Stingray Leather Inlay Guitar Strap

[RidgebackCustoms]

Latest guitar strap done!

I wanted to do a tooled portrait, but my skills aren't quite there yet.  I think the faces turned out well, but didn't bear enough of a likeness to Chester.

The guitar strap is tooled leather, Fiebing's black pro-dye for the background.  I used dark brown antique for the hands and a matte resist.  Although to be honest I don't see much of a difference between the matte and the high sheen after a few days, comparing it to other straps I've done.

The inlay is sanded stingray.  The leather is 6-7 oz, so to get the cutouts to sit lower I hand skived the back to reduce thickness along the stitch line.  Lisa Sorell's book The Art of Leather Inlay and Overlay was a great teacher for that technique.

As an aside, I'm trying to get my hobby to pay for itself, but having trouble finding a place to sell my work at cost that doesn't cost me money to post and sell.  I feel like posting to facebook / instagram only gets me in front of the same 30 people and the support I get there is great, but they're not customers.  I don't want to pay for advertising since I'm practically giving my work away anyway.  I'm at a loss.

As always compliments and criticisms are welcome.  And criticisms are more important for improvement.

Thank you!

-Ben

[rleather]

Absolutely beautiful work. Inlays still intimidate me .I quess it's time to get Lisa's book. Keep up the great work and be sure to post pics, love it!

[BigBore]

Very nice!  

[RidgebackCustoms]

22 hours ago, rleather said:

Absolutely beautiful work. Inlays still intimidate me .I quess it's time to get Lisa's book. Keep up the great work and be sure to post pics, love it!

 

20 hours ago, BigBore said:

Very nice!  

Thank you!