now, no one in their right mind wants to hand stitch 72 inches of leather, so this was done with a machine. Leather sewing machines, even the cheapest ones, will set you back about $1,000. So you don't want to be duplicating the leash in the picture anytime soon, unless you have really deep pockets... :D That this is the type of leash his customers prefer shows how little your average pet owner knows about leather. Stitching eventually wears out and comes undone. If this leash is stitched because it's made of 2 pieces of leather sewn together, that's likely because they are trying to save money. Two thinner pieces of leather sewn together are much more likely to wear out and break than a single thicker one, as they were probably of poorer quality in the first place. A single piece of 72" leather, treated with waxes and oils to repel moisture and stand up to daily wear and tear would be much stronger, more durable and last longer than this leash. Look for someone that can provide you with either bridle leather or latigo. That's what you want for a leash. The stitching may look fancy, but it contributes nothing to the strength and durability of a leash! Since you are in North Carolina, I'll let people who live closer to you suggest a source. I have had a 1" wide leather dog collar since early 1980. It's made from a single piece of leather, 7 or 8 ounces in weight, which is plenty thick enough for a large dog, and the only stitching on it is where the buckle is attached. It's on its 3rd dog now, and still going strong.

Going by my knowledge of sewing fabric, the only way to get an inside stitch is to turn the collar inside-out once the stitching is completed, which means the leather would have to be really soft and thin. I really don't see how you could do this if there was also to be a nylon rope down the center of the collar! You'd have to thread the rope through after the stitching was done, and the collar turned inside-out. Sounds difficult and time consuming!

Very nicely done! What language is the writing?

Just another word for the same thing. If you click on my link above, you'll see both terms used by posters on this site. I've seen bracers used many times in literature, too, as I'm into authors that do Lord of the Rings/Game of Thrones/ type stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracer I'm familiar with braces as well, because both my dad and grand-dad used to wear them to hold up their pants back in the 1950's! Edit: further research shows a bracer is actually an archery arm guard, while a vambrace is a piece of armor. However, people who do LARP don't distinguish between the two. So. 480 volt, you were right! Technically, they are different.

It looks like the carver would have used a resist on the carved areas, then dyed the background using a very fine brush. The final step would have been to apply an antique, and rub it off to highlight the carving, followed by a finishing coat of something like Super Sheen or an equivalent top coat. Whoever did this belt is a highly skilled artist, and what they have done here takes talent, experience, and lots of patience and time. The carving is excellent and the stitching along the edges is flawless. I recently completed my first hand-tooled belt, so I know from experience just how hard it is to dye the background and not get anything on the carving!

Thanks, Dwight!

Very nice! I'm sure he'll gret good use out of them. Just a bit of correction on the terminology here, though. Those are braces, used to hold up pants. Bracers are quite different: They are used to protect the arms for people who like to play around with swords and medieval armour! (LARP stands for Live Action Role Playing).