Horsewright
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2011
- Messages
- 13,239
Well, in a leather crafting way. As many folks around here know, we make a lot of chaps/leggings for cowboyin' use. Recently I had an order for a pair of Arizona Bells. These are a type of legging worn by cowboys and as the name suggests, originally from the AZ area. In recent years you have seen a widespread intermingling of different types of leggings from their regional homes. Colloquially, AZ Bells are know as "step ins", as the upper leg is laced together and the chap is pulled on. Some years back I wrote a little pictorial history of our making of all the different type of leggings. We use the term legging instead of chaps as there are so many different types. Ya can read here about the many different styles of leggings here:
www.bladeforums.com
Todays thread will be much more of a WIP so follow along as I build this set of AZ Bells. I've only built a few pair of these type of chaps so I have to go slow and kinda think about it as I go. This took a couple of days to get done but they were light days. A few hours here and a couple there. Here's our hides. Bells are traditionally made from a heavy 8/9 oz boarhide. This makes them extremely durable, kinda like a tank is durable but they are heavy. My customer and friend wanted a little lighter and a slimmer fit too, than is normal on these guys. We found these boarhides at Maverick Leather. They are 3/4 oz and oiled pretty heavily, just beautiful hides. Boarhide does come in hides BTW, not sides, as it's a smaller animal than a cow. We bought two hides for this project:
First part is to layout our pattern along the hide and get that situated right. You are trying to cut around any flaws or holes obviously and maximize the use of the good leather Here are our two pattern pieces. The chap leg itself out of brown paper and the leather strap is a hole punching template I made for the very first pair of bells I ever made:
The customer had driven over, (from the coast a three hour drive), for a fitting and this existing pattern I'd had from my friend Bear, fit him perfectly. So, we didn't have to make any size modifications, an unusual deal in the chap making business:
We need two upper leg reinforcement pieces. The one pictured has already been cut out and then flipped as its the the new pattern piece. These are cut out apart from the main leg piece and will be sewn on:
One leg and the two reinforcement pieces.
I use a roller knife to cut out most of the leg. However there is a small notch on the inside of the leg that I have to cut out with a roundknife:
Then this leg is flipped onto the other hide and used as the pattern for the second leg. I scribe around it with my red pokey tool and then cut out the second leg. ALWAYS remember to flip the first leg over before using it as a pattern. Ask me how I know:
This pair of chaps was going to have a contrasting dark brown fringe and accent pieces. So ya can see materials cost on a project like this can get up there, ya need two boarhides and side of dark brown chap leather. On this pair the fringe, bell reinforcements, lacing and pocket are going to be dark brown. Cutting out the fringe, pocket parts, and the bell reinforcements. Later we'll also cut two long 5/8" laces. The fringe:
All the dark brown parts except the laces:
This pair will have tooled yokes so we need to cut those out of 8/10 oz russet Wicket and Craig. I always use a straight edge when I can for cutting and the roller knife will cut this heavier leather too
Cut the curves with a roundknife:
Everything Is cut out so I'll tool the yokes now and get them finished up so they can be drying. This way when I'm ready for them they are good to go. Here they are tooled and oiled. After letting the oil set awhile they'll be finished and have their edges rubbed.
Meanwhile, I'll start putting the other pieces together. So the leg reinforcement pieces have to be skivved as they will go under the yokes:
They are then glued and sewn into position:
We are then going to glue up and sew our bell reinforcements:
So both reinforcement pieces are glued and sewn on both legs now:
So now the yokes, all finished, are ready to be sewn on. At the same time I will sew the two pocket pieces together. Bells generally have two pockets a welt pocket like this one on the right leg and a patch pocket on the left leg. However, on this order we were just doing the welt pocket on the left leg. The curve of the pocket allows the items carried to rest alongside the leg instead of on top of the leg:
Well time to go feed all the critters around this rancho. Check back tomorrow and we'll finish this WIP off. As always questions and comments are welcome.
Climbed the Summit!
Years ago there use to be this little restaurant here in town called The Summit. They were very close to where Hwy 58 crossed the summit of Tehachapi Pass and thus the name. Could easily see it from the ranch. Their claim to fame was they had 58 different beers from around the world. They'd give...
www.bladeforums.com
Todays thread will be much more of a WIP so follow along as I build this set of AZ Bells. I've only built a few pair of these type of chaps so I have to go slow and kinda think about it as I go. This took a couple of days to get done but they were light days. A few hours here and a couple there. Here's our hides. Bells are traditionally made from a heavy 8/9 oz boarhide. This makes them extremely durable, kinda like a tank is durable but they are heavy. My customer and friend wanted a little lighter and a slimmer fit too, than is normal on these guys. We found these boarhides at Maverick Leather. They are 3/4 oz and oiled pretty heavily, just beautiful hides. Boarhide does come in hides BTW, not sides, as it's a smaller animal than a cow. We bought two hides for this project:
First part is to layout our pattern along the hide and get that situated right. You are trying to cut around any flaws or holes obviously and maximize the use of the good leather Here are our two pattern pieces. The chap leg itself out of brown paper and the leather strap is a hole punching template I made for the very first pair of bells I ever made:
The customer had driven over, (from the coast a three hour drive), for a fitting and this existing pattern I'd had from my friend Bear, fit him perfectly. So, we didn't have to make any size modifications, an unusual deal in the chap making business:
We need two upper leg reinforcement pieces. The one pictured has already been cut out and then flipped as its the the new pattern piece. These are cut out apart from the main leg piece and will be sewn on:
One leg and the two reinforcement pieces.
I use a roller knife to cut out most of the leg. However there is a small notch on the inside of the leg that I have to cut out with a roundknife:
Then this leg is flipped onto the other hide and used as the pattern for the second leg. I scribe around it with my red pokey tool and then cut out the second leg. ALWAYS remember to flip the first leg over before using it as a pattern. Ask me how I know:
This pair of chaps was going to have a contrasting dark brown fringe and accent pieces. So ya can see materials cost on a project like this can get up there, ya need two boarhides and side of dark brown chap leather. On this pair the fringe, bell reinforcements, lacing and pocket are going to be dark brown. Cutting out the fringe, pocket parts, and the bell reinforcements. Later we'll also cut two long 5/8" laces. The fringe:
All the dark brown parts except the laces:
This pair will have tooled yokes so we need to cut those out of 8/10 oz russet Wicket and Craig. I always use a straight edge when I can for cutting and the roller knife will cut this heavier leather too
Cut the curves with a roundknife:
Everything Is cut out so I'll tool the yokes now and get them finished up so they can be drying. This way when I'm ready for them they are good to go. Here they are tooled and oiled. After letting the oil set awhile they'll be finished and have their edges rubbed.
Meanwhile, I'll start putting the other pieces together. So the leg reinforcement pieces have to be skivved as they will go under the yokes:
They are then glued and sewn into position:
We are then going to glue up and sew our bell reinforcements:
So both reinforcement pieces are glued and sewn on both legs now:
So now the yokes, all finished, are ready to be sewn on. At the same time I will sew the two pocket pieces together. Bells generally have two pockets a welt pocket like this one on the right leg and a patch pocket on the left leg. However, on this order we were just doing the welt pocket on the left leg. The curve of the pocket allows the items carried to rest alongside the leg instead of on top of the leg:
Well time to go feed all the critters around this rancho. Check back tomorrow and we'll finish this WIP off. As always questions and comments are welcome.
Last edited:
