First a premium piece of tooling cowhide must be chosen. 5 - 6 oz leather thickness works well for guitar straps to give it the strength but also enough suppleness. Choose leather that has been properly prepared on the underneath side from the tannery so there will be no fuzzy pieces of leather coming off on your clothes when you are wearing the guitar strap.
Draw your guitar strap shape on Bristol board first. Trace the pattern onto the leather and cut the leather with a utility knife or strap cutter. After the leather guitar strap has been cut, dampen it with water on the top surface only. A firm solid flat surface to work on such as a piece of marble or granite should be used. When stamping the guitar straps, you need a firm and solid surface so the stamp tool will not bounce when you hit it with the rawhide mallet. As you stamp the design down the guitar strap, the water will start to dry out so you will have to dampen it again with a wet sponge. If you want to stamp in a name, now is the time to do that as well. This is a labor-intensive process since not only each stamp has to be lined up neatly but also each stamp has to be hit with the same hardness so the design will all be the same depth.
After the water has dried from the leather, you are ready to dye the top surface of the leather. Professional oil dye by the Fiebing Company should be used for coloring the guitar straps. The oil dye penetrates deeply into the leather while allowing the natural grains of the leather to be seen. Although it is more expensive, you may choose to use it so you will not have to worry about rub off like some poorer quality leather dyes.
You should use a folded piece of flannel cloth nailed to a wooden block. The cloth makes a nice applicator to rub the dye into the leather. The wooden block allows you to hold the applicator easily. Protective gloves should be worn so you won't have to have your hands dyed for weeks. The dye is then rubbed on the guitar strap being very careful not to get it into the stamped design. This is a tedious time consuming process. Many applications are applied to get an even coverage and the desired darkness you want.
Once the dye has dried, you can make a boarder design along the guitar strap with a groove tool. This tool is also used for making stitch grooves for doing sewing for other leather craft projects. There is a small setscrew that allows you to adjust how far from the edge you want the groove to be.
Rather than have a square edge, you round the edge of the guitar strap with a beveller for a more finished look. There are different size bevellers for taking off a little from the edge to a lot. You should even bevel the underneath side for a more comfortable feel on the shoulder. Although you bevel both the top and bottom side of our guitar straps, the bottom is a lot harder to do. Now that all the design work is in the leather, you then dip the guitar strap into a vat of neatsfoot oil compound to keep the leather from drying out and to give it some more suppleness. After the neatsfoot oil is absorbed over a few hours, you then touch it up a bit more with some neatsfoot oil on a brush to even out the color since the neatsfoot oil darkens the leather.
The edges of the guitar straps are dyed with a different dye than the surface. You should use Fiebing's acrylic dye because it holds down all the edge fibers of the leather. Since it is a hard finish, you burnish the edges when dry with beeswax using a denim applicator. Now the surface is ready to have a couple coats of polish, letting each coat thoroughly dry before the next is applied. There are many polishes for leather that will work well. Fiebing's resolene is a good polish since it helps seal the dyes as well as giving a brilliant quality finish to the leather.
You then punch the slots for adjustment and the round holes for the guitar knobs using a heavy rawhide mallet and an Osborne punch. So you will not get bounce when you punch the holes, you should use a solid wooden tree stump or equivalent as a workbench.
Now the guitar strap is finished and ready to be worn by a musician. This quality personalized leather guitar strap will last for many years and will become suppler with wear.
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Jamie Hartling has been crafting personalized leather guitar straps for Leathersmith Designs Inc. since 1975. He has had training on how to do leather craft throughout Canada and United States in such cities as New York, Montreal, Toronto and Dartmouth. Over the years he has been a juried member of such organizations such as the Nova Scotia Designer Crafts Council, New Brunswick Craft Council, Prince Edward Island Craft Council and Dartmouth Handcrafter’s Guild. For more information on guitar straps visit our web page www.leathersmithdesigns.com/custom-leather-guitar-straps.htm
