I recently built a guitarstrap for boutique guitar builder Teye. His guitars are awesome and I’m really happy I’m an owner. Last summer Teye was really supportive in starting this guitarstrap hobby, so when he came to visit our guitar shop, the prefect gift was waiting for him!
A little movie I made from the stills I took when building a guitar strap for Joe Bonamassa 
We went to Amsterdam to meet and greet Joe Bonamassa. Erjan from Dunlop Manufacturing was kind enough to set things up for a small deligation from Max Guitar.
I had the chance to present Joe with the strap I made and shake hands with the man himself!!
Joe loves the strap and it is now on his Goldtop (with bigsby). At the Carre he used that guitar for “Dust Bowl”.
After a couple of hours of stitching, the strap is done. I added covers for the strap button to preserve the clean look. Off to meet Joe Bonamassa in the Carre theatre in Amsterdam.
All coloring and some part of the border are finished with Super Shene to prevent the Saddle Tan color to wipe the colors. It’s takes almost as much time as painting itself…
Time to add some background color
Looks almost finshed, but it still needs a nice soft leather back and some shoulder padding. I really like the colors!
Putting on the leather backing is a smelly job, once the two pieces meet, they’l never part again, still needs stitching so back to work…
The flower, koi’s and letters are done, time for the outside border.
Saddle tan is a nice, soft color for the background with Dark Brown lettering. The border will have natural hi-lites, the koi’s will be brigthly colored for contrast.
The bright orange and yellow koi fish really jumps out against the natural backdrop
First Koi cut into the strap, it turned out very nice!
Bevelling this detailed takes some special focus…
The two koi’s will meet up at a lotus flower on top of the shoulder. Since the strap length, Warren and Erjan gave me, is the same as my own strap size it wasn’t too hard to figure out the placement.
Adding depth makes the koi come alive, I used a modeler tool for this.
First steps, no way back from here on. Cutting into leather is tricky
part 2 of the design getting measured to make sure it fits between the borders. The Koi stands for courage, longevity, strength and durabilty. It strives to swim against the flow, something Joe’s been doing for a long time.
At this point I started doubting myself, because the Koi would get really small. The smaller designs are harder to cut into the leather so I deceided to make a test piece.
I went a bit overboard with my test piece, I could have just stopped when the cuts were done, ah well..
I started work on a fancy strap for Joe Bonamassa.
It’s featuring his name, some fancy border and a little surpise.
Here’s some shots:
Design phase
Deceided on different style
Cutting the letter into the leather
Voor mijn tweede strap heb ik gekozen voor een wat eenvoudiger ontwerp.
Een gedeelte basket weave, hier onder komt de kalfshuid om de schouder te beschermen. Aan de voor- en achterkant een tribal YinYang, uiteraard met een fraaie border. Geen kleuren, dit keer heb ik alleen stukken afgeschermd voor de antiek stain.
Side by side met de eerste en de nieuwste (!)
