And today my effort came to fruition, how does it look?
Just the belt: it's made up of a 2½" wide belt and a ¾" belt, the studs sticking out are called Sam Brown Rivet(8 total, in 4 pairs), the front buckle is just a metal side release buckle.
Front detail, showing a hidden rivet that fixes the front thin belt to the back wide belt. I looked around the net, couldn't find detail how people fix the narrow belt. So I came up with my own solution. I decided that I don't want to adjusting 2 seperate belts, so I fixed the narrow one to the wide one permanently. So it will always be centered between the Sam Brown rivets :-)
View from the back, a piece of leather hides the real buckle in the back.
Another view of the belt, showing the back piece can be seperated from the belt, simplly side over the belt to cover up the plastic buckle.
The back without cover:
Buckle detail, showing one side is fixed, note the narrow belt is also fixed to the wide belt.
Other half of the buckle, note the narrow belt is fixed to the wide belt - however the belt end is not riveted together, so the buckle can be adjusted. Mmmm, I call it room-for-expension....if you caught my drift... ;-)
I searched the net long and hard, couldn't find alot of details, there're diagrams of the belt, where does the rivets go, etc. But, nobody said anything about how the belts are fixed together, so I came up with my own.
The way I made it, I only need to adjust the plastic buckle and it's the only buckle I need to put together for the belt to work - no fiddling around. Since the narrow belt is fixed to the wide belt, it will always centered and look good.
However, when you fix the narrow belt to the wide belt, don't lay the belt flat and mark the holes. 'cause when you buckle up, the outer narrow belt will have longer cercumfrance. So, punch hole on the narrow belt first, then buckle up and mark the wide belt through the hole on the narrow belt.
The largest buckle I can find is 2", so you'll have to cut the wide belt a little, or you can just get a 2" belt - but personally I rekon the 2½" wide belt looks better.
Also, don't forget get leather die and varnish. I got the mahogny color. The die will come with some sort of fluffy ball for apply to the leather, I tried, but the result aren't as good, since it's small, so the color is a little uneven. So, I went over a couple time, it ended up very dark. My advice, use a cloth - it can apply to a wider area, so you won't need to go over it a few times, so it won't be so dark at the end. Same goes for the leather varnish, apply use a cloth.
As for the leather I used to cover the buckle, just get a piece of scrap leather. I got everything from Tandy leather factory, the scrap only costs $2.50 a pound. The whole belt cost me about $70-ish, it's not as cheap as I'd hoped for. But, I got the bragging right - I made it myself!!! :-) And everything as I wanted them to be.
Hope this is a good tutorial for any of you wantt to make your own Jedi belt.
Well, I hope
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