Building a Tooled Belt Design

I thought it might be fun to show you, start to finish, how a design for a tooled belt is built. 
It begins with the leather, of course. I use an exceptional grade of 8/9oz full-grain cowhide, cutting the straps by hand. I case my belts overnight - this is the process of getting the strap wet enough to tool but not so wet that it distorts with the impacts. Everyone has their own way of achieving this balance - I wet them thoroughly then put them in a plastic bag and into the refrigerator overnight. This lets the water distribute evenly to the inner grain and eliminates the need to re-wet while tooling.

Of course, you need a very hard surface to work on (I have my Big Block of granite) and a variety of tools from which to choose. I select each tool as i go on a new pattern - these are the eight tools I wound up choosing for this belt (tool numbers are notated on the progress pics).
 
I started by scoring the outer edges to create a border, then marked the design "centers" with faint dots. The spacing on this design is 1.5"

     

 The first tool (v400) is used twice at each mark, with the mark in the center, hit firmly with a 12oz mallet. 




Then the next tool (v406) is added in the space between the sets of the first tool. 


Next, one of my go-to faves (c366)  fills the small gaps, followed by a nice wavy "bridge" (v421) over the centers. 

Here I wanted to create an undulation to the flow with an inverted crescent  (v920) followed by smaller crescents (v744) in the opposite direction to frame the inverted ones. (whew! by now I've hit this belt hundreds of times!)
Then the design is bound together with seed-dots (s705) and, finally, embellished with small peaks (u851) under the bridges.


Edges were beveled and burnished, the belt was dyed a deep antiqued brown and finished with my own secret multi-layer process. 
I hope this glimpse into my processes inspires your creative urges!

Mystery Braid

One of the coolest things I learned early in my leather-crafting history was the three-part inside trick braid, known far and wide as the Mystery Braid. The mystery of this braid, and the fun, lies in the fact that it's braided with both ends closed.
People often surmise that there are cleverly hidden slices and splices involved. Not so. As the name implies, there's a trick to it... an inside trick that I've put into a short tutorial video for you. In less than two minutes you can see how it's done -- in no time at all you can master this trick braid yourself! You'll find the video box at the bottom of this post or, if you prefer a larger view-window, you can see it on You Tube by clicking here.
A few points to remember: Braiding will shorten what you're working on, so measuring can be tricky. The amount of shortening depends on how thick your material is, how long the item is and how tightly you braid.
You'll want to experiment with this, but a good beginning rule of thumb for making full-grain leather belts or wristbands is to cut the plaits longer than the area you want braided by about 1/2 inch for every ten inches of braid.
In other words, if you want a twenty-inch section of a belt braided, cut your slices twenty-one inches long. I punch a hole at the end of each slice for tidiness and to help the ends of the braid to lie smooth.
All dyes and finishes should be applied before you braid, including your edge-coating. Vegetable-tanned tooling leather should be wet before braiding -- this won't hurt the leather finishes I normally use; if you are unsure of your products, you'll want to do a test-braid first. I always retreat the finished braid after it dries with a spray silicon for added protection.
With just a bit of practice you'll be weaving mysteries of your own!