TVvoodoo's Straplab

[TVvoodoo]

Been a weird week, SUV shopping, health appointments, then SUV health appointments, etc. Yesterday, for whatever reason I woke up felt like I got run over by a truck, dragged my butt around the shop all day, however today I sprung out of bed feeling 110% again.

I had started some new Basket case straps yesterday, as last week they sold out in my store. Needed to get after more because I feel it's one of my cooler repeatable designs. I'm not real big on black straps if they are real basic and boring... but I always want to offer this one, being elegantly macho with a whole bunch of texture that catches the light so nice. Comfy padded too, as you would expect.

So today I completed a set of black "Basket Case" straps, now restocked in the Reverb store.

We all need a couple of black leather straps, my feeling is... why not have at least one that's super interesting AND comfortable? Basket Case does it!
Handcrafted by me of REAL WOVEN leather strips, NOT fake "embossed" to appear to look like woven leather," and it absolutely makes a difference.

Happy Friday!

 

[TVvoodoo]

Over the weekend I got a fella interested in a custom version of my "Bouquet" tooled strap. He's got a pretty killer 355 it's going on, and while the one in the store was a nice match, he need something in the 58-60 zone, and that one wouldn't cut it. So, after casing the leather last night, (wetting it down and sticking it in an ice cream bucket to keep it damp for better tooling impressions)... here we go! The beauty of this design is the texture and simplicity. Only two stamps required.

Not really a whole lot of brain power goes into this, only when the flowers meet up. But it's hard on the old arms, especially an extra long strap like this one. But I got it all tooled in a little over three hours, but had to take a half hour break half way through.

got the edges beveled out, and the first dye stage and then oiled it to sink that dye a bit deeper.
I'll resist coat it tonight after the game, one more time first thing in the morning and let it set for a until tomorrow afternoon. Last time I got a bit heavy handed with the black dye. I'm aimin' to try to keep this one more red than black, but still with black mixed in, but also keep some yellow and orange. Complicated business this one!

Ok, this afternoon I'm trying something different. I've been harping on this forum and others about how 2" poly starter pack straps are basically evil. But feels like sometimes I'm just hollering in the wilderness. So many companies make 'em, so many guitarists seem perfectly satisfied by the utility of them. But still my hatred burns deep, deep inside me.

Such a simple thing, yet I see the fancy ones from Europe with three bucks worth of Chinese ribbon sewn onto the poly, a few metal rivets and two metal loops, a stamped metal buckle, and they want like a hundred bucks for the things.

On the local buy 'n sell site I saw some dude had forty yards of webbing for sale, at 2.5 inches wide. I think maybe it's trucking webbing, probably for industrial strength tie-down straps. It's thick and super strong. A bit sporty/tribal lookin' too. Way tougher and thicker than your typical guitar strap or seat belt poly, a bit wider too, which I dug, so I bought it off him.

My idea was to take it and see if I couldn't create the ULTIMATE starter pack strap. Kind of like those cooking shows take like your typical pedestrian "franks 'n beans" dish, but then juice it up to turn it into a gourmet experience. "Elevate" is how they put it. That's what I wanted to try.

So, improvements I made...
- 2.5" HEAVY DUTY ABS Tri-Buckle and loop (no stamped metal or rivets),
- A bit longer than typical to go as long as 65"
- Padded in the shoulder area for 22", under 24" of BLACK LEATHER lining where it touches you.
- rolled the edges of the leather just slightly along the side so the poly won't cut into your neck
- added a good thick leather nose and tail.

It has the look of a poly strap. But to me it don't feel nothing like no poly strap. It's actually pretty of wearable! One issue is, the padding makes is less adjustable than your typical sliding buckle strap. This first one only works from about 53"-65". I have two more half done, and will list all three together. The next two, probably going to be more like 45-60 which will suit more players.

I've got another tooled custom happening tomorrow too, so double-header going. I'll see if I can finish the other two poly straps like this one, which I'll be calling "Gateway Drug" while I'm waiting for dye to dry or whatever tomorrow.

 

[TVvoodoo]

Two tooling and dye projects going on at the same time here. I think that's a StrapLab first!
The one on the left is my GeoMatrix design, the guy told me he wanted it to look EXACTLY like the one I sent to brother Don )O here.
But funny story, I tried to do the same pattern again, but I must have made it tighter, because I ended up with room for an extra row
of stamps on each side. Probably just getting better at this style.

The GeoMatrix is going to be for the horrendous (LOL!) PRS below, I'm still sneaking up on the burst with that one, while dons was basically black to amber,
I think I need to add a touch of red, before I blend in the black edges. Looks a bit dull now, the clearcoats later will help everything "pop."

Case in point, after a bunch more dye and antiquing, the clearcoat on the "Bouquet" strap on the right has really saturated the colours,
and this one is waiting for a light overcoat of black to blend everything together.

 

[TVvoodoo]

Continuing work with the two tooled straps... the dye jobs. On "Bouquet" I think it may be one of the most beautiful dye schemes I've done. I learned a lot from the first one, and this is actually very much more like I was aiming for with that one... I simply did it wrong needed to add an extra step.

The fellow who ordered it just came off a desert music video shoot, and is humming and hawing on whether to darken the flower centres down. I'm telling him I'll do it if he wants, but it might physically hurt to do it LOL! We shall see what he thinks.

On "GeoMatrix #3" Darryl is all systems go and I will be assembling this one tomorrow after one more round of clearcoat tonight. Not too shabby if I do say so myself.

And because bursts and dye don't take all that much time ouf of my day, I got a chance to start another custom, as my beadwork came in. Went to this USA store that makes themselves out as a native art place... beadwork, feathers, dreamcatchers, Navaho stuff... all that... the beadwork the offered was like 1/4 the price of local Cree native beadwork I can access up here and the fellow was on a budget for his Dickie Betts replica strap.

They ordering process made it seem like USA Indigenous craftspersons were going to craft it, giving me a "Need it by" date, and a place I could ask for special details.

Three weeks later the 2" by 20" beaded strip arrives. I guess it really was made by actual Indians. LOL! A sucker born every minute, this time it was me!

Anyway, the work was fine, lovely even. Though it didn't have the 1/4 fabric flange on the sides for sewing like I asked. Of course. So, that did make my job a bit harder. But it's moving along.
They have quite a few similar patterns, at the place I shopped at. I picked up two of these strips, with a mind to make a black version of this strap later this summer.

I'm reminded why I don't often work in white leather. Especially just after dyeing two other jobs on the table. Extreme care required. Plus I'm not a fan of white straps. Personally, I'd never wear a white belt or white boots either, but that's just me! I do have white leather sneakers though, and a golf glove too!

Anyway... this one is pretty fun, quite a bit shorter than my regular, and coming along nicely, I'll be finishing this one tomorrow.

Ever wonder how a Camel might celebrate hump day?

 

[TVvoodoo]

No golf for me this week!

"GeoMatrix" #3 in the Class Act format

"Dickie's Delight" ... a Dickie Betts "straplica"

"Bouquet #2" it's only two dang stamps, but some rather tricky dye work makes it really shine

A solid four days of craft!

Go oil! 3-3

 

[TVvoodoo]

Probably don't talk about these often enough, but all you young fellers who are gettin' fed up with the strap lock "systems" might want to take a tip from the old-timers. None of which are here on TTR LOL!!!!!

I don't use them on all my own guitars, I prefer the larger strap buttons myself, but these do have some nice advantages, and I sell at probably at least six pairs a month, with many repeat customers.

1. They are noiseless, fast/easy to use, relatively simple, no maintenance and surprisingly secure and don't add extra leverage on your strap or button screw.
2. They'll add about 4-5" to your strap chain so you can get yourself off that scary last ladder loop
3. They they add a nice "looser" feel to your front end... hard to explain, but definitely there.

I make them mostly out of good scrap leather I have here, but there's a some hardware involved you don't see which makes them trusty. I guess in a way they're still a bit gadgety LOL!

I have added the "Gateway Drug" straps to the store. Here's a shot of a couple of them that I added my shock absorber feature to the front end. Just a bit of heavy doubled up elastic gives them a slightly softer ride than a typical no-give poly strap.

Under no weight... it looks regular/normal...

Under about 8.5-9 lbs... the stealth elastic kicks in - because you are generally holding a bit of guitar weight by the neck, it won't stay bottomed out. I feel this system helps minimize the shoulder-pounding a typical poly strap inflicts upon us. I came up with this idea back in 2015 or so, but really have not explored it much further since...
Full story in the Well-Hung reverb store.

Happy Friday!

 

[TVvoodoo]

Happy Monday... I'm starting the week off with a bang! New in the Reverb store as of this afternoon... as set of three snakey straps I named "Taipan."

It's a newer, stranger snake scale pattern to me... typically most seem to mimic python. I poked around a bit and what seemed to come closest to this scale pattern/color was Australia's Inland Taipan, infamous for it's highly toxic venom. Considered the most potent of ANY land snake in the world; with potential to kill adult humans in 45 minutes. So, pretty serious business there.

The scales are laser cut into the hide, revealing the black suede behind, framing a range of light and dark gray to black scales, with a hint of a muted off-white/goldy-yellow mixed in sort of random. A bit of glitter like dangerous snakes should have. Overall, its appearance is that of a creature you sure as heck DON'T wanna find lurking in your kid's sandbox.

These are med. thick "Cadillac" padded, the lining is a light gray velvety soft microfiber which Ricky would likely describe as slightly "fire-retarded."

 

[TVvoodoo]

Qualifying easily for pole position in the "fastest" guitar strap, super-stock event,
meet Grommet - "Venting"

This black and gray air-cooled beauty is 3" wide, and features a whole bunch of oblong nickel grommets in black leather, with a strip of aluminum screen door screen behind just for a little show.

Looks pretty menacing, LOL! anyway, there's a bunch of nickel rivets too, and it's wide, long and padded like crazy. A fun thing is how the rows of grommets pick up light when you move, the shine dances up and down vertically. Strap goes 43-58, not in the store yet, will be early tomorrow. Just plain ran out of time today

It was a pain learning how to install these grommets, it's kind of time consuming, all the measuring and stuff... not sure if I even have the proper tools but they seem solid. Custom work similar is available! I have a bunch of these in nickel, antique brass and gunmetal/black chrome if you're feelin' a personal version on leather of your choosing, I can put colored leather inside the grommets instead of screen, maybe even painted screen if you wish, but they serve no real aeration function, just so you know.

 

[GrooVey]

black and gray air-cooled beauty

Very cool

 

[TVvoodoo]

Been a strange week and lot of errands and out-of-shop time, a major dental appointment which I was dreading, but I got through it OK.
But I still managed to get a few things done.

New in the Well-Hung store over in Reverbville is a No Prisoners "Vandal" on battleship gray leather waiting for your silverburst.
Has a mix of flat-smashed rivets and rounded larger ones. The flatties give off a real nice glitter, they work like smaller mirrors.
Lightly padded, 3" wide. About 43"-58"

Then I just added a couple of fun one-offs (likely so), I called Serpentine... here's one of them

This is not real python, it's fake stuff but not plasticky feeling. More a fabric, but still has a snakeskin feel to it. Hard to explain. It's the kind of stuff a lot of purses are made of. Feels a lot like leather, but it ain't. And, built to take lots of contact. The red strip down the middle is cowhide, as is the tail, ladder and nose. Gotta have some leather, nothing beats it! Medium/heavy padding.

Has four nice largish screwback conchos, beady black eyes starin' down your audience. The way I make my straps you'll NEVER feel rivets, claws or conchos against you, tearing up your shirt. Never! It's kinda flash. Pretty sure I don't have the cool balls to show up to the jam with this one, I know somebody here probably does, (or thinks they do)!

More info, many more pics on those straps on my reverb listing, but I'm happy to deal direct if you happen to be reverb adverse.

Adrian in North Carolina is a repeatin' Well-Hung Tribal Warrior, always has something nice to say...

Another week came 'n gone, hope y'all have a great weekend, it's the deepest part of the summer!
Thanks again @GrooVey for the kind PMs. Hope you can add a few words/pics here!

 

[TVvoodoo]

I did my very best to match with the photo the customer sent me.

But, it appears the photos the seller provided for my customer were extremely "juiced" with filter adjustments/lighting. So when the guitar arrived, as too often happens, it just didn't have quite the contrast and "pop" we both expected. So, my work turned out a fair bit more intense than required.

Customer still seems very pleased, sent me a the below paired photo, but I can't lie. I'm a little disappointed as I was shooting for the perfect match my brother wanted. I guess there's a lesson in there somewhere about having accurate pics for custom work.

Check the Well-Hung Reverb store for Starrider,

and another version of "Serpentine"

Had a battle 120 something year-old tree this weekend. In the I won but I'm kind of beat up. Rolled out of bed this morning with every muscle in my body screaming. I'll show a couple pics tomorrow of the jobsite.

 

[TVvoodoo]

We had a big windstorm a couple weeks ago, and a tree came got pushed over on a piece of land I own, where there's a bit of a forest and a lot of town kids love to play in there, and bums leave a lot of bottles too. So this time, a different kind of clean up. Turns out this big old Jackpine got herself Well-Hung up on some other trees.

This sign was on the 2.4 acre lot before I purchased it but I've thought several times about removing it and putting it up in my gear space, but it is rather large.

Anyway, working with a semi-barberchaired tree like this is NOT fun. Especially one of this size, so I opted to cut 'er off at the stump,
hook on with a tow rope trunk and just drag it away.

Didn't pull it too far, only about ten feet as it I saw it was digging an 8 foot trench and filling that in was going to create even more work. The 12" blocks here were about 90 lbs each, I'm guessing. A big leaner like this is still a fair bit more work than laying flat... Made quite a pile of sawdust... and sure as heck made me feel my age the next morning!

I counted about 120 rings. Carpenter ants got in 'er. This tree was a bit much for my 16" Husqvarna, but I got creative. Burned though almost four tankfuls bucking this up.

On the bench today, another Dickey Betts. Another fellow saw the white one I showed on the Well-Hung facebook page about ten days ago,
asked me if I could make another in black. So here we go again! He'll choose the concho

This one will be buttoned up tomorrow.

 

[TVvoodoo]

Strange. Dude goes by "Brught Andrew" ordered this one up over the weekend via facebook messenger. Suddenly it seems he's blocked me from sending him pics or messaging.

I gotta say this situation feels rather "sketch" to me as the kids say, so I'm giving dude around 24 hours before it's open for purchase by anyone, then he's on my blacklist. He knew I would be sending him finished pics today. 3" wide Dickey Betts style, approx 10,000 beads, padded black leather and 1 concho, 40"-55" adjustment.

Built as a custom order job - many Well-Hung Warriors will know that means I put my all into it.

Also completed a set of three "Blue Diamond" straps this morning, now available in the Well-Hung Reverb shop Nicely padded fabric body, black leather nose tail and ladder, showy black conchos.

 

[TVvoodoo]

Today I give some screen time attention to a snake pattern that other leatherworkers ignore. All we see is python, python, python, rattler, python!
There's other snakes you know, beautiful ones too.

"Red Meets Yellow" is probably kind of familiar to many of you reading this, I don't got nothing like that up here. Thank goodness!

I took some 3 oz vegtan, dyed it for the Coral snake look, best as I could muster, clearcoated it then sewed it with contrasting white thread onto a 2-3/4 inch padded black moto leather base. Kind of badass!

Adjusts 44"-59" which gives you all kind of comfortable room for creative rock star moves, and has heavy harness leather on the nose, ladder and tail end.
I wonder if this might not be a ideal addition to compliment one of those vintage tri-burst finishes? It'll be in the reverb store tonight.

"Dickey's Delight", beaded black leather version (shown in the post above) is now up for open sale,
"Brught Andrew" is 100% blacklisted for being a rather undelightful dick.

 

[TVvoodoo]

Got some happy news from Mr. Bachman in Pasadena

He and his wife are costume designers and he said he continues to marvel at the workmanship!
pretty cool. We will be doing another probably for his goldtop.

new in the shop today... one crafted with the ubiquitous tobacco vintage burst strat

It looks great on my blackguard version, but I was thinking more one with the white. Now in the reverb store.

One last thing... before I lament that I'm losing my shirt on the second run of Toggle plates, (which I am LOL!) just want to make sure they are getting in front of people, so here's one to consider

Remember Well-Hung Flipside plates are DOUBLE SIDED... so you get to choose, or change it up if you like.

One of my favorites is the Honey/Mustard. Because it really makes that middle position sing! You got the sweet, sweet neck toanz, and the bite of the bridge too. The Chill/Thrill is not meant to be a Netflix reference, though perhaps a NETFLIX/ CHILL plate might be fun - this one and many many others now in the reverb store, and you can pick them up pretty cheap if you buy more than one because I combine ship easy.

Happy Friday, have a great week!

 

[Don O]

Hmmm…

 

[TVvoodoo]

Hmmm…

View attachment 106675

Are you dropping a pickguard on that or flush pups?

 

[Don O]

Are you dropping a pickguard on that or flush pups?

Soap bars.

 

[TVvoodoo]

 

[GrooVey]

Soap bars.

View attachment 106676

Dude!!