TVvoodoo's Straplab

New "1969 Series" design and this coming soon, the more tried and true traditional example, four now under construction.

A quick side note.... there does seem to be some movements on with the whole tariff/duty situation, I'm watching with great interest as decisions and counter-decisions start working their way through the systems. I'm hoping on the possibility of re-opening to the US market April 1st. To prepare, I figure maybe it's time I got the store ready with some new versions of a few of my "greatest hits" over the next month or so.

These are what one customer once dubbed a "Big Boy" version of a hootenanny *appearing* vintage style strap. What I do is take a beautifully padded 3" wide base with softly rolled edges, (in this case in black garment leather,) then stitch that 2" wide ribbon down the center, effectively giving you the old school "look" but one providing amazing comfort and weight distribution footprint far and above that of your typical Ace style ribbon strap. My Well-Hung ribbon-on-leather design is also visually elegant and the ribbon does offer some additonal strength too. It's quite strong!

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I also reasoned that it might be nice to have a plainer black and white strap offering in the store, and I should be able to complete these four tomorrow, in black and white only for now.

I purchased this monochrome vintage style 2" embroidered web ribbon a couple of years ago as a bright idea, figuring it might solve a problem. You see, I've spend hundreds, (yes hundreds) of dollars on ribbon material similar. Many hours shopping for it too, 'cause there's thousands of types of this stuff available, especially in less than 2" wide. However, because of where much of it comes from, those cultures often have wildly different colour sensibilities than those of the Western world.

Usually, from those available at any given time, you can choose between pinks with green or oranges and blues quite often, or purple mixed with red, etc.... just some clashy/crazy combos - at least to MY eye. When you do happen to stumble across and purchase what you saw was an ideal selection... Often it'll arrive looking a fair bit different than the photos, which can be quite disappointing. So, because I need to shop with guitar finish-matching in mind, this limits the choices drastically and steers me to think more carefully about the risks of grabbing up thirty yards of something that's poor mover, or I might not even be able to use.

Imagine my joy when I found the above plain-Jane black and white version of this ribbon. In my head, endless possibilities of tinting it with leather dye to basically any colour I wanted danced through my noggin. This roll of ribbon has been sitting my StrapLab ribbon cupboard for over a year and a half, so today I attempted a bit of a test with three different dye dips. Because the material is made from a synthetics, it won't accept dye with quite the colour saturation I was hoping, but it does take. Look forward to some fun colours coming up with this ribbon, and of course, custom work too. However, due to my process, it can only one colour at a time, but I'll probably try some green ones and some maybe in purple too. Of the dye versions above I think I like the olde creme one best, but the dirty amber and blue steel will work nicely as well.
 
@Don O close... but yours is stretchy too! the above ain't.
How do you like the comfort-flex young fella? Is it as comfy and cool as your silk lounge-wear?
 
What's new Tomcats? Here's a closer upper shot of the "Sugar, Sugar" for starters

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Also, new in the store a re-issue of a Wild Something I last made in 2021, renamed "Deaf Leopard"

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Had to take my moms in for medical appt. today, so my day was short, but I also started this beastly creature... a new No Prisoners creation, which happened by taking some silver metallic croc embossed hide, then hitting it hard with purple-durple dye. Fun! The result? Candy-grape metallic!

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While I had that dye out, I tried it out on a section of that "Sugar, Sugar" ribbon... Oh Yeah!
It's near the exact colour of the infamous (rather delicious and refreshing, to some) Purple Drank!

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If they move my office ONE MORE TIME, I swear I will burn the whole damn place down!
...The crazy story behind Milton's Red Swingline Stapler

Regarding Well-Hung Availability in the USA
Getting some queries re: USA shipping, due to recent events... thank you for the interest, Lord knows I want to get back to serving y'alls.
Can't seem to find alternate employment up here! Nobody wants to hire an old guy with a bad hip and badder attitude.

Right now watching 'n waiting for things to stabilize after last week's USSC decision deeming the 35% tariff unlawful. After that, a counter-strike levy dropped in it's place, a new 10% global tariff under a different statute. Suddenly, mere minutes afterwards, a bump to 15%. As I understand it, this is limited by law to a 150 day time frame, but may be extended by congress.

I'd rather see the 10% tariff but 15% seems bearable, but it's really not up to me in the end... it's on you fellas who will make the ultimate purchase decisions once I open up again. There were no duty costs prior, but goods are now also subject to an additional cost of approx. 25% with the removal of de minimus "duty free" status of my stuff.

So.... today tariffs and duty, amount to roughly 50% added on top of my prices. These extra costs ONLY for US customers. My $150 strap approx. $75 extra, (instead of $130 extra, as of last week).

For months I've been carefully watching forums for Etsy and other cross-border sellers of similar goods to see how they've been approaching things. What's clear is it seems to have been "madness jungle" for many sellers, buyers too. Buyers getting slammed with surprise extra US duty costs at delivery, refusing to accept the package they ordered. These orders then go into the GARBAGE. To add insult to injury, those buyers then request refunds from the seller stating they did't receive the goods. Multiply this by thousands and thousands of instances over the past few months. I could not bear to know my hard work and craft was sent to a landfill, especially when if buyer also demand I return their money. Many sellers did try to make a go of it at 35%, but inside a month ended up doing what I did right from the start. Close off USA business completely. To be upfront, it doesn't appear too many seem excited about going back in either. But I can't afford not to try.

Too many US consumers don't understand these marvelous tariff windfalls "flowing into the USA from other countries," are in fact Americans consumers footing the bill. It's not me as supplier. I'm forced to collect it from you, then submit. I have to. Sure as Hell ain't coming out of MY pocket! Canada post won't allow me to even ship cross-border 'til I supply a special key code affirming I've paid all tariff fees upfront. Most difficult is, Reverb has done NO work to implement tariff costs or the sudden new duty costs into their platform, putting it all on individual sellers to calculate, explain & collect.

I also must download and learn the sketchy Zonos trade platform app that charges a monthly fee plus a percentage of each item price sold to the US. This app allows me to submit tariffs prior to shipping to get the codes. Those extra costs will also be on USA buyers, as it's a US specific cost.

Because Reverb does not allow different costs on a product for different regions, what some sellers are doing is adding these extra costs to the USA shipping price. Typically shipping for me was around $24 before the madness. Now, it's likely going to be $55 for tariff and shipping + another 25% item price price for duty as well - Could be up to and over $110 for Shipping/Tariff/Duty/Zonos costs. But I don't know if I can submit Duty... I still have to work that out.

Above all, I do NOT want to surprise Well-Hung customers with extra fees upon arrival of the goods.
For both of us it's only workable if you KNOW and are fully OK with it beforehand.


My trick will be individually calculating / changing each of my item listings to reflect the extra costs, as well as educating buyers on the whys 'n whatfors, adding this text to each listing. I gotta watch my numbers real careful. I wasn't doing this to get rich in the past, and I sure won't be doing it to get myself poor either!

TL/DR - Just a general overview for you on what this all entails, and I'm waiting to see if things will settle out during March. These recent news has rocked the system yet again, small business shipping by post is chaos RN. I'm hoping for a stable trade atmosphere, perhaps around April 1st to re-open for US business.
 
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