Working with leather lacing - help! :)

[2canknot]

Hi all,  let me introduce myself alittle. I am retired due to movement disability and pretty much home bound. I have worked with Paracord for a few yrs making collars/leashes and halters etc.. I have gotten a bit bored with that and want to expand my work to include braided leather show leads and training leads.  I will use Kangaroo lacing with a cord for the show leads and have made one pretty much as a practice one with 3/32 size lacing.  I love working with it!  Was certainly a learning experience

Finally to my questions.  I have been told my one marker that all lacing should be beveled, well I tried and no way could I bevel the 3/32 and the picture shows the result of no beveling but did roll it.  I have since gotten 1/8 inch kangaroo and it looks like it should be beveled but I cannot manage that. So would like to get lots of advise on that or even a place I can buy it already beveled.  Next BIG issue is I suck at knots! The turkhead shown on the handle in picture is way too big and I really need a smoother transition,  help, guidence here would be awesome. 

Thank you for your help in advance.

[Stetson912]

Howdy 2canknot, welcome to the forum. Lots of knowledgeable people here. I highly recommend Bruce grants Encyclopedia of leather and rawhide braiding if you don't already have a copy. There is some information on turksheads and beveling I think. 

To touch more on beveling(as I don't know how you have attempted it so far), I recommend looking up bernie46 on YouTube. He is no longer with us sadly but his videos have a ton of knowledge and are well worth the watch. Anyway, he was an Australian whip maker (one of the best) and shows a quick but effective way to make a strand beveler out of common materials. This is the video but, I emplor you to watch his other as well. He shows how he preps his lace and such as well. If you don't wish to make a beveler you can buy one. They aren't necessarily cheap, you can look at y-knotlace.com. I also have never personally seen pre beveled lace. 

 

To touch more on turksheads, I would recommend snooping around the braiding section here. Also, there is a Facebook page/group you may consider joining called "the mighty turkshead" and that is a very good place to look (especially the files section). It's essentially a forum for just turksheads and all the wonderful interweaves and variations associated with such a wonderful knot.

Hope this helps, cheers!

[2canknot]

Tks so much for the warm welcome and the invaluable information. I will study all this now   I recognizes Bernie's hands and cell phone from other videos I have found of his!   I did not know he has passes tho, sorry about that.  

Will let you know how I progress,  lol

[Stetson912]

Very good, glad I could help. I think you're off to a good start. I've done paracord too it's a lot different than leather that's for sure, but the principal's are the same. Once you get the beveling down everything will... Dare I say "fall into place."