How to make the baldric edges?

[Risu]

So I've retired my Jack, at least for now, and I'll soon be moving on to another of Penny Rose's creations, the movie Prince of Persia costume. On close inspection, it turns out that quite a bit of the leather work on the costume is done in the exact same way as Jack's baldric, with the thin leather sewn around the edges and wrapped around back. I'm no stranger to leather work, but the one time I attempted to do this (the trim on the AWE tricorn) it went terribly, terribly wrong. I was hoping somebody might be able to give me some useful advise (not the "you'll figure it out" I've been given by various artisans who didn't want to share) on how to do this, particularly how to go about doing corners and other curves, what type (tooling or garment) and weight of leather is recommended for the binding, and how/in what order you dye or wet form the parts. Do you dye both pieces of leather first, then sew them together and wet form, do you sew and wet form first, then dye? How do you wet form the trim leather without getting the main piece so wet it horribly deforms? (that's what happened to my tricorn brim) Any help would really be appreciated. Here's a picture of one of the pieces in question.

[Capn_Jack_Savvy]

Risu! I'm finishing up my OST tricorn. For the brim and the crown I am using 1-1 1/2 ounce veggie tan calfskin. Very soft, very light, and once wet molded holds the shape very well. The trim am using veggie tan deerskin. It is difficult to say what weight but I think I would have to go about 2mm. I am hand stitching so it takes much longer to complete the edging.

Here is my last tricorn commission that gives you an idea of how I went about adding the edging.

[Capn_Jack_Savvy]

By the way the trim is so thin that you do not have to wet mold it to the edge. Sew about 6mm inward from the edge of the brim. I use a roller to mark the holes and hand punch them in both the trim and the brim. I just use the standard double stitch method all the way around. Now slowly pull the trim over the edge of the brim without exposing the stitch. Glue the underside of the trim and slowly squish the leather glue around. Clean up any mess. Clamp. Do about 4 inches at a time. As you can see from some of my pics I have some buckling in the trim on the hidden part of the trim. Not noticeable but not my best work on the edge.

Oh yeah! Screengrabs from the movie 1080p version shows that the trim on OST hero tricorn is one piece. No three pieces like in DMC/AWE. I have to cut a new piece for my OST tricorn.

[Captain McCool]

Good Lord, I didn't realize you were doing that all by hand!

[Risu]

Deerskin, huh? Can you get that at Tandy? I could definitely see that working well, the stuff is nice and stretchy. I figured some kind of garment leather would be much better for this than something like tooling kip.

[Capn_Jack_Savvy]

Deerskin is very lightweight and about $35-$45 for a half hide at Tandy. They moved by the way!!! Rosie retired and now Ron runs the place...good man...good pirate.

For the Sands Of Time pieces it looks alot like goat skin. Goat skin is very good to use but it is not cheap and often times the way the hide is prepared it is already finished so you cannot stain. I have a few goatskin hides that I was going to try and make an Indy Raider's jacket but realized I can't stain them. I now use them for hat bands!

Check out eBay for hides too. Their are a few places that I frequent but I'll have to look them up later. Better prices than Tandy. Tandy went under a major marketing re-establishing the brand and has changed some of their leather vendors. Quality is so so now.

Make sure you get plain veggie tan deerskin because like the goatskin it might already be finished. I am using a denatured alcohol to wipe down the leather, let it dry, and stain. Cleans off any finish on the leather. Be sure to use denatured.

[Capn_Jack_Savvy]

By the way for the baldric edging I would just use calfskin. 1 ounce will suffice.

[Risu]

Cool, that answers just about everything, thanks!

And yea, Ron's great. I drove down to Tandy last week and my car broke down 3 miles away. I had to wait an hour for help to get there, so I ran to Tandy and he was nice enough to keep it open an extra 15 minutes for me to get what I needed.

I thought goatskin would work, but it is problematic. The thing about this armor is that nothing on the arms is actually tooling leather, it's all soft. The chest is the only part with a stiffer leather, and the close enough stuff I got at Tandy will have to be backed with tooling leather to make it so.

[Jack Is Back]

Cool, that answers just about everything, thanks!

And yea, Ron's great. I drove down to Tandy last week and my car broke down 3 miles away. I had to wait an hour for help to get there, so I ran to Tandy and he was nice enough to keep it open an extra 15 minutes for me to get what I needed.

I thought goatskin would work, but it is problematic. The thing about this armor is that nothing on the arms is actually tooling leather, it's all soft. The chest is the only part with a stiffer leather, and the close enough stuff I got at Tandy will have to be backed with tooling leather to make it so.

You could use veg tan but you would have to skive it down (shave it) pretty thin from the back. Cut a uniform groove with something like pro-groover. Use an overstitch wheel to mark the stitch spots, then stitch away face edge to face edge. turn over edge onto the back and glue and clamp. Double stitch with 2 needles in a figure 8 style etc.

Jack is back

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