Rodeo Chaps

[Dink]

some recent rodeo chaps, two adult and one youth. comment or criticism welcome.

[Kani]

Very nice work dink. Looking good.

[Dink]

Sorry

A second post, could only get two pictures per post? but still please feel free to comment or critisize

[Jordan]

That is a great design, cool crosses and fringe.

[mudman]

Very Nice!!

[Ian]

I have a question:

When you do appliques like the scrolls on the bottom, do you use an adhesive to hold them in place while you sew? If so, what do you use?

Ian

[Dink]

Yes I glue them before stitching. I use either Barge Cement or Masters leather cement. I prefer the masters only because it sets-up faster

I have a question:

When you do appliques like the scrolls on the bottom, do you use an adhesive to hold them in place while you sew? If so, what do you use?

Ian

[Elton Joorisity]

I see someone is TOUGH ENOUGH TO WEAR PINK!! Look purty shiney Dink.

[gtwister09]

Dink,

Elton's comment on "TOUGH ENOUGH TO WEAR PINK" made me chuckle.

Overall these are nice designs and a couple of nice variations on your yoke designs in breaking them up into panels . I like the tri-panel designs on the yokes. I also like the clicked cross panels for the bleed knots. I've seen those before and you have made a good pair of theme chaps with them.

The majority of the stitching looks great. Double stitching even around the areas that aren't filigreed or overlaid is a nice touch. It appears as though the back portion of the belt was lined. The pink one definitely looked like that, Is that correct? I liked the contrasting stripes on the back belts as well......nice.

You are definitely doing some good work on these. Here's a couple of suggesions for possible consideration.

Some of these suggestions are rather slight. On the cross chaps it appears as though the sweep for the crotch is squared off but that may be the picture itself.

Symmetry

I fret greatly over overlays when they are used on chaps, boots or anything else. Most likely I go overboard on the details of these overlays. When you look for symmetrical lines and offsets you see that some of the inside curves on the overlays are not free flowing. Some of them are abrupt in that you notice a transition (a small straight portion). French curves are the best examples that I can think of for free flowing curves and scrollwork. A couple of places the 2nd overlay isn't a perfect offset of the bottom overlay curve.

The overlay of the cross at the bottom appears to be slightly lop-sided.

Strap Work

The one thing that struck me was the strap work. The edges need to be finished and dyed. I couldn't tell if you were using an oval punch for the buckle holes but that would also be nice. The billet tips could benefit from the use of a punch to standardize them and also so that you could quickly make them. It appears as though you were going for something near an English point. Using a single edge creaser could further refine the strap work. My personal preference on rivets is not to use the "star" rivets. They always appear to be less finished or lower quality. A rivet that appears finished on both sides would be a better choice in my opinion. For the same reason that saddlemakers fret over polishing and doming copper rivets. That last little attention to detail goes a long ways in the perception of quality of the product.

I really like the rounded bottom corners for chaps especially when you use fringe and overlays because the transition of the side to bottom fringe is more gradually and less abrupt than the square bottoms.....just my personal preference.

Keep up the good work.

Regards,

Ben

[Gremlin]

Those are beautiful sets. My wife loves the pink and my fav is the brown set in the same post. Thanks for showing these.