belt Belt extension

[RezzieMia]

Hello all,

I have a customer that dropped a belt off for me to extend 6-8". The question is, he doesn't want it to bulky. Is it best to do a straight cut and skive the ends of the belt and extension pieces to glue together? The belt is pretty plain and has no stitching or tooling.

Also, is there a good method to try and match the dye? The belt is old and has some scuffs and scrapes on it. (He doesn't mind that it'll have a new piece inserted, I just want it to match dye)

Thank you,

Aspen.

Whispering Sage Leather

[fredk]

I would, and have, extended a belt by cutting back the hole end to leave about 3 holes. Skive the belt and the new piece. Glue to each other and use the holes for ready rivets [which I used] or for Chicago screws, on the other end of the belt, the same distance from the buckle as the new join would lie I put in three matching rivets; to make a feature rather than a visible 'repair'. I did the joining end of the new piece in a blunted V and it was fitted about 1 inch beyond the last [or first] hole in the old belt

2. scrub the old leather with dye prep and or cellulose thinners. Apply dye to the new piece to start bringing it up to the look of the washed belt, then start to dye both together. This should get the new piece looking close to the old belt

[chrisash]

Just tell the truth, it will never look very nice and for the labour costs he could have 90% of a new belt made of better leather, some things are just not economical to do

[fredk]

aye, it may cost less to make a complete new belt but there are times that, for whatever reason, we will pay more for something to be refurbished or rebuilt

[Dwight]

Some time back, I had to make a double layer belt but for the outside layer, . . . I had to splice it (he was a BIG guy).

Over the splice . . . I put a thin piece (3 oz??) and stamped his name in it.  

He was totally thrilled, . . . never guessed the reason for the "patch".

You could do something similar, . . . a 6 inch long "patch" on the outside of a 3 inch extension piece.   I did my splice dead in the middle of the back so his name is visible as he walks away.

May God bless,

Dwight

Edited August 22, 2019 by Dwight

[zuludog]

I'm with CHRISASH on this one. By the time you've messed about cutting, skiving, sewing, dyeing and all the rest of it you might just as well make a new belt. Plus a modified belt would probably not be as neat or as good as a new one

However if you still want to lengthen it here's my suggestion, though I haven't done this myself -

Unpick the stitching to remove the buckle. Cut off that end of the belt including the slot, then -

EITHER  Add  a new piece of leather to lengthen the belt as required, and fit the buckle to that new end.  Use the existing stitching holes to sew on the new piece, and skive then both to produce a flat join. Fit the buckle as usual

OR   Cut the buckle & slot off as above. Then get a new piece of leather to be sewn on the front of the existing belt to extend it; make the slot, fit the buckle, and fold it back to the back of the belt. Skive & sew the three thicknesses of leather at the old stitching holes - new at front, old in middle, new at back

Clean the leather & dye it all; a darker dye will produce a more even result

When it's being worn most of this patching will be hidden by the tail of the existing belt

Like I said, unless your friend/customer insists, I reckon it would be easier and better to make a new belt. But you could re-use the existing buckle, and perhaps use a the old belt to make a couple of keepers, as a token geature

Incidentally, I have recently subscribed to Nigel Armitage's Vimeo Channel; it's excellent, and only about the price of a pint per month. There are about 50+ videos, including a complete series on making a belt, with more to come

[TomG]

5 hours ago, Dwight said:

Some time back, I had to make a double layer belt but for the outside layer, . . . I had to splice it (he was a BIG guy).

Over the splice . . . I put a thin piece (3 oz??) and stamped his name in it.  

He was totally thrilled, . . . never guessed the reason for the "patch".

You could do something similar, . . . a 6 inch long "patch" on the outside of a 3 inch extension piece.   I did my splice dead in the middle of the back so his name is visible as he walks away.

May God bless,

Dwight

When you skive and glue together, do you sew the join as well?

I've done this to make longer dog leashes and always have to sew a couple of lines at the edges

Not sure if I'd have to for belts though

[chrisash]

Put it another way

You do the job and get your labour rate

He gets a repaired belt and tells his friends you do repair work, They look at the repair and think its not very good so downgrade what they think of your quality and don't buy from you  and tell their friends the same (nobody ever mentions you did it as a favor knowing it would not be perfect),

Or they dig into their pile of rubbish in the garage and dig out a load of old tack for you to repair

You end up not working on things that make a nice profit that you enjoy and don't charge the full amount as it seems to much for repair work

 

[Dwight]

8 hours ago, TomG said:

When you skive and glue together, do you sew the join as well?

I've done this to make longer dog leashes and always have to sew a couple of lines at the edges

Not sure if I'd have to for belts though

This is a rough drawing of what I did.  

The bottom layer is the inside layer of the belt, . . . the middle layer as you can see is butt joined in the center, . . . and the patch with the name is what covered up the obvious butt joints.

I did this only because I did not have a long enough piece of leather for his belt on the finish side.  I would use this same process to extend a belt, . . . cutting the top layer, . . . then the bottom layer maybe an inch apart, . . . and staggering pieces between them to lengthen the belt, . . . and cover it all with a top patch.

The belt was of course sewn from end to end as I do all my double layer belts, . . . the patch was sewn around the inside of the patch, . . . 

He loved it.  I see him occasionally, . . . and he still wears it.

May God bless,

Dwight

 

Edited August 22, 2019 by Dwight

[fredk]

8 hours ago, chrisash said:

. . .

He gets a repaired belt and tells his friends you do repair work, They look at the repair and think its not very good so downgrade what they think of your quality and don't buy from you  and tell their friends the same (nobody ever mentions you did it as a favor knowing it would not be perfect),

Or they dig into their pile of rubbish in the garage and dig out a load of old tack for you to repair

thats one negative look at it. . . . however, in my experience, there are not enough leather workers, or just workers who are willing to do repairs.

When I was involved in Historical Presentation I did a lot of repairs on kit. Even though I "don't do"  shoes or horse tack re-enactor types from all over the island of Ireland would search me out to get repairs done to everything including shoes and some horse tack. Prior to me taking on repairs there was no-one willing to do it so expensive kit was trashed just because some stitching had ripped out/worn away. I charged by the hour rate plus materials. The folk were happy. I once sat at a show and did some repairs on a pair of riding boots. About 1.5 hours work, charge was about £20, guy was happy cos a new pair of boots would have been about £250 and until I did the repair the boots were unwearable. The chap said that no-one in Ireland or the UK would even consider the repair and some even told him the boots weren't repairable'

Another; a woman picked up a nice handbag at a car-boot sale. She said it cost about £2 - because a lot of the stitching was parting. She asked me to fix it. I told her my rates. It cost her about £45 in my fees, but she was happy as that bag was a 'named' one worth about £500 in decent nick.

I'll stop with examples

Point is, I believe doing repairs, good repairs is part of our craft. It should be a skill to offer to customers