Help With Back And Wrinkles

[barefooter]

Help! I just made my first guitar strap. It's for my nephew. He's only 3 so it's small but its pretty nice and the tooling i liked alot but.....

What I did - cut stamped dyed with tandy Eco pro and used Aussie conditioner to seal and finish it.

Here's what it looked like... But then I started to "bend it" a little to "loosen or soften" it and it gave me wrinkles

HELP!!!!! I don't like this is it normal? On the part that is part of the buckle strap is thinner and when I bent that it didn't do this.... That's question one.

Question two. What do I do to the back to make it smoother? I just used veg tan from tandy and dyed it. It is kind of rough and I kinda have the same problem on some of my belts. Any ideas?

[Dangerous Beans]

Looks like you've spent a lot of effort working a cheap and poorly tanned bit of leather.

All leather creases when bent but not usually to that degree.

It looks very loose and as a result the surface has buckled, you can iron loose leather but this may now distort the work you've done on it.

Cheap leather isn't cheap at all, I have never used Tandy veg tan, but a quick search on here will let you know it's not popular.

Where are you? If in the UK, get a decent bit from Abbey England or if in the states, speak with some of the resident toolers on here to see where they buy a good firm bit of shoulder.

Not much help I know, but I don't imagine there's much that can be done with that strap now.

Nige

[silverwingit]

I have been bitten thusly and Nige, it was with some expensive American Wicket & Craig English bridle leather. After recovering from my initial shock, I was able to convince myself that the wrinkled finish looked kinda cool. I'd work on that mental approach and act as if it was on purpose. As to the poor appearance of the flesh side, that is from the poor quality of the Tandy leather you used. If you used a belly cut, all bets are off with the flesh side finish, regardless of the tanner. You must use a quality cut from a quality tanner if you expect to have any decent appearance on the flesh side without some work. Even then you might need to try applying a sealer like Tan Kote, Bag Kote or Gum Tragacanth and then buffing it with a bone folder or coarse cloth. With a poor quality cut of leather, you can try using a fairly coarse sand paper, travelling only "with the grain," coupled with a sealer and buffing, but don't expect much. Bottom line, if you really care about the appearance of the flesh side of the leather where it might be seen, you should line it with one of many options in lining leather.