Leather Rings - Sewing Tips Please?

[comopasta]

Hello,

I'm trying to make rings out of leather.

As you'll find out from the pics below I'm a complete amateur, so I'll appreciate any hint to improve the end result.

The biggest problem I have is finding the right technique to put the leather sides together to make the circle.

I've been doing tests but since I'm not familiar with sewing techniques the result is far from acceptable.

Would anyone point me in the right direction regarding sewing that? Any videos, tutorials, best tools to use, type of thread, etc would be greatly appreciated.

I've been also considering glue by using a piece of fabric on the inside, so if anyone has any suggestions to get the job done I'll be happy to hear.

Thanks in advance.

Here's one of my tests.

[Halitech]

The few that I've seen have simply used the x stitch but have used the x on the outside for looks. I do like your idea of rolling the leather inside to get a smooth finish though as the ones I've seen just use a 6oz leather and cut it flat

[Sona]

Glueing some fabric wouldn´t fix anything. It would rather add a fuzzy edge on the inside to the whole Thing, but you won´t get any improvement for the construction itself.

There are two techniques, I´d try:

- preform the ring and use a "butt-stitch"

as you can see on your picture, the opens up a little bit where you joint the two edges. Thats because of the Tension of the leather, as you might have stitched it dry and with some force, right?
Ìf you preform the ring (case it - use the search engine here on that if you got questions), let it dry and cut a light angle to the ends (like five degrees) you might get a nice result using a butt-stitch

(a stitch through half of the thickness, I don´t know why, but I can´t c&p a link here... so you might wanna look it up) as it pulls thos angled Ends together to Close the gap.

Another possibility would be to bevel both Ends over a length like 10mm (one top, one bottom) and glue them together. After that I´d stitch the koint just to be safe and that´s it.

I hope you understand what I mean, as I would like to add some pictures, but I can´t (except I´d copy the link by hand... a thing I won´t do....)

[comopasta]

Halitech and Sona, thanks for the hints!

I did a search for butt-stitch and got some nice sources to learn more about it.

Note that I buy the leather completely finished and then just cut it to make the rings.

This is what I'm using for my tests:

http://www.curtidoscarrasco.com/2816-thickbox_default/perfil-de-piel-de-1-5-cm-en-beige.jpg

Sona, yeah it was stitched dry.

I can't find much about preforming in the forum, though I know what it means in principle.

I could actually make some "moulders" and place the rings (not stitched) inside so they would start taking the final shape.

But do you mean I should treat them somehow, place them inside the moulder and let them dry there? Then stitch?

Cutting at a 5 degrees angle might be challenging because the leather is quite thin, about 2 mm, but I get the point and defenitely it should help with the joint if I can get some angle there. I have to play with that.

Also the thread I've used is far to thick, I have to find something better.

Cheers and thanks again.

[DoubleC]

Look around the house....got any pill bottles? use those to mold the ring. Think outside the box. I'm looking at a lacing spool with a perfectly smooth round space inside you could form a ring in. Wrap it around the outside of a chapstick and use a piece of lace, or another piece of leather to tie it on. Mae sure it's flat and won't leave a mark on your wet leather. All three of those were just lying on the top of my desk here. A house search would turn up more I'm sure. Good Luck, Cheryl

Edited June 21, 2015 by DoubleC

[DavidL]

I would think you would want it 3-4mm shorter than a perfect circle and stitch the leather while its around a mould, making sure to have the leather stretch slightly to have a tight seam. Take a hammer and bone slicker to flatten the two ends.

The leather you are using looks fairly soft, stiff thick vegtan wont be able to stretch as much as softer leathers.. play around with the leather to see the right distance to cut.

Edited June 21, 2015 by DavidL

[biglew]

lol.... I make lots of small rings / bands I skive the ends and glue them. skive 5-8mm from each end... front on 1 end and back of the other end. then form them around a metal bar... but you can use a wooden dowel.

[DavidL]

lol.... I make lots of small rings / bands I skive the ends and glue them. skive 5-8mm from each end... front on 1 end and back of the other end. then form them around a metal bar... but you can use a wooden dowel.

that wouldn't work well with the leather he is using.

[Sona]

Skiving was the word, not beveling, right

I´d skive it, too, but I think, a butt stitch wwould be a alternative way of doing it.

For the buttstich:

To form the leather, I´d case it an wrap it around any round Thing(bar(dovel, what ever, that fits the measurements you Need. Than just wrap sth smooth around it to Keep it that way, until it´s dry (I´d leave it like a day or so). Like that you should have much less Problems with the Tension of the leather opening up at the Joint. And don´t think to much about taht "5 degrees". it´s just about "a slight angle" nothing more

If you skive it, you should have any Problems with the Tension, but - exspecially if you use predyed leather - you have to work quite exact to get a good result. When skiving I´d stitch the reing with a normal saddle-stitch. SPI 8+ just enough stitches to go over both Ends of the Joint.

@DavidL The 3-4mm: depends on the leather. If you do that I´d try it with 2-3 first, as the seam will look awfull if you cut off too much. And it depends on your stitching. If you i.e. use a butt stitch, you might just rip the thread through the leather... If you do some knife sheaths this works great, but on this Project you just got about 3, maybe 4 holes, so even if the leather holds up to the Tension, both visible edges might have an ugly gap....
Besides that, the step with boning/hammering it on a model is just right and will improve the appearance!

But why should it be hard to do a skiving Joint with his leather?

[comopasta]

Such a helpful forum!

Some comments mention the "drying" of the leather as an important phase. But in order to dry it must be wet.

Excuse my ignorance, but should I wet the leather with water, beer, wine, .. ? :-)

I'll try butt stitch and also also skiving to see what I can do "better"

I need to find some adequate tool for skiving.

Edited June 21, 2015 by comopasta

[DavidL]

sona: It would look pretty bad if you skived the ring in the original picture. The edges are turned over, when you skive it its difficult to match up the two ends creating the same round edge profile.

Regular flat edge on vegtan is much easier.

[Sona]

Quick sample illustration.

[Sona]

@DavidL:
Haha, damn it. I got to admit, that I didn´t see that in the first place. Sry for that stupid question. Of course you are right
If I had seen that before, I think I would have advised him to use some veg tan ^^.

@comopasta:
Well for casing the leather there are some threads here in the forum. I´d just use the search engine for that. And yes, it is about soaking it with water

About the rings: as I just cleaned up my work space, I just took a little time to make such a little ring with that skiving joint. It´s made quite wuick and dirty, so you can see directly where you would have to pay some attention (right at the joint positioning). Besides that: David is right, this just works that well with one piece of veg tan.
With your leather you might find something flexible but sturdy, fitting around your/the finger where you could stitch the leather around.... maybe

So here the example. And just for you to know: I normally don´t do such things (making stuff just to show how to make it). So this is kind of an exception ^^

[DavidL]

Sona: It wasn't a dumb question, I only know it works that way because I tried it before and messed up

Another thing to consider is using a divider spaced out to 2.5mm or 3mm instead of using a 4mm pricking iron (Roughly 3mm = 1.5mm away preside from the joint). On the joint, space it out 2.5mm to the left, 2.5mm to the right (using dividers) and use an awl to pierce the holes.

To me it seems like an awl hole is less likely to tear than a pricking iron mark.

[comopasta]

@Sona:

Wow! That's a great illustration how it would look with the skiving.

Yeah as DavidL mentioned the edges are a problem with the leather I have. At this point that's the leather I can get.

Thanks for the exception Sona!

@DavidL

I'll use an awl, it will be much easier to find.

[comopasta]

I was gonna post some pics of my latest test but I'm not yet happy with the results.

I didn't preform it properly and the joint is not good yet, the dowel I used was too big and the leather didn't wrap around completely.

Actually, regarding the precission of the ring measurements required it might be hard to find the right dowers.

I'm investigating if 3D printing would be an option to create custom dowels.

I need to improve the cutting of the leather as well since the only thing I have right now are scissors...

I used thinner thread which makes it nicer and learnt a bunch of things.

I must try with curved needles because it is hard to do the butt-stitch on the center part of the ring.

I hope I can post the result of my next test :-)