TVvoodoo's Straplab

TVvoodoo

TVvoodoo

Ambassador of The Comfortably Slung
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Hey my all you super-toned TTF friends out there... I spy a workshop thread, and cannot resist. To me, it's the ultimate form of entertainment. In shop threads we get to enjoy all the trials, the small victories & baby steps forward, plus the "dropped-my-newly-painted-body-'cause-I-couldn't-stop-fondling-it" heartbreak / disasters, all that really fun stuff. I figure we've all seen pickup swaps, fret levels, and nut carving, probably numerous times. Hope to bring some new stuff, in particular strapcraft. My other shop forum thread suddenly phasered to death also featured creative emergency mixology, too many workshop injury gross-outs, BBQ fun, dark sandwitchery, and terrifying parasitic insects. I just want y'all to be entertained.

I hope the admin, and the community don't mind if I restart here - I like the environment, and I promise it'll be fun. I expect there will be some amp and guitar projects along the way too, gotta mix it up a bit keep things fresh. Maybe some home projects too. - Hal Fass renovations

Above all I want folks to not think it's off limits to post your thoughts, become part of the fun. Here we value participation, brutal truth-telling, and devastatingly cruel insults cleverly disguised as accolades. Keeps me real.
 
First post is not too exciting, unfortunately, but I want to show everything. Kind of a maintenance day in the lab. Over a number of years of becoming a strappier, I have developed a few of my own strap styles which utilize the same basic black leather tail strap. This, because one of the most tedious parts of strapmaking (to me) is making those darn tail straps. They just aren't fun! And they really slow down creative momentum. Having a bunch pre-made and 80% ready, keeps my little shop moving and I can stay in the zone. Plus when you use leather dye, you want it to sit for a good while, so that dye can settle in real good, before sending the straps away.

So, every once in awhile I need to replenish my tail stock - normally make a dozen or so at a time, and when I do it this way there is no sacrifice in quality. Today was that day.
You know, we as guitar players hardly think about the tail strap. Most of our focus ends up on the nose, or front of the strap for some reason. To me as a strap fella, this makes tail straps even more important they are made as fail-safe and futz-free as possible. I don't want you to have to think about it much either :)

I use vegetable-tanned saddle skirting cowhide specifically for these and dye it black, 'cause it's the most economical way to do it. A few hundred bucks for a hide, I can normally get four, maybe five dozen tail straps, out of it, and can use some scrap bits for nosepieces often too. This skirting is real good and very strong, heavy-duty leather. First before cutting my tails out, I dye it black twice on the skin side with Fiebings Pro, alcohol based dye, a brew I get by the liter - use a lot of it, and it can get messy. One time I even spilled about a quarter of a bottle on my work table. ugh!

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Anyway, 12/13 oz. weight leather on the top above, is about 5mm thick, closing in on a 1/4". That's too thick for easily going on a normal strap button, so once I have my tails cut out, I gotta to do some "skivving". This is the function of thinning it down so it's more useable. There are power skivving tools (never tried), and dedicated hand tools also, which I've tried but the few I have purchased kind of suck.

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Being a make-do kind of fella, I have developed a decent workaround using a carpenters hand plane. Clamp one end to the table, and have at the last few inches of the strap to bring it down. It's manual work, and needs a little muscle. But about ten or twelve good strokes gets 'er done. I only do this with the last few inches of the strap.

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It's not really an exact science, but I have a feel for when it's right. In this case I'm trying to take about a third off, resulting in a leather end a bit thicker than you many of you are are used to for nose and tail bits. It's a bit stiff too, though it softens up a bit with some use. Most find they don't need beer gaskets with these. They are not going to pop off the pin when you bend over to tweak a pedal. I do pre-work them in before sending so they go on a strap button (have a few screwed right into the edge of my bench) without you sweating and straining your delicate little fingers too much. But remember this: the easier a strap goes on, the easier it can fall off!

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After I get them shaved down, I dye the sides and the back. Gotta get rid of that pinky skin colour. It's a bit creepy to me.

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I don't put a whole lot of dye on the inside of the tail straps. Just enough to turn it black, and over the course of a week it will fade to dark grey.
I use a sheepskin pad, it's just the best stuff for working with dye. I keep one dedicated for black. At this time i also go over the front/skin part of
these a third time to make sure they are none more black.

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To finish these, once the dye sets in for a few days I will run over them with some neatsfoot oil, and let that get the cells good, then finish with a mink oil boot conditioner to lock everything in. When I add these to a finished strap I also burnish the sides to seal all the natural oils in, and give them a nice finished feel. I'm not the best at burnishing, that is almost a whole art in itself, but I am getting better at it. It's a lot of hand-rubbing. Gives a guy stamina LOL!

These tail straps are stiff, but they do soften pretty nicely with time. No worries about strength. I would hang off a cliff on any of them and I weigh about 195.
This is probably even good enough for your average Norlin era LP custom! :ROFLMAO:

Last thing I do is punch the loop slot, which is 1-1/4 wide, and handles the just slightly less wide strap nicely. My oblong punch gets lot of use. Had to have it welded together twice. I sharpen it maybe four times a year, and it's not that easy to sharpen! With slots in these tails, I can hang them up to dry, and they are off my bench (which as you can see already has too much stuff on it).

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OK with these tails straps done, I can move on to other things. Now on the bench sits a concept "Xonoth", the next Well-hung "No Prisoners" series strap.
Hope you enjoyed this.... more to come...

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Sp8ctre said:
The Mushroom was a dead giveaway...
Click to expand...
That's a decent pic you posted @Sp8ctre . It's real hard to find good pics of this strap to base replicas on. Last I heard it was on display at HRC Melbourne.
Seen other replicas of this strap but nobody seems to get it exactly right (me included). Takes me about 22 hours to make one, but my version is a bit wider and has padding, lining and stitching. The original is just 1 layer of leather.

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We last left off with a concept pic of Xonoth. No it'\s not named after some anti-depressant med. It's a name created by Orc Name Generator

The "No Prisoners" series I make are typically evocative of Barbarian/Mongol horde type themes, utilizing "aggressive" old belts I find usually by scouring thrift shops.
I marry them to good leather in various ways with the end-goal of making a one-of-a-kind practical, comfortable and badass-looking guitar strap.

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So, we decided brown on black here, first thing I have to do is create the base... this requires about a 4.5" wide strip of 2 oz black leather, with a special kind of padding I already put down inside.
Notice it's got a bit of a curve to it. Supposedly when you own one with a bit of a curve in it, it can often make for added pleasure. ;) Sorry. Couldn't resist. This is just before I fold/roll the edges over to make the base black strap at approx 3" wide - I normally make most of my straps at 3" or 2.5" wide, for better weight distribution and less pounding on pressure points.

Now we gotta affix that belt to the black base, first off my little 1" tin emblem thing gets riveted on. This belt was really worn a lot by the owner. That's awesome, because it gives the strap some years and mojo already. Quite often i see these in the shop, with five six studs or grommets missing - if I think I can fix it, I may pick it up, but usually I will pass on those.
Sometimes these fashion belts come made out of synthetic stuff, and they can look great, but in this case this studded belt was some nice old leather.

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Now we have to line 'er up - I clamp one end and lay it down slow and careful. I'll put a few two-faced tape tabs hidden inside hold it in place prior to sewing.
Never get this part absolutely perfect, I just eyeball it as best I can. This belt features thirty six quarter inch grommets, and one hundred and fifty six 1/8" studs in aged nickel.

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Sewing the top belt to the base with a semi-matching thread - sometimes I can't sew the best, so I rivet. Sometimes I can't even rivet so I'll use barge cement.
Depends on the top decorative piece. I don't want to mess them up too much.

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I have a Consew RB201, I think it's called. This is a rather old but dependable mainstay industrial /factory machine, with a walking foot that helps feed things through.
Using a regular sewing machine on leather is difficult, I did for my first few years at this... an old 1954 singer I hot-rodded a bit for as much power as I could get out of it.
But the Consew has serious punching power, and can sew up to about 1/4" thick material, with heavy duty thread and far stronger needles.
When I purchased it, it was geared real high and just whipped things through crazy fast. It was actually a little bit scary.

I did some belt pulley swapping magic on the motor end and got this thing down to a much more manageable speed.

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Lower speed important here because the grommets in the belt are so close to the edge, less than 1 -1/16th of an inch, it takes quite a bit of sewing finesse to make sure we didn't bugger
up the belt, or the base. Turned out alright when all said and done. Barbarian armored belt secured!

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Next step now we have a base strap, is to affix a nose and tail ends. I use a good cowhide piece for the front/nose end...
(note I leave a little space up the strap for the studs to start so they aren't rubbing steady on a guitar with a back pin).

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I use Water Buffalo hide usually for the Ladder end. I do this because even when really thick and strong, it remains a bit flexible, sews nice and is easier to get through my machine sideways.

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Now I choose a lining for this strap.

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I have experimented with a LOT of materials for lining. I am looking for TOUGH material, that feels good. Most of the time I am using heavy duty upholstery cloth with a "velvety" hand to it. If you rub it one way, you will feel resistance. The other way if feels smooth, place such a fabric on the lining the right way and you can totally kill off neck dive and have yourself a stay-in-place strap. Many of these are made for high-traffic use - like sofa upholstery, so it wears very well. As well, usually stain/ mold and mildew resisitant, hypo-allergenic, etc. I have made some with suede lining too, but suede gets real funky over time, and I prefer how quality heavy duty fabrics stretch over the secondary padding I insert into most of my straps.

So I carve up that additional padding, and place about a 22" length of it along the shoulder of the strap. Sorry, I don't want to show this because how i do this is proprietary, and makes my straps a bit specialler than most. I have large companies borrowing my ideas all the time, but this is one idea i don't want to be too open about. I assemble the lining in my special way over the padding and secure it together prior to final sewing.

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Now back to the sewing machine... I'll add to this a bit later!
 
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