Machine stitch belt keeper

[matcanada]

Hello,

I have been making belts for a while and I have been struggling to machine stitch the keepers. I see some people using staples to avoid having to sew the keepers, but I would prefer to sew them using my machines. Does anyone sew their belt keepers with a sewing machine, if so, how do you do it?

Thanks in advance.

[tsunkasapa]

No, I sew them by hand.

[Nikos69]

With a straight stitch, the allowance won’t let you to flatten out the leather. Only way I can think is with a zig-zag stitch or a furrier machine that will stitch a loop over the top so the leather so it will flatten out. 
 

A 1 inch non stretch ribbon (or canvas material) can also be placed as a short liner and sewn at each end of the loop to keep it in place. 

[BianVariani]

5 hours ago, matcanada said:

I used to also have the same problem and then I designed a manual press and system to punch holes into the keepers or the leather belts. Here is an example of the tools I use the the quality of the stitches.

 

 

5 hours ago, matcanada said:

 

 

Hello,

I have been making belts for a while and I have been struggling to machine stitch the keepers. I see some people using staples to avoid having to sew the keepers, but I would prefer to sew them using my machines. Does anyone sew their belt keepers with a sewing machine, if so, how do you do it?

Thanks in advance.

[Handstitched]

For the plain ' bread & butter belts' in quantities , I staple them. For the more fancy  ex$y belts , I sew them by hand. Most of my belts have interchangeable  buckles . 

HS

[TomE]

You could machine stitch the belt and finish the keeper end by hand, leaving long tails of thread to incorporate a fixed loop/keeper next to the buckle.  I do this on some halter parts where the hardware creates a bulge that my machine won't climb.  If you'd rather have a sliding loop/keeper that is secured with Chicago screws here is a video showing the traditional way to make sliding loops using a single needle backstitch.

 

[Bert03241]

@Handstitched How long do you make your thread when starting to sew a belt. I mean you can't make it in one thread length can you and how do you hide were you start and go from?

[BianVariani]

That depends on the type of stitching you do.  For my belt above in RED I used 5 times the length of the entire belt.

[Handstitched]

7 hours ago, Bert03241 said:

How long do you make your thread when starting to sew a belt.

G'Day,

My response is in regards to sewing belt keepers, but in regards to sewing belts,  I use the ' Al Stohlman ' method ' The span of my arms , as noted in Al Stohlmans'  ' The Art Of Hand Sewing  Leather ' *. To have too much thread, it gets tangled up a bit when sewing. I can be a bit clumsy at times  . 

Depending on the length of the belt,  they take around  2 - 2 1/2  spans  of my arms  . 

 

*Should also be, ' The Joy Of Hand Sewing Leather ' IMO, hand stitching can be therapeutic, ...except the sore hands lol     

HS

[tsunkasapa]

4 hours ago, Handstitched said:

G'Day,

My response is in regards to sewing belt keepers, but in regards to sewing belts,  I use the ' Al Stohlman ' method ' The span of my arms , as noted in Al Stohlmans'  ' The Art Of Hand Sewing  Leather ' *. To have too much thread, it gets tangled up a bit when sewing. I can be a bit clumsy at times  . 

Depending on the length of the belt,  they take around  2 - 2 1/2  spans  of my arms  . 

 

*Should also be, ' The Joy Of Hand Sewing Leather ' IMO, hand stitching can be therapeutic, ...except the sore hands lol     

HS

[Outfitr]

I know you said you wanted to sew them but a real time saver for something that is completely hidden are the little staples that Tandy sells. No skiving either just butt the leather together and staple. They're tough little staples and I use two, can't imagine they'd ever fail. I poke holes for them first with my stitching awl which matches the staples perfectly.

[Matt S]

I used to hand stitch keeper loops, then had clicker dies made up to rivet them. That was faster but found them too fiddly, bulky and small variations in the leather resulted in significant variation in the fit of the loops. Machine stitching is possible with the correct combination of loop that's long and flexible enough to pull to to the side for stitching and a machine with enough access to sew just the bit of loop you want. A holster/stirrup plate and/or a cylinder arm machine which stitches close to the edge of the cylinder. After getting some advice on this forum I started using loop staples and haven't looked back since.