Leather watch strap keeper

Posted by Marcus Folkesson on Monday, February 13, 2023

Leather watch strap keeper

My watch was missing the strap keeper, so I had to make one.

To be honest, I did not put my soul into this project, I had an urge to fix it while the food was getting ready in the oven.

Anyway, here is my steps to make one.

The steps

Cut out a leather strap. My final size was about 14mm wide.

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Bevel the edges:

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The leather I was using was about 4oz, that is too thick, so thin it out:

/media/leatherband-3.jpg

Cut it to the right length. Also thin out the ends so that the overlapping becomes smooth:

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Paint it black:

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Mark where to stamp the holes:

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Stamp the holes:

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Add leather edge color and burn the edges:

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Apply shene to make the finish look good:

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Hand stitch and glue the keeper together. The stitches is both for cosmetic and functional. It prevents the leather from stretching.

The result

/media/leatherband-10.jpg

I'm actually pretty happy with the result. It took approx 1 hour and that was what I had.

I should probably have used the sewing machine though, I think it would look better with finer stitches and thinner thread.