New bracelet/cuff.

So, back in the mists of time, eons ago, when I was an up and coming(Ha!) knife maker, there was a great guy, and a leather worker on one of the forums I was on.  Mitch of Red Hand Leather, out of Australia.

He started making some heavy duty belts. I had just bought a heavy single action .45Colt revolver and needed a heavy belt to carry it.

 Thus we worked out a trade, I made him a small 6” overall Nessmuk knife in oasge orange and 1095, and he made me a belt. 1.5” wide, 52” long(center hole) heavy bison(the non USA version… think water buffalo) leather. I ordered basket weave stamped with tiger(wild cat actually) stamps, and oxblood in color.  

Skip ahead about 10 years, and I still have that belt, and still wear it. Its not my main EDW belt, but I still wear it often, usually on my knock around pants around the house. It long since softened up to where it doesn’t support a high ride concealed carry holster, but its still a great belt, and I rarely carry a heavy gun in a high holster anyway.

I can hear you now; How do we get to a cuff/bracelet in this story?

Simple… The belt was cut and punched for my then 52” waist. Over the years as I lost weight and girth, I simple re-punched new holes. Since I am down verry recently to a 40” waist(YAAAYYY!!!), you can imagine how much free length of tail this belt has… 12” to the original wear hole, and then the original tail past that.  A good 17” of tail that wraps from the buckle half way around me again!

It needed cut down. So, I got the idea that if I was going to cut about 10” off of it, I might as well make something out of it. I’d been wantingto make a cuff bracelet/cuff watch strap anyway, so it seemed a natural way to go.

So,  with the tail cut from this belt, a fancy vintage buckle I bought last spring but didn’t use for my leather and 550 cord bracelet, the remnants of the old leather strap from that bracelet before I re-did it, the last of the oval NATO strap hardware I had saved, some measureing and riveting later, and I have a heavy, somewhat flashy “Ranger belt” styled cuff to wear;

I wanted big, wide, and a bit fancy, but still leather, classy, western, and overall understated… If that makes any sense. I think I got what I wanted. But it does seem just a bit BIG..

BUT, As big and wide as it is, its not actually that much wider than the leather and 550 cord bracelet that I’ve already been wearing for about 3.5 years… The buckle is a Lot bigger, but overall its not that much difference.

Only issue I can see with it is that it does sit a bit high in the bucle area… Its pretty bulky. But as long as I have the foresight to not wear it in any tight space work where it can snag and I lose a hand, just like any other jewelry or watches, and it’ll be fine.

Overall I like it. I wore it all day Sunday, and its sized great and feels/wears fine, it disapeared, couldn’t tell it was there 90% of the time. 

I Think I Might go back with a new watch strap piece later on and re-do it so the center strap runs all the way around it, so that I can put any of my watches onto it if I want to.