Watch Strap Prototype

[cjmt]

Thank you. The brown strap is Sedgwick bridle leather and the lighter strap is Gold Barenia

Charlie

[Eemo]

A couple of questions. Using the watch strap, do you do any measures to prevent the buckle holes from stretching too much?

I find that some of my straps, after a year of use, become too loose to wear.

Another, what is your preferences for the lining?

thanks!

bonus pics of some of my straps.

[cjmt]

I've never found stretching of the holes or strap to be a problem. Maybe the leather your using is too thin or soft?

For lining on the whole we use un-dyed veg tan. It looks nice and feels comfortable to the touch

[izmarkie]

Beautiful work. Nice straps from all in this thread.

I'm getting the stitching, construction, and edges down on my watch straps, but one thing I'm really struggling with is cutting tapered straps. Charlie, how are you cutting your tapers?

I have done better by cutting slightly wide, gluing, then cutting to an outline or template once folded. Even this hasn't been totally consistent for me. I have seen videos of people cutting exotic leather tops and other linings separately with scissors but I can't imagine doing that myself without the edges being totally off.

I actually drew up what I wanted in CAD and printed to card stock for 18 mm lugs and 16 mm buckle. On softer stuff like suede it's hard to keep the template in place and keep the leather from moving enough to cut accurately. Sometimes I cut along a template and I find that I had the knife at a slight angle in spots while I'm trying to follow the curve instead of running the knife along a straight edge. I also contemplated getting my CAD templates for a few sizes made on a CNC machine so I have a metal template to hold down tight and run my knife along the edge.

Do I just need to work on steadying my hand, or is there a better way of cutting even tapers?

Thanks,

Alex

[Eemo]

hey alex,

I do a drawing with a mm paper:

and make the core piece/padding out of that one. then gluing, cutting etc the top leather plus the lining is pretty easy.

[tossik]

Couple of recent photos as nothing new has been posted for a while!

Charlie

Beautiful,

What thread size is that? I am planning on getting #10 Blanchard, and want to get best matching thread for it.

[cjmt]

Thanks Tossik. We tend to use 632

Regarding cutting the taper, a sharp knife, a pattern and practice is the best way. A steady hand comes through skill withy the tools, which comes with time (years not days) at the bench, imho at least

Charlie

[Eemo]

I got a question, anyone ever made a curved end strap?

[cjmt]

I got a question, anyone ever made a curved end strap?

Just using curved Spring bars will go along way towards getting a curved ended strap

[izmarkie]

I'm finding that a light touch and multiple passes with the knife really helps.

Also, I drew up a tapered strap template in CAD, and cardstock didn't cut it. Just got these from front panel express.