Belt I'm tooling around in now

Horsewright

Horsewright

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Oct 4, 2011
Messages
13,482
A few months back Nichole and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. She commisioned a friend to build this 3 piece silver buckle set for me as a present, (I gave her a 75" reata). Our friend is a bit and spur maker but makes buckles and jewelery as well. After I received the set I gave him a call to thank him. He told me he had over 6 hours in just removing the silver from the background to make the high relief engraving. I love how he incorporated the Celtic design elements with the western.

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I didn't get to wear it for a few months as a new buckle set deserves a new belt and Nichole wanted to make me one of her fully carved belts. Took a while but I've been wearing it daily for about a month now.

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Its interesting to me how similar the high relief engraving is to the flower carving in the leather. Not in the design elements so much but more in finished appearance. I was gonna keep this as a nice belt and buckle, for dressier going out to dinner kind of deals but she saind no its an edc.
 
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Really nice belt set up and a really nice gift from your wife. She's obviously a keeper. :D
 
Super nice, wow! The buckle is a piece of art, and so is all the carving in the belt itself!!! Im sure you could sell a belt like that with the silver for quite a pretty penny.
And your wife and I have the same name, she even spells it right...everyone always forgets the h:).
 
Thanks guys. Nic, yeah she's particular on that H.
 
No one ever spells it right:). Seriously, if I was as skilled at leather working as you and knew a guy as talented at silver work like him...id be calling him up and doing some collaboration. They'd be a hit!
 
We have done some collaborations: My Ranchero knife, nickel silver bolster and blue Mammoth Tooth for the handle. My friend Mike engraved the bolster.

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A Ranchero again this time with elk for the handle.

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This is probably my single most popular knife The Tapadero: Here in Cocobolo.

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And then in sheephorn.

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Mike and I were sitting under a tree on a very hot day one time some years back. We were watching the wives ride in a ladies only horsemanship clinic. Mike had been a big outfit bedroll cowboy for 30 years before I met him. I asked him how many calves did he think he'd cut (castrated during the branding process) in all those years. He sat there for a bit and you could see him doing the math in his head. He said "probably over a million", (which is certainly many hundreds of thousands more than me). So I asked him to draw out the perfect branding knife and The Tapadero was what he came up with. The only change I made to his drawing in the dirt was I dropped the back of the handle down a little bit knowing it would fit a wider variety of hands. I named it after Mike as his nickname when he was cowboyin' was Tapadero. He got the first one.

Another collaboration. Nichole and Mike sat down at a show one time for a couple of hours and designed this Las Cruces style bridle bit. It was for Nichole. It is now his most poular bit that he makes. He did all the silver on the headstall in this pic too, to match the bit.

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Thanks guys! MT, Nichole did all the tooling stitching and finishing on that belt. All I did was cut out the blank and lining, taper it to fit the buckle set and then trimmed the lining after sewing. 8-10oz Wickett and Craig on top and 4-5 oz belt latigo lining by the way.
 
Thanks Macan. Won't be able to use it anymore here in California after July 1.
 
Horsewright, Didn't your hear? They are worried mammoths will go extinct if you keep using their teeth for knife handles, right?

John
 
Ya know John they may be right. I sure havn't seen one around here in a long time!! The bill (AB96) is suppose to save elephants from poaching. However its nonsensical. Not alot of Columbian drug lords take their cocaine and turn it back into coca leaves. Bad business and this bill prevents that ...if it were to happen. Big $$ out of my pocket so I'm all warm and fuzzy about it. Lets all sit around the campfire, hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
 
Also congrats on the anniversary too, what a great looking setup and those knives! kinda fancy for a cowboy but you sure can see the cowboy influence in them, they are all business looking blades and great handle design too.

Love that celtic engraving, I'd get everything engraved with something celtic if I could :)
G2
 
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