steveb leatherworks: the blather

Freddy – wanted to give his Dad, Big Joe, a steveb belt for the holidays. Big Joe, is not a jeans wearing kind of guy, instead favoring “slacks”. This necessitated the manufacture of a narrow *dress* belt. So in answer, a 1″ strap was cut from a brand new, delivered last week hide, because, Big Joe, is a big guy, requiring an inordinately lengthy piece of leather be used for this belt- and as you know from reading my crap in the past – the longest strap is cut from the leather along the animals back. You don’t get many long pieces worth a damn out of a hide – the leather towards the neck and back tends to be “plongy” (soft) and unusable for my work – so I use the center portion of the hide primarily. if I can squeak 2-3 big boy belts out of a side I am doing well.

This belt is made from 8oz veg tan, with a simple stamping pattern. Keep in mind , this simple ornamentation will probably be viewed as very *blingy* by Big Joe, as he is pretty conservative, just as you would expect from a man who wears slacks and not jeans… As usual, I lined it with Pig and stitched it all together with a lightweight black poly thread (this is a dress belt and burly thread would have looked silly).

The belt is set up with a pretty detailed/stitched and lined leather keeper  and a sweet, simple nickel buckle – i found some really good brass and nickel 1″ buckles from a new source…on closeout of course, so who knows if they will be available again…, and I used Chicago Screws to attach the buckle, so Big Joe is free to swap out the buckle for another. As a courtesy, I included a brass buckle and matching set of brass Chicago screws if Big Joe is feeling adventurous in a brassy way and wants to swap buckles.