3" leather guitar strap

My latest leather craft project is a 3" wide Black Leather Guitar strap... Easily my biggest project so far.
The strap is made from 4mm veg tanned leather from Geenhalgh Tannery in Hadden,Vic http://www.gretannery.com.au/. ( a fantastic family business that i was able to visit and hand pick 2 Veg tan sides from while on holidays ).

I used the 3" guitar templates I ordered from Black river Laser http://www.blackriverlaser.com/ in America. ( This company is recommended in http://leatherworker.net/content/ by "chief" and the templates are fantastic.).

The design I tooled onto the leather was one i found on the internet. The dye is Eco Flow Midnight Black all in one. The Tooling on the extension strap is a Tri basket weave with a sun burst boarder.

Finally the entire strap is completed with a Mexican Round Braid using Black lace from the Greenhalgh tannery. The Mexican Round Braid techniques i use were done exactly as described by Chief in his Youtube lacing tutorials. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWuX2jZ5EzU. For anyone learning how to apply this technique these videos are fantastic...you will not find better..thanks Ken.
The back of the strap is lined with black felt.

All up, including drying, the project took me about 10 hrs and I enjoyed every minute.

A special thanks goes out to Chief (Ken) and Cheryl (Double C) from Leathercrafter.net for help and advise.

Strap on my guitar

3" Guitar strap

Close up of tri basket weave & lacing

mexican round braid

Guitar Strap - My first One

Well its the school holidays, all my preparation for the next term is done and the tax man has paid me back so i've had money to spend and time to spend it.

I went to the Grenhalgh Tannery in Ballarat and bought my first pieces of Veg tanned sides. One side was 4mm thickness for use in the making of Guitar straps / belts. I also spent a small fortune on tools required for cutting, shaping, punching, stitching and dying leather.

Armed with all of these shinny new things I have made my first attempt at making a Guitar Strap from scratch.......see results below.

At work I share an office with a fantastic fellow who's passion is playing the guitar. He and I have discussed guitar straps at length and he gave me an old strap that i used as a template for this project. Therefore this first strap is for him.

I think its turned out really nicely considering its my first attempt. I will be a little more adventurous with my next strap but i was more focused on the process than the outcome this time.

Guitar strap

Guitar strap

Guitar strap

Tri Fold Wallet

Well after such a long time i had finally had a burst of creativity and decided to make a new leather project. Actually I happened to find a Tandy leather craft project that had fallen down behind my desk and i couldn't help but turn it into something :)
My fathers birthday is next month so I decided to make the project for him with a cycling theme. He rides a Carlnago bicycle which he tells me is the ferarri of the cycling world so the first carving i did was a combination of the Carlnago logo and his initials. The second carving was a stylised  bicycle....not to shabby for freehand if i do say so myself.

The dying and stitching have come of nicely....i think i've got the hang of this. My son calls it sewing...i call it stitching or lacing...far more manly IMO :)

Tri Fold Wallet

Carlnago Logo and Initials

Bicycle