Wie man einen Ledergürtel macht | SWR Handwerkskunst

It is hammered, cut and glued. Leather is processed and carefully sewn by hand. I am, I like to admit, a hand sewing fetishist. The leather belts by Ralf Hörmann are more than just a holder for men's trousers. A personal statement, especially for men. Today I am making a belt out of best saddle leather, crude saddle leather. As inlay I am not using exotic leather, but chicken foot leather. I bought it in whole Sammelsurium from an old carpenter who still had some. I think we'll take grey. Let's have a look. You have to make sure that there are no holes or missing places. We need about 14 pieces for a standard belt length. Here is the left foot and the right foot, and then the structure fits. When I put them together later, it fits best when I put the left and the right together. The unusual chicken foot leather was once in fashion for watch bracelets. Ralf Hörmann discovered it for his leather belts. The decorative leather can be easily cut with a sharp tool. Now we put the feet together, each left and right. I take my sharp knife for this. It has to be sharp. Like a carpenter puts together a piece of veneer in a mirror image, the individual parts of the inlay are fitted exactly to each other. The bump edges are cut at an angle on both sides. That fits. We'll glue that in a moment. I lay the cut surfaces flush on top of each other. Then I take the glue. A puzzle for which he cuts the parts himself. When joining, Ralf Hörmann uses a special leather glue. The glue needs a little pressure. As perfect as a wallpaper pattern. The adhesive point is hardly visible. Next. Now let's check the length. This is the base, the carrier, this saddle leather. There are two more to go. Ralf Hörmann is a trained carpenter, but ... I've always had it with leather and fur. It was always there. I worked on leather in my partner's piece at the time. I brought tablecloths, made leather handles on my partner's piece. It lasted until the master exam. Leather was always there. Ralf Hörmann had the sharp knife for left-handed people specially made. So that there are no shiny spots, he can only tap carefully. So, we've done the inlay. The chicken leather must be stabilized with a fleece base before further processing. Now we can glue the fleece to the inlay. Make sure that you apply the glue evenly everywhere. So, done. Now we let the glue dry. And now we apply the glue to the fleece. I roll it up a bit so that I can guide it better. And now we glue it in the middle. Like this. Put it on. To get the glue in contact, I use a pin. And press it a bit so that there is a homogeneous adhesion. The next step is to cut the belt. I take a nice piece of my saddle leather. Here we have a black one. I prefer to process this classic, grooved rye leather. It has a stable, tightly meshed fiber structure. I can polish the edges of my belts and pockets by hand. I don't paint my edges, I polish them. In addition, the fiber structure of the leather has to be very tightly meshed. So that I can polish a nice, perfect edge with a glue emulsion, with the corresponding color and then under pressure with a rolling pin. And to cut this belt exactly to this 38 millimeters, as wide as my buckle, I have a belt cutter here. There is a very fine knife in here. Here you set the distance, the width of the strip that you are now cutting. Tightened. And then I can cut it here now. Very carefully. It's relatively tight because the leather is really nice and hard. But the better our belt will be afterwards. That would be one. And now we still need a narrow strip for our interval bands, for this part here. But I prefer to clamp my belt cutter. The interval strips can only be colored and polished on the wide band. The cutting of the narrow strips will follow later. So. That gives the interval strips. With the edge puller we now make a nice, even edge here. So, the other side still. So, done. Next, I now color the edges with a leather brush. Because it is so nice and durable, I use gloves. And because I have already had bad experiences, I secure my little paint container. Now it gets dark from the other side. The next step is to polish the edges with our bone glue. We already have it warm. I have a wool dauber so that you can apply it nicely. If it has the right temperature, it soaks nicely into the fibers. That's how we want it. We take off the excess. So, our polishing wood. With this we can now compact the fibers until they shine. And the bone glue stabilizes the whole thing. Then we have a durable, shiny edge. We have now polished the edge of the interval strips. Now we cut the 7 mm strips for this interval with our belt cutter. Once. And now the second strip. Good. I now roughly cut the tip before we glue the inlay on. And the other side. Now let's see if it all fits. If not, we can put it on. Wonderful. Now the inlay is glued to the carrier leather. Since this is a contact glue, we have to apply it on both sides. Once. Finished. Then we put this on here. The chicken leather inlay is glued to the saddle leather without any creases by the leather specialist. With the crease leg, he smooths the bumps to the edge. The edges for the interval strips are prepared. Good. I take the compass. I draw my area where I can sharpen. So, the other side too. With the fixed compass, the exact distance to the edge is marked. Carefully, the leather expert cuts the edge deeper and cleans the edges. The belt should get a curved shape. Now we have a good adhesive surface for our inlay. In order to apply glue, I glue the adhesive surfaces here. We now apply the glue for the inlay. Then we pull off the tape. Ralf Hörmann glues the inlay strips flush. The rest is for our loop. Here, too, the crease leg is used again. Then I get the template now. In the wooden frame, the belt is clamped to dry and thus maintains its shape. I made the template myself. I'm a carpenter by profession. It's not a problem to make something like this. It can stay clamped overnight. Then the glue is bonded. Our belt is nice and straight. Then it can be processed. Now I've taken a piece of leather. We'll make the loop out of it. I have to cut it short. Remarkable! With the same care and the same effort as for the belt, Ralf Hörmann processes the small leather loop. Here, too, he glues the chicken leather inlay and clasps it to the edge with the cattle saddle leather strips. To clamp it, the carpenter has also built a wooden mold here. Overnight, the belt has dried. Now comes the exciting moment. It still looks like a belt. Perfect, straight, clean. I am very satisfied with the result. It has been glued cleanly. Next, we'll do the seam preparation. Then it will be sewn by hand. A well-sewn belt ultimately ensures durability. So that it lasts an extremely long time. And that it keeps its shape for a long time. If I cut out a 40mm belt, it should still be 40mm. Even after 10 or 15 years. If I use a different material, a thinner, softer material, it usually pulls together in the back area, at the jeans loop in the middle. And then it gets narrower. I now grind the edge here. There are still slight unevennesses from the gluing. To do this, I moisten the edge a little. Then the leather can be processed better. That's enough. I take a coarse sandpaper at the front. Then we take a fine paper afterwards. Then the edge can be polished better afterwards. Fits. We now color the edges. To have it nice and deep black. So, fits. Brand own-built. In this device, the leather belt can be taut and processed firmly at the edge. Our glue emulsion. Remove excess. The leather can be polished wonderfully. Compact the fibers nicely. So. Smooth as a baby's butt. The loop is now dried. This is what the part looks like. Then I draw the seam allowance. With the iron. Now mark my seam. Other side. Done. Now it's time to sew by hand. To do this, I use my self-constructed sewing club. Which was built especially for my needs. Where we can tighten our loop nicely. Now I take a sword eagle. Sword eagle, because it looks like a rod in the cross-section. Very important. The sword eagle should be placed at a 45 degree angle. And at the right angle to the upper edge. As a counterpressure, I just put a piece of foam here. And pierce my holes as evenly as possible. Good. Now it's time to sew the seam allowance. For this I use a trout thread. Wax it a little with beeswax. So that the thread holds nicely in the stitch and sticks. That's enough. And now we attach the saddle needle. To do this, I pierce my thread here. I pierce it again. And again. So that I get a picture like this. Then I pull the whole thing to the eye. And put the end of the thread through the eye. Back. And through. And now I have my thread fixed on the needle. The significant difference between hand sewing and machine sewing. With hand sewing, we have one thread and two needles. With machine sewing, we have an upper thread and a lower thread. Which ideally connects in the middle with the machine. If you have a cut in there and the thread is cut through somewhere. You can pull up a machine thread. With hand sewing, we only have one thread. Which now forms a loop. So. So, finished. We have now finished sewing the loop. Along both edges. Nice step seam. And now we want to connect the whole thing here. Before we shape it properly. Perfection to the detail. Ralf Hörmann has been working on the hand-sewn leather belt for two days. Let's tighten this up a bit. Pull a nice knot. So, now it is firmly connected. Now we can shape the loop. To do this, I wet the whole thing with this glue emulsion. On the back I have used a leather runner here. It thankfully absorbs this moisture. The more it absorbs this glue emulsion, the more stable the loop becomes. Now we pump it a little bit into the depth. Now I have prepared a form. Three-part. We put this on here. We press them apart. Let's see if that works. It is now a bit deformed. By this pressure, by this pull. But we'll get it back in shape tomorrow. Our loop is dry. I'm shaping it now. It has become nice and stable. It has got its shape. Then I take a slightly larger iron inside. So that we get a nicer, larger phase. So that the belt runs better in here afterwards. And then the slightly finer one comes around the outside. The loop edge is also colored black, analogous to the belt. My longtime companion, my polishing cloth. It's getting better and better. There is now a little bit of heat under pressure. This polishes it, the glue dries. Done. I now mark the seam allowance in the circle. The other edge still. Ralf Hörmann presses the seam holes with the iron over the entire belt length. There are different types of iron. They vary depending on the thread strength. The leather professional works concentrated. The seam pattern should look perfect later. So, then it's about the curve here. It's getting a little difficult. Now I have to turn around. So, done. Now we still have to make the seam hole here. I have prepared a hole reinforcement. I like to do that on the belts where the inlay leather is relatively thin and sensitive. Like snakes. They are also very thin. And now these chicken feet are also relatively thin. I sew that up as reinforcement. Then I make my holes in here afterwards. And then it works for sure. In order to place this, I have a tape. To tape it off. So that I can determine the position. There is actually only the template for gluing. So that I don't smear the environment. Now I cut out this tape at this point. It looks like this. A little smaller than the reinforcement part is ultimately. The contact glue must be applied on both sides. Align the middle. I have already marked the seam. Now we can prick it. So, try again to keep the 45 degrees as evenly as possible. Wonderful, now we can sew it up. So, the sewing club is ready. The holes are pierced. I don't need any more needles. Now we are through. We cut here briefly. The next step is to close our belt. Sew the loop. Sew in the loop. And install our roll closure. The roll closure is to say, I have a special model here. Because I have had a lot of bad experiences. As far as the surface is concerned. Often I got such parts. Where after a relatively short time, the surface coating has come off. And the copper primer comes under it. And that's a pretty ugly story. For this reason, several years ago, I had a whole batch in Italy. Let it pour in massive brass and chrome it hard. To the closure itself. According to my philosophy, a belt closure must be straight here in any case. Ideally rounded off. And here the add-on. A roll on the front. This means that a belt in the closure area can slide through without damage forever. Nothing more happens. No edges are damaged. No surface is damaged. At most in the hole area we get a little bit of a pressure point. And that's it. This is now installed here. To do this, we have to apply a glue again. So that we can glue it nicely. We now apply plenty of glue. We can leave out the closure area here. Otherwise, the closure will stick to it. Now we let it air out nicely. So, the thread is ready. The glue has aired out a bit. Closure. So, now we can tighten it again for sewing. Then we prick here. One, two, three, four. This goes through the very thick material here. Now we make this catch stitch over there. To do this, we have to prick with the round awl. If we do this with the sword awl, then we prick through the thread. Now we have to go through here extremely thick. Through the loop and double through the belt. All sewing holes are pricked with the sword awl. And are now carefully sewn by hand. Ralf Hörmann needs over two hours for the perfectly executed hand seam along the belt edge. So, now the last stitch right behind the closure. Now we make this catch stitch over the edge. Now we need the round awl again so that we don't prick through the thread. Let's go through again. Extend the last stitch hole. Two and a half stitches back. Finished sewing. Cut off the thread. Quite short. And fine. Fits. Now we make this rifle edge. By doing this, the seam is nice and straight. The thread is slightly sunk. With the fine rifle iron, we make a rifle edge on the outside. Other side. So, the front side is finished. Both edges. I'll do it on the back side. Do the same again. This makes the seam a bit slimmer, a bit fancier. So. Now we have a nice seam pattern. Front and back. Now one thing is missing. The holes. We have to do this on the seam reinforcement. For this I made a small cardboard template. And now we have to carefully punch out the holes between the seam. So that I don't damage the thread. Yes, fits. My pliers speak to me. And the last one. Perfect. So. Let's try the loop. Ah. Perfect. So, we have our treasure. I am very satisfied. Then there is a nice packaging for the customer. Let's put the belt together. Put it in the box. It took three days for the leather belt made of beef and chicken leather to be finished. The noble piece of clothing costs 550 euros, which will certainly bring joy to its wearer for a long time. Did you like this craft? Then write us your opinion about the film in the comments. And don't forget to subscribe to the channel.