Bullet Proof Straps - Latigo Or Harness And Best Way To Splice.

[BDAZ]

I have a pending omission to make an item with long leather straps that will have constant water exposure. I am assuming latigo would be the weapon of choice? Some of the straps will be 20'+ and subject to constant stress. I intend to glue and stitch without and significant skyving for strength.

Any suggestions, comments or criticisms would be extremely useful. Failure of these straps is not an option.

Thanks!

Bob

[blue duck]

There are too many experts here for me to offer any advice about the leather. But a question for you, does it need to be 100% leather? How about laminating a high tinsel strength webbing inside? As you say failure is not an option, do you have time to put something together and put it though a stress/water test? Good luck with this one.

[TomG]

Depends on the level of "constant stress". We have a customer that insisted on tying her 6 foot Latigo leash to a fence post and hooking her 150 pound Rottweiler to it while she did training on her other dogs. The dog would get excited and lunge against the leash to go play too. She was constantly snapping the leashes.

I have spliced Latigo with a fairly long lap skive, and then 1 or 2 lines of stitching in line with and over the splice.Depends on the width.

A second method that I have been told about but never tired, is to take a side, round the ends a bit and cut a continuous strap around the outside. Like cutting lace, except you cut the outside instead of the inside. I've been told you can do 30, 40 or 50 foot leads doing this.

Good luck

[BDAZ]

Interesting idea about cutting a "circular" strap to get a maximum length. These are utility straps to be used in an expedition, so other than some minor skyving at the edges of the koint no need to make it pretty. Will Barge hold on heavily piled leathers? I use veg tanned tooling exclusively at the moment.

A 9 oz latigo will have sufficient strength, so no lamination necessary but it's the joins that concern me.

Thanks!

Bob

[TomG]

I have not used Barge, but as long as it's the "original" most people here swear by it. I'll probably try it once I run out of the bottle of cement I have now.

Like I said, I skive the ends, use contact cement to join them and run 1 to 2 lines of stitching lengthwise from just above to just below the joint.

[BDAZ]

I am afraid skyving the full joint would be a point of weakness.

Cya!

Bob

[Sovran81]

The problem with circular cuts is that the belly is weak and stretchy. It would end up with all the stress on the stitches on that section and probably start popping them. Then the strap would get narrower when it started stretching. I wont even guess at how to stretch the wrinkle out of the corner on thick latigo. Even thin roo can pose problems stretching the wrinkle out if the strap gets very wide.

Have you thought about Biothane?

Edited April 1, 2014 by Sovran81

[TomG]

Sovran - I can see that. Like I said, I haven't done it, but I know of at least one guy who does this on a regular basis to make long leads for police dog training.

He showed me a picture at one time and if remember correctly, he had just made a "squarish" oval and eliminated most of that belly section.

The way he cut it, there were no joints and no stitches, just a single very long strap. I'm sure though, that there would be different strengths and stretch factor along the length. But how much? who knows.

But, I could be wrong. Won't be the first time <g>

[BDAZ]

These straps must be leather with no rivets.

Thanks!

Bob

[jcuk]

Just a thought, have you considered chrome tanned leather over here in the UK, a lot of turn out rug straps

and tack that gets a lot of neglect tends to be made from chrome tanned leather.

all the best John

Edited April 4, 2014 by jcuk

[BDAZ]

How does the chrome tanned do in water? These traps will be used in mostly fresh and possibly brackish water.

From my research it does seem that Latigo will accept gluing if both surfaces are roughed up a bit.

Cya!

Bob

Edited April 4, 2014 by BDAZ

[johnv474]

Can the straps be shorter, connected by hardware? Three or four 6' belts with buckles would be stronger than a glued, skived joint in my estimation. They would also be multi-purpose if there were holes to adjust lengths.

Must the straps be a uniform thickness? If not, a splice made by weaving could work. Imagine three roles of 1/8" holes, parallel to the strap length, with 3/16" leather lacing criss-crossing and being braided in and out, extending an inchbor two past the joint. Aesthetically, maybe not beautiful but in conjunctin with or in addition to stitching, the joint may no longer be much of a weak point.

Lastly, how about using a slice of rawhide? Skive joints--the longer the better, cut rawhide to fit skived section, drill/poke 3-4 rows of holes parallel to strap length, going beyond skived section about 1-2", then cement all three layers together and stitch. If the rawhide holes are a bit oversized, the cement will bond with itself as well.

However you cut it, as described the straps would all have one point of failure. A second layer would allow you to stagger joints and give a backup in case of failure. Any piece of leather can have a weak spot. The nylon webbing as backing or a central layer would be a good idea to resist stretch.

Of course, the typical guidance about cutting strap from the near the animal's spine and parallel to it, applies. Making the straps as wide as possible will help, too. 2" straps would be about 33% stronger than 1.5" straps, for example.

For water-reistance, an oiled leather may be in order. A couple light treatments with oil and a few light treatments with Dr. Huberd's Boot Grease will have water beading up like it had Rain-X on it. Huberd's is mostly beeswax and pine tar pitch.

Maybe some of those give you some ideas.

Edited April 13, 2014 by johnv474

[BDAZ]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I have subsequently received a sample and they require straps that are 9 feet in length tapering from 3/4" to 1/4" near the end, There cannot be an apparent splice so a scarf will be required. I believe I may be able to get away with double thickness for the splice if there's a smooth transition have done a few splice samples and they seem to hold up though who knows when they are used in the field.

I will use latigo but have not yet received the order so it may all be moot.

Cya!

Bob

Edited April 13, 2014 by BDAZ

[WyomingSlick]

Cliff Ketchum who made leather items for stuntmen in Hollywood would use fiberglass strapping tape between 2 stitched layers of leather to significantly strengthen them. You could perhaps just use that method to strengthen long scarf joinings. The resulting spliced section should be stronger than the rest of the strap.

See, no hard feelings !

[BDAZ]

Thanks! Great idea! I'll do some testing this week. No hard feeling either!

Cya!

Bob