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| Joined: | Sun Jul 12th, 2009 |
| Location: | Twin Cities, Minnesota USA |
| Posts: | 230 |
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I've been buying straps for my PAM312 like a madman. After reaching 9 new straps in a matter of 2 months, I decided that I'll make an attempt at a baseball glove strap since I've always wanted one but they don't come up for sale very often and when they do they're not always what I wanted. So I read up on strap making on the internet and gathered some tools I needed and an old glove and went to work.
I first practiced on an old belt. It was very simple with minimal stitching. I don't even remember where the belt came from but I think it's probably some low grade leather. The finished strap looked OK so I proceeded to work on the old glove. Here's the result:
This strap is probably too soft as both the glove and backing leather are really soft. But it is pretty comfortable to wear, and I was excited to be wearing something I actually made myself. I had actually used the glove as a kid in Taiwan (notice that it's made in Taiwan) 20 some years ago so there's some added sentimental value.
After the first strap, I decided that I want to try more stitching around the strap, so I got a couple more tools and some remnant leather from a local leather shop and ended up with this:
To be honest it turned out much better than I thought it would. For whatever reason the stitching was actually straight! I figured for my first try it would be pretty sloppy, but I guess when you got the right tools (in this case stitching hole puncher), it takes care of itself.
So now that I gained some confidence, I went to the next project, another baseball glove strap made from a Kirby Puckett model glove I got from ebay. Puckett was my favorite baseball player growing up and I thought it would be cool to wear a strap with his signature on it. For this one I planned to stitch around the various baseball glove letterings. Here's the result:
The stitching didn't look as tidy as the last strap, perhaps because I didn't take enough care punching holes straight, but I'm still pretty happy with the results. This one is stiffer than the first strap I made because I used a stiffer backing leather, but it may have been a little too thick overall. It does seem to wear fine on my wrist though:
Anyway, it's been a lot of fun making these straps. The tools only cost about as much as a good custom strap, so I figure I'm ahead already since I have 3 new straps and a lot of fun making them.
One thing I know is that I'll definitely be making more straps. They are fun little projects and it's pretty rewarding to be wearing a strap made by myself.