Get Your Strap On

      I just wrapped up construction of a project that has been on my to-do list for several years: guitar straps. You see, about fifteen years ago, I did a re-build of the old lighting rig for Rogue Cthulhu. I build log of that re-build to post here has also been on my to-do list for several years. Anyway, part of that re-build included using a winch to raise the new light rig. That winch used nylon webbing (seat belt material) instead of the usual rope on the winch. I sourced a fair bit of grey and also black 2" webbing for that project and had quite a bit left over. My immediate thought was, "let's use it to make guitar straps." That thought ruminated in my mind for the next fifteen years, until last night.

 

     Over the past two or so years, I've been piecing together the other parts I'd need to make the guitar strap project; buckles, leather...  Well, that's pretty much it, buckles and leather, and I already had the leather. But in my defense, I did have a difficult time finding buckles that I thought were perfect for the job, and also, I didn't look very hard. 

     The leather I used is a thin soft calf skin like black leather (not sure of its origin) with a textured pattern on one side. I found this leather at a discount store many many years ago. It is far too thin and weak to be used for the strap ends, so of course, that's what I used it for. To make it work, I doubled up the leather, giving me the textured pattern surface on both sides, and also sandwiched 10 oz. black cotton canvas between the layers. These I married with spray adhesive, and would later stitch the edges for reinforcement. I cut out the strap ends with the help of a template I made in Inkscape, using an existing guitar strap from my collection as a guide.

     Once all the pieces and the stars aligned, All that was left was to dig out the sewing machine and assemble the straps. It was pretty evident that I hadn't used my sewing machine in quite a while. My first attempt yielded pretty horrible results. After switching to grey thread, like a normal person would, I ripped out and re-sewed that zig-zag stitch about a dozen times before I was satisfied with the results (read as: to frustrated to continue).

     After adding the buckles and stitching the ends, I cut the strap button holes with a hole punch and a craft knife. That's it. It took about an afternoon to make three of them. Probably would have gone a lot faster if my sewing weren't so bad.