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Belt Leather Cracking At Buckle Fold - How To Eliminate It?

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Right now I've been using the buckle and wet forming around the bar. I don't like making the holes before I stain though, but I will use something like Dwight says.

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On March 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Mike516 said:

Yes, veg tanned. And yes, it does help, thank you.

I have never had this problem before. Now all of a sudden I'm having issues. Another collar cracked today and it's pretty frustrating. A lot of wasted time, money, and materials.

I have never had to do any of this extra stuff before bending this leather. I'm thinking I got screwed on this hide. I really have to consider finding a new supplier and paying the extra $ for better hides. I thought I could buy cheap hides since I'm doing dog collars mostly and don't have to worry about range marks and stuff. But if this is going to be an ongoing thing, it looks like that is not the only consideration when it comes to leather quality.

I should just go back to bed at this point.

One thing you can do is to cut it off at the bend and use another piece of leather for the buckle. Glue both ends and fold it around the top and flesh side of the collar/belt stitch/rivet it into place. This way the cracked part is hidden and you have an other layer on top holding the buckle. 

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TRY this trick. If it is crap leather it will break anyway and you perhaps should not use it. Get a scrap piece and practice first this, warm up a soldering ironquite hot, and put the flesh side against the upper shank (not the tip)and pull it around for a couple of seconds.Then hold firm for a few seconds and quickly fold the leather over tight and keep held for about 10 seconds. It should now want to stay in this folded position.The flesh side will show a bit of singeing but in this position should not matter. I use heat to soften and shape with a heat gun a lot but it does take some practice. Regards Brian

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Thanks for the advice RA. It was crap leather and I have since switched to Herman Oak. I still wet form, but the leather is so much nicer, I'll never go back.

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On 3/27/2016 at 0:56 PM, Dwight said:

Tomorrow, when it is fully dry, . . . I'll take it to my electric burnisher (think 1 hp electric motor with  burnishing wooden tool on the shaft), . . . i burnish the edges, . . . put on the buckle and belt keeper with 2 chicago screws, . . . it's done.

Dwight are you really running the resolene finished edges against the burnisher?  For what purpose?  On mine all burnishing is done, then resolene or MnG, and I'm done.  Just wondering if something I may want to do also.

As for the buckle end, after I glue the liner, I wet the fold inside and out, and test fit the buckle.  Make any adjustments and then go through the remaining steps.  When applying the resolene, I gently fold over same as Dwight described.  No cracking so far with HO leather and some not so good cheapy leather.

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