Transcripts
1. About this Class: Hello again. My name is Sarah,
and today I've got a really neat project
lined up for you guys. Now this here is
all about creating a line in Padded guitar strap. With this class, I provide
you with a free template. So I've made up this
template just to make it really simple and easy for you, mostly to mark out your punch holes and
where they need to be. Because basically when
you're starting out, I can take a long time to try
and figure that stuff out. I'll also include a formula
for you so that you can work out what size strap
you actually need to make. So obviously these
ones have two pieces. They've got the
connecting strip at the beck and then
the main strap. It does take a little
bit of thinking and trial and eras to figure out what's the
right strip length, how to create a strap
lengths they either your customers might want
or for a gift for someone. This class is designed for anyone from beginning
to advance. Leather workers are a
beginner leather worker. You can use the template
in the skills that I go through to create
a standard strap. We've got the flesh side of
the Leather showing for the advanced or the beginner
who really wants to have a gut some new skills
and get some practice. The line Padded strap
as a way to go. This here is really comfortable for my customers. They love it. I have thick padding in them, but it's very
difficult to do so to actually glue this on and stitch it is
really, really tricky. So I'll go through that today. It's something that
just takes a lot of practice and it's a
skill worth learning. As you can say, I'm
also a laser engraver, so I'll go a little bit into the laser engraving
process as well, not deeply into it,
but a little bit. I'd love you for joining
me on this Class. Jump on in and
we'll get into it.
2. The Pattern: Hi everyone, Welcome
to our first listen. This is just a really
straightforward listen about what
type of leader I'm gonna be using for this
particular project and just how to
use this pattern. And we'll also look
at what size or how to size up the length of
the Guitar Strap can, which can be really
useful for you. I've got two pieces
of leather here. I have gone through and
already oiled and die them. If you're familiar with my work, I use a neat foot oil with a little tiny
but of dye in it. And that's how I
create these colors. I seduced color
the leader first, and then putting your pattern
onto cathode out makes it much easier and gives you much
cleaner edges at the end. This Leather here
for the main strap, I have a thick 3.2
millimeter leader, which has roundabout eight ounce with when you're looking
at Leather weights. So that's for the main strap and then a lining on the back. I've got a 1 mm, which is still a vtable
ten liter for grandmother, but just much softer
and much more pliable to go over the
big any sort of way there will be fine
just the back when you want to Leather
a lining leather or the thinnest vegetable tin already Skype leather
that you can get. So the idea is the leader broken down if you're doing
a straight without a lining on the
Beck team to go for the thicker whites, if you can. So more like a four millimeter
weight would be suitable. A three millimeter wave is fine, but sometimes people do
like this thicker one. So anywhere three to four
mill Leather is a good white. Now to save a quick
look at the Pattern, I will talk you through
this a bit better up-close as to how we work out the length of the Strap
that you will need and how we will just go about blowing them together to make
sure you've got a nice, easy pattern to work with. Okay, we're just going
to have a quick look at the Pattern here now, this here is the main strip. I haven't obviously included the entire main
strip because the, the main strip will be different links for
everybody depending on the guitarist is a formula written down here for
the main strap length. So you'll have a customers
say they might want 155 centimeter strip
from button to button. How you work that out for the maximum length
of your main strip. Basically you take the
desired maximum length. So if someone says they want to a guitar strap that
is 100-20 cm to 105, for example, for 155 cm as the maximum
length that I want. So I take that -40 cm. So basically the 40 cm as the length of the
connecting strap. So that's the one at the back of the guitar strap, 155 -40. That would give us the length of the main strap that I
want for this project. So does here should all be clear on the basically on the
notes on your template. If you do have any questions about that at all, just email, message me through Skillshare and I can clear that up for you. So I'm just going
to go through now. Basically, I'm going to
use this end of the strip, mainly because it's
really important to get the punch holes right. You'll see here, punch
marks are only a guide, but it's just to try and
get them nice and even and not all over the
place with angles. You want to use a 26 millimeter or a one-inch punch
for these holes. So use it to help create
the entire strip. And then this here will
be used at the end just to mark out the punch hole
and help mark out the end. Now this one here, this is the neat thing strap. So you can say here, cutting, blow to part number to
stick together like that. Okay, that brings us to the
end of our first lesson. Just a very simple listen. So by the end of
that, you should have your two main bots and you'll know how to calculate
the length that you need for the
main body strap. Have all your areas kinda
punched out ready-to-go. So basically I just wanted
to show you how to use this template because
it's not like your average template
where it shows the entire but you need to cut, you need to do a few calculations
and things in-between. But just wanted to teach
you how to work out the strip because
otherwise it can take you a long time trying
to figure that all out. The other things. So you will say in the next lesson I'm going
to just go into cutting it. Very, very basic, but just a few tips and
techniques for doing it. You will see that I'm using
some ply tin plates as well. Just because I am a laser
engraver and buys a cut-out and I Make apply
templates as well. So they're much easier, suddenly really
solid to work with, as much easier to carry around and make your
markings around
3. Cutting the Pattern: Okay, welcome to
our second Lisa. Now this one is going to
be just on cutting out and leave the template so
nothing too complicated, just your standard use of your Leather templates and
how to use these ones. A few things to note. So these a few different ways that you will use
your paper template. I'll go through
the different ways to do that and make it a bit easier for you to be able to mark it out onto your Leather. So many different techniques
and ways to do it. So I'll go through
that in this lesson now to cut your strip
as a bit of a trick. So I'm using a Ivan
stripped Katha here. We're going to make
it much simpler. It can be done with just your standard roller
in find measuring. But yeah, I'm just simply using the Strap color
here because it makes much more accurate in
much more even edges for me, but simply can't be done with the roller as well,
just takes more time. So there's pattern
is for 6.5 cm wide, for about two-and-a-half inches. Okay, so we've got a nice
clean edge here to start with. These are neat. Way taller is definitely
one of my favorite tools. To get us data might be
a little bit tricky. Just want to hold
it nice and firm. Soon as you can get hold of the bit that you've
already cut through, get a good hold and pull
it nice and tints tight. Just take your time because obviously you want you stripped. We're looking as straight
as you can get it. This is the main body strap. You can either use
your template to do this or I dislike to use this one because
it's a bit more solid. But basically what you want to do with whatever
template you're using as line it up on
your main body strip. I haven't trimmed
up the end yet, but I'll do that soon. But I'm going to use that. Line it up as best I can yet
to mark out my punch holes. So I'm just going to mark
them lightly to start with. This is my all and I just do the bottom of the punch hole. So that will be easiest for me to line up my oblong punch. So using my formula, I know that I want this
strap to be around about 115 cm long. I find it's easiest just to use my soft tape for me during those doesn't have to be an
exact measurement. So this here is to say 1 " or
26 millimeter oblong punch. So I'm just going to
use this to just mark. Basically this here
is just a guide to help me keep it all parallel. When it comes to just punching. In terms of the hole punches, It's fine to do them on this
one here to start with, but do leave your
main strap hole punch until right at the very end. Basically, because we've got
a few layers to go through, so don't punch those
ones until the end. But the convicting strap, you can punch those
whenever you like. So now I can just use this as
a bit of a guide as to where my ink will be. Sort of smack it with the all. Then I just make sure that
that's actually square. Before I kept just what, these slits or
this line them up. And I'll put two
little dots with my ALL as to where exactly
I want it to go. That brings us to the end
of our lesson on cutting, basically using the Pattern
and cutting it out. So you should have
nice rounded corners if you've decided just to
do the straight lines, just if you're a beginner,
then it's fine as well. You've got your holes punched
in your connector strap and you've got your oblong holes punched on your main strip. But remember just
no hole here yet. We're going to wait until
we've got the Lining on. You'll notice that
I haven't really mentioned anything
about the Lining yet. That'll make more
sense and they're coming basically in the coming, listen more, look at
preparing the Lining. The key takeaways from
this is when you're cutting is to always have
your blade nice and vertical. That's how you get
your nice as cut. More parsers rather than
trying to do one pass. Multiple passes will give you a much cleaner,
more accurate cat. And with these is really important just to
take your time. So put a lot of effort into
lining up your punches. Well, because we now
are a bit often is quite noticeable with
the guitar strips. So a lot of your time in this project will go into
cutting out your pattern. Once it's cut out, good to go
4. Natural Leather Seal: Hello again. Now, moving on to
our next lessons, gift can be a really
simple decent about sealing our little
naturally using beeswax. Now my business, I
like to stick with the beeswax finishing rather than the likes of originally. Just because I prefer
the natural products as I will use them
as much as I can. I make up my own beeswax. Max is sell this to help. Basically for water repellent
properties of Leather. A bee's wax is a really
nice kinda coating to edit to any of your products that
are gonna be outdoor items. It's recipe. I just
combined beeswax, so solid beeswax with olive oil. So 5050. It's very simple
recipe to follow. I just use a double boiler or a bolt stainless steel
bowl over a boiling pot. Melt your beeswax and
your olive oil together. Bee's wax is easiest
to melt if you chop it up nice
and nice and fine. I just kept me slivers off
my beeswax, way it out. And I'll say maybe even 20 g
of beeswax with 20 g of oil. My mix, and I will use
that for sealing leaders. So it's important to Seal
dies and two liters, and it helps us give them natural protection
in mold resistance, particularly with the beeswax. My technique usually
involves using the oven. So what I will do is my liver and the oven
with the door, correct. On the lowest
temperature possible, which is usually around
about 50 degrees Celsius, whatever the lowest is
on your oven will go. Obviously the risk is up to you. You have to keep a
really close eye on it, one or 2 min mix. But basically what
you're looking forward, just keep touching your Leather regularly and just feeling feels hot to the touch
or warm to the attach. So you don't want to overdo
it and cookie leather, but just making sure
it's nice and warmed up. And then you can get
your bees wax mix. This is a very hard mixture. But there's also great
because it gives a really good
protective coating. You'll need to use like a teaspoon or
something to dig out your beeswax and then with
your liver out of the oven, message it into your
leather surface. From there. From that point
you'll need to use a couple of cloths so
you want to wipe off any excess beeswax and
buffer in the end with a microfiber cloth or a buffing attachment on a
drill as another option. So in the end that should be
coming up nice and shiny is that bee's wax has sunk
and down into the leader. If it's quite cold
where you are, you may want to do the
bee's wax and then put it back in the oven for
a little bit, the leader. And then it will help the, basically the beeswax sink down into the liver
a little bit more. So just very briefly.
So non there. I'll just demonstrate what
I do a lot of it as just using hate for my hands to message it until either
in buffered out. Okay, is it brings us to
the end of this lesson. The trick with the microfiber
cloth there you'll see as I was going as to buffer
at really, really quickly. So that is what will give
you a nice seal and it will create a bit of hate
and friction to give it a little bit of
shine on it as well. Just a very simple reason. It's something that might be a nice technique for
someone else to learn. Obviously, you can
use a recently finished is absolutely
fine as well. Or other means to Seal
on finish will be there. But I do like the
beeswax option. That's just a nice
natural and it smells really great on your little if you're selling it to people. So we're going to
look into Engraving. Neat group gets a
little bit more tricky
5. Laser Engraving: Hello again. Now let's listen, is
all about engraving. So obviously this is
an optional extra. If you listen, you may not
have a laser engraver, but it could be something
that you might be interested in or something
that you do want to learn. I'm not gonna go too much into the Engraving process
itself with the laser, but I will go on to how I finished the Engraving
to make sure it stands out really nicely and how it lasts
for a long time. I will go and briefly as to if you are using
the laser engraving, how you actually line up
a guitar strap on the ear so your designs get
lined up nicely. So we'll go into the solution
and I hope you enjoy it. Now. Just a few tips and techniques when it comes to
laser Engraving. Now with Engraving,
it's important that you do die the Engraving if you can. If you don't, the chances are that Engraving war
rub off over time. If it's not died, made to stand out and Seal done. I've had some in the
past day if they're not treated properly
over a year or so, the Engraving kind of rubs
off and you're literally just leave with a,
basically a leader. But you can actually
see it that well, it's not real good if you're
selling it to people. So what I do to combat that, as I would treat my little
with a resist first. So I don't use progresses but processed
as one that you can use. I choose to use and steed as the beeswax finished that are used in the previous lesson. Thick coat of bee's wax on
the area that I'm going to engrave is enough to protect the liver
around the Engraving. Then from there, I'm able to put in and taking gel
into the Engraving without staining the liver
around that because of beeswax as protecting the
leader around the Engraving. This gives it a really
lovely black dark color mixing Engraving stand out. From there. I can wipe
off the in-taking. And from that point
I will let it dry. And then I use you can use any kind of
acrylic sealer then. So I'll finally do the
Engraving with a paintbrush. I'm going to demonstrate
that all to you now. And you'll be able to say what exactly I don't how it'll work, but it is important to Seal
your engraving so they last. Okay, so that's
how Engraving all done it and you can
see how nice and crisp and black
those are and are well protected and
were all sealed. Last a long time if you're
selling them to people. So moving on now we'll
try and attach the Lining to the back of the strip
6. The Padded Lining: Lesson is going to be all
about putting the Lining, the thin 1 mm thick lining on the back of this guitar strap. Now, obviously this
is a optional stick. A guitar strap, as
a guitar strap is, it is not perfectly
fine with this. The normal flesh side on the big this one is for a client
who would like a Padded one. So that's what I'm doing today. What you're going to
need for this lesson is if you are choosing to
put a Padded Lining on, then you'll need some farm
or something to padded out. If you just want to
do a Leather Lining without any padding in it, you can also do
that as well just to pieces a little
stuck together, a few, a few things to note. In this one, I'm just using old recycled farm that I
get from a secondhand shot. Basically. It is natural
latex available. I couldn't get it
here. I can't source it from anywhere
other than overseas, which will take weeks to
get here at the moment. So I just use recycled
and re-purpose old farm. I can say here are
my leather worker, not a foreign cutter. So it's very, very rough. It won't make any difference
once it's under the liver is quite difficult to put
padding under a lining. So what we would need today, you need some
double-sided sticky tape, obviously your farm and just a willingness to
give anything ago. Now just one thing to note, I have engraved the
end of this lining. The plane with this is basically
to stick it on and then trim up the edges after that will give them much
more accurate result. So leave them oversized. This lining is about 9
cm wide at the moment, which is about
three-and-a-half centimeters bigger than the
actual lining itself. I mean, they actual
strap itself. So keep it oversized. But you'll see when I start
I've gotten engraving that I'll need to line up
properly for a client, a customer just on the end. So what I'll do to start with, I just need to cut the ends that are gonna be
stuck down flat. And after that we
will have a look at stitching it as well. I'm not going to go into great
detail on the stitching. Otherwise it's going to
make listen just too long. If you need more details
about stitching, I will cover that
in other classes. Now first things first, I'm just going to
mark my stitch line. For the top part here. My little lining
isn't going to go. Obviously it's not
going to go all the way up, pass my punch holes. I'm going to finish
it about here. So I'm just using my groovy. I've just put a very, very light line just enough that I can see it and
that'll buff out later. So this is just to
mark the stitches. And then after that, we're actually going to
stick the Lining on. We won't punch the
holes until later. So that brings us to
the end of this lesson. So by now, we should have
a nice stitched on lining. So this is a particularly
tricky task. Basically they getting
it lining on and getting the paddings withheld.
And there's quite tricky. You need loads of pigs, obviously, as you saw, just to hold down the other side while you're stitching one side. But yeah, it's just
a practice thing and you can see it's
well-worth it in the end with how soft the padding as in how cool it
looks on this side. So join me for the
next lease end will be our final lesson
for this strip.
7. Edges & Final Touches: Welcome back to
our final listen. So as you can see, the
guitar strap still looking very
unfinished as they are final listen and just cleaning up the edges and slipping
and burnishing name. So what you will
need for this lesson as you're cutting tools
just to trim the edges. From there, we will
use an integer. I'm going to use a
number one, each BVA. This for tidying up and
rounding off our edges. Then I will use my wood slicker
or I may use my drill bit one mostly like my words
like and some tokenized. You don't need to have token off with burnishing your edges. But I find it very, very good. It's the one I prefer. You can also use
gun trigger kid, or you can use
just simply water. After that, we'll finish it
off with some edge code. Also. We obviously
just need to punch our final hole and we'll do a little tiny bit of
stitching around me. Then basically
we'll be finished. I will also burnish the back of this one just to make it
look a little bit shinier. So use token all
for that as well. Okay, So that brings us to
the end of our final listen. So now it's a completed project with beautifully finished edges. Now to stick around
for the conclusion, I do have a few extra Tips. Been there. Thanks, guys.
8. Final Tips: Just to wrap up,
now you'll notice with this guitar strap, I have lift the end
as it as the end. It was a request
for my customer. Basically, they weren't
too worried about this in but it does mean because I've bought it
as a gift for someone. They could actually
more punches and later easily if we needed to. So that was their choice. But obviously you can make the entire Lining
cover the whole area. The only thing to note
is that you'll probably need to stitch around
or your punch holes, which obviously adds to
the time costs in the air. So as long as effective it into your pricing if you are
selling them to other people. But other than that, if you have any questions or comments, feedback at all, I
always love to hear it. So please do leave a review or get in touch with me if you do have any
other questions. Also, if you've got
something in particular, certain skills that
you'd like me to teach. I plan to teach everything I know about Leather Work
eventually on Skillshare. If you've got anything in
particular you want to learn, then let me know and I'll
make it class about it. But otherwise, thank you
so much for joining me. I hope the template
is useful for you and I would love
to see your projects. We will make the project for this class to show me
your Guitar Strap, whether that's just one with a plane Leather
backing or one with a basically the Lining on
it as well, up to you guys. But I'd love to see your work
and the Project section. Thanks again. Bye guys.
Sarah Peters, Leatherwork & Sustainable Living
