VabaX

Short answer: you cant. Long answer: leather (especially veg tanned) naturally darkens and browns over time. That is simply a fact of life. If its a dyed leather, like dyed by the tannery, to have white pigment in it, the process might be delayed or somewhat diminished, but it will still change. The best way that I can suggest to preserve its current appearance as long as possible would be to coat it in resolene. Once dry it doesnt change the leathers colour from what it currently is, and in my personal experience seems to arrest the exposure-driven darkening to a degree, but again, it wont permanently stop it from changing. At least what it will do though is stop it from getting dirty or grubby from use, which causes that gross black/green discolouration that some people here mistake for 'nice patina' Aside from that, the only way to keep it white is to paint it..... Other white leather goods that you may have seen from established manufacturers, idk purses, bags, etc, are (if even real leather) most certainly made of chrome tanned leather, which is an entirely separate beast

I just use a large ball peen. I say 'large ballpeen' because really its the same sized head as a normal hammer you'd use to hit nails (obviously dont use one that has hit nails before), but has the ball peeny bit on the other side, and isnt' as unweildly

Same here. My only wish would be that he included a demonstration of performing the exact same stitching technique, but upside down/ mirrored (ie. instead of stitching with the bottom of the slants towards you, stitching towards yourself, you stitch with the bottom of the slants towards yourself but stitch away, such as when doing the opposite side of an item but starting and finishing in mirrored position, without using obverse/reverse stitching orientation (same orientation on both sides)). It's not physically hard to do, but it just took me many frustrating hours of fiddling around to figure out how to do it.

Well obviously it's going to need a welt on both sides. I take it by "spacer", you are refering to a welt? I fail to see how using kydex would be too bulky, seeing as when used properly it pretty much always results in far slimmer profile than leather. I think it's just a fact of the physics of the thing that any welt on the inside edge of the blade is going to be at very high risk, and over time perhaps certainty, of being cut through.... That being the case, I might be inclined to conclude that leather simply is not an appropriate material for this use case, but thats a matter between you and your client

Hmm, I see. I've had absolutely zero experience with laser cutters, but they sound pretty mad. So you laser cut, then dye, then resolene? or do you dye and resolene and then laser cut? (thus leaving the holes un-resolene'd?). Either way, first question; is the colour/tint of the discoloration in the thread actually consistent with the colour dyes that you use? eg, is the discoloration black/grey when you use black dye, medium brown when you use medium brown dye, etc? Just to rule out the possibility that the burned holes could be causing it, thats all. If you cant be sure, mabybe follow your normal process on a test item, but simply DONT dye at all, and see if it still gets discoloured. If so, you know it's not the dye. Second: I know waxed thread is generally the standard for this hobby, but i actually dont use it, and I dont' even wax my own thread either. I stitch with completely unwaxed poly thread, and as i said, i dont have any problems with discolouration with the exception of my own dirty, sweaty hands. If the waxed thread you're using is one of those very heavily waxed ones that looks like you could just about wax your car just with a bundle of the thread, then I wouldnt be surprised if the wax was picking up some contaminants, but I couldnt give you a definitive answer on that. Could be worth testing it out, even irrespective of whether the thread is to blame or note. trying different products etc is the only way to improve what you do.

Never done a belt myself, but i'm doing a full sized compendium at the moment, and I'm feeling the pain. I've got just over 500 stitches in total, and doing it all on the one thread. doesnt help that i probably started with too much thread, so its a bit of a ridiculous amount to pull through each hole, but the last couple times i've dont largish items i've started with too little thread, and only made it to the end by the skin of my teeth . maybe once i eventually finish it, i'll let you know how long it took

I'm not exactly sure what your usual process/ order of steps is, but I've never had this issue, and I build my pieces as follows: Cut out the pieces Edge creasing on edges of card pockets burnish edges of pieces like card pockets Dying - using airbrush coat all pieces in resolene - one normal coat and then a second light pass once the first has soaked in glue pieces together punch stitching holes and then stitch burnish final/main edges of item As far as I see it, there are 2 main things to note about the way i do it that may explain why i've never had this problem, the first being, as Tom suggested above, the order in which the steps are done, and secondly, the fact that I do my dying with an airbrush, and so only a very thin amount of dye makes its way into/onto the leather in the first place, potentially meaning that there is far less (or none at all) 'unset' dye sitting on the leather. Certainly, after applying the resolene, any small amount of 'unset' excess dye becomes captured within the resolene as it cures. I do plenty of items using feibings black, navy blue, dark chocolate, etc, dyes, and even with the brightest of white threads never have any issues with the thread getting dirty, with the exception of when the dirtiness is caused by my own hands (i wear gloves whenever it looks like this may be the case)

Well, I just use a set of sharpened pricking irons as if they were chisels, and my stitching looks great imho you get the significant slant and the narrow opening of the irons/awl combo without having to mess around with an awl, and the benefit of needing to do nothing more than keep going in a straight line keeping the iron vertical to get perfect holes like with chisels. only works with the right set of irons ( i use wuta, would probably work even better with KS) and on thin items (I have done up to 4 layers of kangaroo, but I couldnt say exactly how thick it was. would have been between 3-4mm)

Holy crap man, 2 layers of 7-8 would like a light weight powerlifting belt. I do my belts out of one strap of ~9 ounce, and they're pretty solid belts

Nice, I just gave you a follow

Are any of their pre-cut straps thin enough to be used as a lining? you wouldnt want to end up with a 6mm thick belt...

Do you use instagram?

I might have to pick one of them up too. Do you use an awl as well? I have a set of the Wuta 3.38's and 3.85's, and they're narrow enough that I can punch all the way through up to about 3.5mm thick (after sharpening the prongs), so I never use an awl. Just wondering if that would still work if I go down to the 3.0's

Very nice. I'm currently using the same sized thread, but 3.38mm spacing. I guess i'll need to step it down a level if I want to make mine look that fine. Do you use a heated edge creaser?

Absolutely beautiful mate. Whats the stitching spacing/thread size?