DIY Leather Straps

While looking into getting a few nice leather straps for my old Fender basses I came across a few videos from Brookwood Leather showing how they make custom leather straps.  If you know me, you know that I love to do things myself and often get myself into projects that can quickly get over my head.  So..... I headed off to Tandy Leather Supply and bought a large piece of leather and a few simple tools and decided to give it a try.

Here are my first 2 straps!  The darker colored strap is dyed brown and distressed to look and feel like a 30 year old strap.  The lighter colored strap is the natural color of the leather and I will leave it unsealed so that the oils from my hands will naturally color and wear the strap to give it a nice vintage look over time.

The reason I was looking into a custom strap was to get a strap cut to the exact length I need and not have it be adjustable so that's how I made these straps.  There is one hole on the end that mounts to the horn of the instrument and I have 2 strap holes on the end that mounts behind the bridge so I can adjust the height by picking what hole to use in the back.

I still have some leather left so let me know if you see something you might want me to make.