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Restoring Straps

  • Thread starter Thread starter Trailhand
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I'm actually really curious and I feel like this'd be a good question to ask for future personal use:

Couldn't you just make your own straps or maybe make some from say, old belts or something? I've seen a video where one guy had rope instead of straps, rope with some cushion padding maybe? Is there a reason why the DIY approach hasn't been suggested so far?
 
You could, there is nothing stopping you from making your own.

However much like the comments you have gotten on this site, sometimes it is just easier to buy them...
Ben
 
fjsys said:
You could, there is nothing stopping you from making your own.

However much like the comments you have gotten on this site, sometimes it is just easier to buy them...
Ben


Im just a really maker-type of person.

I think it really makes it personal and unique when you make your own stuff. Also theres fun to be had in handcrafting stuff. The same reason people make clay pots and earthenware instead of just going out and buying a £1 set of plates or factory made vase or when people learn to knit instead of buying a factory knitted scarf. Its all about the experience, the skills and the enjoyment from doing it and saying I made that when people ask wow, whered you buy that it looks great!

Our culture is very based around being wasteful and just buying new things instead of fixing or improving upon what we have, its really sad and is destroying our planet. I think with a recycling mindset, if something is broken beyond repair, find another use for it. Its possible to nearly completely get rid of your waste/trash by recycling and thinking outside the consumer box.

Perhaps recycling is the wrong term to use, maybe upcycling is more apt for what I mean.
 
Kem-
I agree with all of your points, in fact you sound a lot like me when I was 20 yrs younger.
My problem with all of this is that I am at a point in my life where time is more valuable than money.
I could spend hrs designing and creating new straps and getting my wife the quilter to sew some leather together for me, but in reality it would never get done. The two of us have far to many other projects to do and so $$ on new straps becomes no problem.

As to your other thread about tuning. Good luck. While I have the ear for it, my hands do not do well with the small work (never have been steady enough to do delicate work) so I have to know my limitations.

I completely understand what you mean and think it is great that you are doing what you are doing. Keep it up.
Ben
 
fjsys said:
Kem-
I agree with all of your points, in fact you sound a lot like me when I was 20 yrs younger.
My problem with all of this is that I am at a point in my life where time is more valuable than money.
I could spend hrs designing and creating new straps and getting my wife the quilter to sew some leather together for me, but in reality it would never get done. The two of us have far to many other projects to do and so $$ on new straps becomes no problem.

As to your other thread about tuning. Good luck. While I have the ear for it, my hands do not do well with the small work (never have been steady enough to do delicate work) so I have to know my limitations.

I completely understand what you mean and think it is great that you are doing what you are doing. Keep it up.
Ben


Were in opposite situations, Im 21 years young with nothing but time and no money, haha.
Thanks and I definitely will keep at it until its playing.

kem
 
Hopefully at 21 you are working hard to build up your pension.
 
Glenn said:
Hopefully at 21 you are working hard to build up your pension.

Unfortunately not, Im unemployed and attempting to find employment, but honestly its difficult when youve got no work references. Ive only done work experience in retail and had a job at a warehouse so far as I went to college for three years.

Ive not really got much interest in having a pension, I plan to move abroad to the rural US and live self-sufficiently in my own cob homestead (being done with money) eventually. I just need a job to save for a vehicle, land, the plane ticket, a few fruit trees to transplant to the property and a buffer, to live on until I can get my own food growing (though hunting and wildlife abound in the locations Im looking to move to.)

Im blessed in that I dont really buy anything, the last thing I bought was a carton of apple juice last time I was out for a walk about two weeks ago. Ive been looking for a job for roughly two months now and its painfully apparent I need a tradeskill, preferably something in electrical, plumbing, carpentry or horticulture/groundskeeping/farming, skills I can/will eventually use.

If anyone here is looking for an apprentice in one of those skills and are in the UK, let me know! Haha.

Kem
 
You could also build your self a stand out of wood and nail then you could just stand there and play it with out worrying about straps. Don't know if there is such a thing, and if not, you could invent one and possibly become a millionaire.. imagine that.
 
Johnniez said:
You could also build your self a stand out of wood and nail then you could just stand there and play it with out worrying about straps. Dont know if there is such a thing, and if not, you could invent one and possibly become a millionaire.. imagine that.

I think Ive seen this done before on youtube but dont hold me to that. Also, hed have to overprice it to make millions! Haha.
 
I re read this.

You know.. All you need is the ends that are on the what ever you call it that the strap in goes through.... Maybe you can just get those ends that are worn..

IF NOT

Find a SHOE repair guy. Take those ends, there are 4 of them on your straps .. take them off and go do shoe repair guy and see if he can make them for you. Buckles and all just transfer over to new ones as he makes them

Give it a shot.. You all to gain.. All he can say is no. Don't do it on the phone. Get into sales man mode.. I have had a few leather things, not accordion related, that have had repaired at a shoe repair guy.. They are getting harder and harder to find tho.

Just thought I would mention that.

have fund

Johnnie
 
Been discussed before. The big shoe repairer chains - Timpsons etc in the UK - say they haven't got the machines to do the leather thickness required for accordion straps. Nor the independents near me in Cheshire. Saddlers can handle it.. but they tend to expensive.
 
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