D-ring and buckle made from scratch

[Mulesaw]

I originally started the broholmer collar project out here on the ship. I had some leather but I didn't have any hardware.

So I did what any other seafaring leatherworking engineer would do - I set out to make some hardware from scratch.

I found some 4 mm brass plate (5/32") and made some strips using a hacksaw. The strips were about  6.3 mm wide (1/4"). 
 

The D-ring was made by heating the brass and bending it around a pipe to give it an inner width of 1".
One of the ends were heated and bent at a right angle. A hacksaw and a bit of filing gave it a good fit, and I could gently tap it flat and silver solder the parts together.
Cleaning up with a file and sanding with some emery cloth made it look nice.

The buckle was made by starting to heat and bend the ends at a right angle. Then the middle was heated and bent over a pipe to form a round front. The two bent pieces were maneuvered to lie on top of each other to form the bar.
A hacksaw cut of the bar in the middle, and it was silver soldered together. Now it looked just like a long D-ring. 
the middle of the bar was filed round to accommodate the prong and the rest of the buckle had its sides rounded slightly to look and feel nice.
The prong was rounded and shaped roughly. The end that would go around the bar was heated and bent around a screwdriver that had a matching thickness, so the back of the prong now had a hook shape.
This was placed on the rounded piece of the bar and I used a pliers to tighten the hook shape around the bar so the it could not fall off. The end of the prong was adjusted to have a pleasing overhang and the completed buckle was cleaned up using emery cloth.

It took me about two and a half hours to complete the D-ring and the buckle, so financially it isn't questionable to make hardware like this yourself, but there a no hardware shops on the ocean, and doing a bit of metalwork helps to keep the mind and body occupied :-)

Plus I feels kind of good to make stuff from scratch every once in a while.

Brass plate.

 

Two strips sawed off.

 

Silver soldered the D-ring.

 

The body of the buckle bent over a pipe. The pieces forming the bar still needs a bit of adjustment.

 

Silver soldering the bar of the buckle.

 

Finished D-ring.

 

Finished buckle.

 

Buckle from the underside.

Edited May 6 by Northmount
typos

[chuck123wapati]

Another bucket list project for the future  That is very cool work. If you had round stock and a little better jig it would take minutes to make one

[Mulesaw]

11 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

Another bucket list project for the future  That is very cool work. If you had round stock and a little better jig it would take minutes to make one

Yes, the problem with the stock is that I only have some 3 mm brass thread (welding rod) and that looked to thin and flimsy. After all it is a fairly large dog that it should be used on.
Also I didn't want to make a jig for just a single buckle like I did for the stainless D-rings I made for the stallion halter.

I have helped a couple of our trainees making a belt buckle every now and then, and it is worth all the trouble when I see how proud they are because they have made it themselves. 
That feeling when they discover that they can actually make something like that is incredible to watch. 

I don't know how I managed to mess up my posting. I didn't think that I had attached all those production pictures in the collar post. Because I decided that they were a bit off-topic for that post. So now I look like some click hungry jerk who double post 

When my daughter sailed with us, we made a belt buckle out of a stainless steel rod that came from the large industrial mixer form the galley (like a giant kitchen-aid). She liked the idea of using a part of some old equipment and she was employed in the galley department anyway. 
It is funny but to me and probably you as well, it is just simple thrift to use something like that instead of throwing it away, but for many young people it is called upcycling 

[toxo]

 

From an ex fabricator/welder, great job, well done.

[Northmount]

19 hours ago, Mulesaw said:

I don't know how I managed to mess up my posting. I didn't think that I had attached all those production pictures in the collar post. Because I decided that they were a bit off-topic for that post. So now I look like some click hungry jerk who double post 

I think it is worth the double post.  Catches more peoples' attention.  Keep up the great work.

[Mulesaw]

20 hours ago, toxo said:

 

From an ex fabricator/welder, great job, well done.

Thanks Toxo, it is really appreciated 

Brgds Jonas

[Mulesaw]

1 hour ago, Northmount said:

I think it is worth the double post.  Catches more peoples' attention.  Keep up the great work.

Thanks Northmount, I'm glad you like the results :-)

At first I had chosen a bunch of files related to the build, but then I decided that I would split the project into the actual leatherwork and then the fabrication, so I only pressed the + on the leather pictures (I think they say "insert into post". 
And then I pressed submit post or whatever the button is called. I am 90% sure that was how I did it, so without looking much into it I started the post on the hardware 

Brgds Jonas