Give me some belt ideas

harronek

harronek

Joined
Nov 29, 2013
Messages
2,493
Recently Gary Graley gifted me a Belt Buckle , thanks again Gary your a true Gentleman :thumbup:

I've got a few ideas as to the belt I'm going to make , but thought it would be interesting to see what other people use and wear daily .
It would be interesting to see what designs are out there .
I must admit I've never given to much thought about my belts , I only own a handful of them and have a couple for work and a couple for " good "
Let's see what you guys use to hold up your pants and hang your sheaths on .
Here is an old pic of some of mine .

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Ken
 
Here ya go Ken: I would say most of the belts I've made over the last few years have been of this tapered style. This is my own personal belt.

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This tapered style is really popular here now. It tapers from 1.5" to .75". I do a lot also that taper from 1.5" to 1". The bottom two belts in your pic are what we call Ranger belts. They use to be very popular here but not so much anymore. I only made one in the last year or so. Your top hobble belt doesn't exist here unless you went shopping at an Australian saddelry shop of which there are a few. The manager of the ranch that borders ours wears one, but he's the only guy I can recall wearing one. Cool idea but just not seen here much.

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I like to build my belts two ply. I will use 6/7 oz on top and lighter on the bottom 3/4 oz being ideal but 5/6 oz is what I use most often because I don't build an awful lot of belts and that is what I have on hand. 6/7 oz is heavy enough for good tooling. This belt I beveled and border stamped, dyed it saddle tan and antigued. When bevelling a long straight line like on a belt I will use a push beveler not a stamp. I do not dye the lining at all. This prevents absoultely any dye transfer to clothing. Plus I think it looks cool. I dislike dyeing belts as much as I dislike dyeing sheaths. They are gonna crack. I can dye spur straps and holsters all day long and not have em crack. Sheaths and belts not if but when. If I were to set up a belt making business I would use pre dyed leather only. My little brother (I say that tongue in cheek cause he's my height, 6'4"ish and at least a 100 lbs more than my 230) has actually bought the domain name "Big Boy's Belts". He likes my belts cause he says a big guy can't find a decent belt in a store. So we talk about doing bigboybelts.com But that is all it is now talk. Maybe someday we'll do it. But if we do I'll use pre dyed stuff.
 
You have given me some ideas Dave :thumbup:
But you have also thrown up some observations that I'd never thought of .
I never thought about the belt cracking because of dyeing it .
That design of belt you wear is really nice and I might have a go at one similar if my first one goes OK .
The Buckle that Gary has given me is too big for one like yours , so I think I'll make a sort of Hobble belt but with a slight difference .
It will be my everyday hard use belt so toughness and hard wearing are a priority .
I really like the two ply idea with the backside left un dyed and I'll have a crack at that on my second one .
That's a lot of hand stitching to do though , so I'll have to be in a good mood that day :)
Come on guys , everyone of us here probably wears a belt , let's see them , The Good , The Bad and the Ugly .
Even if you don't want to show your belt what about just the Buckle ?

Ken
 
I agree, that's a nice looking belt Dave and sorry Ken that I wasn't much in the way of help with ideas for you about belts...that's a good tip to know about dyeing and having them crack! A couple I made WAY back in the day did just that, but I put that down to the people that got them, they folded it in half and squeezed it, and caused a big crack in the surface of the belt :( I haven't made belts for others since that time!
G2
 
Thanks guys.

Here's another one I built. Nichole did the carving. This young lady is our local horse Vet's assitant. She and the Doc are walking advertisements for Horsewright. This is a 2" belt without any taper at the buckle, what I call a straight belt. This one is really heavy duty. 7/8 oz on top and lined with 6/7 oz. Besides one of my knives and sheaths over the left front pocket, she has a Leatherman sheath that we made on her left hip and a folder clipped to the right front pocket. This is a knife girl. She asked for the belt to be extra heavy as she often carries a pistol too and wanted the extra heavy belt for the weight of the gun. Haven't made her a holster yet, working on that.

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Oilfinish on this one so no cracking. The sheath is roughout and has seen some use. She was just trying the belt on for the first time and missed a couple belt loops and didn't have it up tight enough because we were hurrying, running out of light for the pics.

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These three piece buckle sets can be aggravating to work with. Mine and this one are both Tandy buckle sets but even custom ones can be too. I won't make a belt for a three piece buckle set unless I have the buckle set in hand. Too many variations. The buckle will have one measurement, the keeper another and the interior of the tip a third. Ya always have to fudge some with these guys.
 
Two questions .

Is she married ? :)
I'm only asking for all the single guys out there who are to shy to ask . Just thought I'd better clarify that incase my wife is watching .

Any pictures of your Leatherman sheath ?

That's a nice belt , is there any issues with the 2 ply leather being so thick in regards to where it goes through the Buckle ?

I have a feeling my attempts are going to be a bit lame in comparison to yours Dave .
Man you do some nice work .

Ken
 
Ya know Ken I don't know!! Here's a pic of the cracking. This is my belt 18 months to two years probably after those first pics.

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Yeah on a belt that heavy there is some break in period for sure. But the buckle doesn't seem to cause too many problems. Same with my pancake sheaths. Customers tell me its about a month of break in on one of those sheaths. Here is a pic of one of my Leatherman sheaths. She had a different Leatherman so I made a block of wood the same size to use as a form. I've got about ten of these Leatherman blocks now. Lots of different Leathermans out there. We did the California Poppy like this one on hers too at her request.

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Horsewright said:
Here is a pic of one of my Leatherman sheaths. She had a different Leatherman so I made a block of wood the same size to use as a form. I've got about ten of these Leatherman blocks now. Lots of different Leathermans out there. We did the California Poppy like this one on hers too at her request.

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That is the nicest Leatherman Sheaths I've seen .
It makes my old Surge Sheath that I wear everyday look like a very poor relation , very poor indeed . :)

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Ken
 
That pancake is beautifull. Greetings to lady with nice belt.:)Ken's sheat is also good lookin.
When you make two ply belt do you take into consideration difference in length between two layers?
 
Thanks guys. Those Leatherman sheaths are fun and easy. Macan no, I do cut the lining a little over sized. Just glue it up, stitch and trim after stitching. Anytime I can I will leave the bottom side of anything I'm sewing oversized. The sewing machine is happier that way. Happy sewing machine, happy Dave. Once the two parts are mated up and stitched together they basically become one piece of leather.
 
I have wanted to make a nice sheath for my sog powerlocks for a while. Problem is, the leather sheaths that come with them are pretty darn tough. Not beautiful, but tough.

Ken, I love that green belt!
 
Any belt I'm going to carry a knife, pistol or utility tool sheath on I want a 1 1/2- 2" wide belt.

Also the Ranger cut belts may look cool but they can be a pain in the backside to tighten up if you lose some weight or you are carrying less on the belt than when you sized it originally, so I won't buy those anymore.
 
I agree Laurence on the Ranger belts being a pain to adjust. Also all that extra thickness of the billets gets in the way of my crossdraw sheaths, which is another reason I personally moved away from them. Also my ocd kicks in on em too. I always had a hard time getting those billets absolutely symmetrical. They are much harder to make well then a tapered or straight belt.
 
Rhinoknives1 said:
Any belt I'm going to carry a knife, pistol or utility tool sheath on I want a 1 1/2- 2" wide belt.

Also the Ranger cut belts may look cool but they can be a pain in the backside to tighten up if you lose some weight or you are carrying less on the belt than when you sized it originally, so I won't buy those anymore.
Click to expand...

As well as doing the important job of holding my pants up , my belt has the task of monitoring how fat my guts are :)
If my belt gets tight I know I haven't been working hard enough .
I haven't moved belt holes in over twenty years , so the Ranger belts aren't a problem for me , but I do understand what your saying about their limitations .

Ken
 
Looks like the belts in the thread have 4-5 holes. How far apart is the proper spacing? My weight fluctuates more than most I'd guess. Smallest hole should be about a 34 waist. Is that 34" from the tongue to last hole?
 
Some folks punch the holes at about an inch apart. This always seems a little close to me. 1.25" is about right to my eye, 1.5" is too far. The waist/pant size is different from belt size. The best way is to take a belt that fits you well and measure from the buckle fold to the tip and then also measure from the buckle fold to the most used hole. Then on the new belt measure from the fold to the hole and that should be your center hole. I do 5 holes on most belts (even numbers are unlucky in our cowboy world). So then I want two holes to either side of the most used hole. I like to cut the tip of the belt after I have the spacing for the holes so that I can balance everything. I might fudge a little on the fold to tip measurement to get evyrthing balanced out. i don't punch the holes until I have sewn in the lining. On the fold you want to leave 2 to 3 inches for the tab that folds behind and sometimes a little more. This depends on whether you are using a keeper or not.
 
1" works good for some ladies belts and also say a skinny dress belt but for an everyday jeans type belt 1.25" seems about right.
 
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