cowboy gear I have made this week

[steve mason]

Howdy;

here are some photos of some cowboy gear I have made this week,

a pair of flower carved bib style spur straps with 2" handmade conchos by Richard Brooks,

a set of crazy stamped spur straps,

some basket stamped bib style spur straps with handmade conchos by Richard Brooks,

a flower carved belt with a buckle set from Olsen's Silver

and a small photo album.

I have also posted all these items on my saddle blog along with a couple saddles I have finished recently,

saddle blog

Edited June 28, 2007 by steve mason

[Roger]

very nice! i have one of those geometric stamps you used on the "crazy stamped" pair of straps but have not played with it yet. i really like the texture it gives. great looking stitching also!

thanks for sharing the pics!!

[bruce johnson]

Steve,

Very nice work. As Roger said, I like that stitching also. Your tooling on the oakleaves and flowers is interesting. You have done your silverman proud.

Bruce Johnson

[Regis]

Very neat I also like the stitching

[Johanna]

Ahhh... I really like when leather looks like leather...nice work, Steve! Thanks for sharing with us!

Johanna

(off to look at Steve's saddle blog...)

[BruceGibson]

Beautiful!

[bustedlifter]

Awesome work!

[steve mason]

Thanks for the kind words, the album is only the second time I have carved an oak leaf/acorn pattern. For some reason I have always resisted carving them, they can still use some improvement. I thinks with all things leather there is a never ending evolvement of your style and methods, for the better I always hope.

I will post a photo of an album I have made a while ago also.

There have been a few comments and questions about the stitching, I will post a photo of my stitch groovers. I use old Osborne stitch groovers with the bits or races from Bob Douglas, I use two different sizes of races, one for smaller threads and one for larger. I have always felt that a narrow deep groove will look and work the best, I think that if the groove is narrow and deep the thread will be protected by the leather a little better than if it is a shallow wide groove. These items were grooved with my smaller stitch groover and sewn with a size 160 needle and 207 thread.

[mulefool]

Looks real nice. I've got a couple of Bob Douglas groovers. They're sure nice. What sewing machine do you have?

[Cowboy Crafts Online]

Steve,

Great work. I also enjoy the saddle blog. I wish I could work with you on ground seats.

Ashley

[jsutterby]

Steve,

As the others have said, your work is very nice. I was wondering if you could share the finishing technique you used on these projects? I like the color.

Thanks,

Jason

[Don101]

nice work Steve as all have said before me any chance of seeing the bilfold on the inside cheers Don

[steve mason]

Jason;

the oiling/finishing technique I use for small items like this is as follows,

1 oil with 100% neatsfoot oil

2 rub in fiebing's antique finish paste, then rub off the excess paste with sheepskin

3 use neat-lac finish (I only use neat-lac on small personal type items, I do not use it on saddles or any horse gear. Neat-lac will seal the leather completely, any gear made to go on a horse will need to be oiled in the future, therefore neat-lac will not work on those items.)

for saddles and horse gear I use 100% neatsfoot oil as always, then when the oil is evened out I put on Tan-kote.