Our quality leather goods are made to order. When you order online or over the phone, you will have many options for us to personalize your handmade leather product. Although your handcrafted leather item can be left plain, we specialize in personalized leather goods. Because every leather item is individually crafted, our leather goods make excellent personalized unique gift ideas for that hard to find special item for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries and groomsmen.
We have a large variety of choices in guitar straps, dog collars, wallets, knife cases, dog leashes, belts, key cases, cellular cases, bracelets and change purses of which all can be custom imprinted. Some of our imprinting is debossed using metal stamps which are hammered into dampened leather. This type of lettering can have the outline hand painted, left natural or dyed in the same color as the leather. Other items can be etched with a small leather craft tool and then hand painted with a fine artist's tool. We also script monograms into the leather. This is the most time consuming method since a tiny hand-tool is hammered hundreds of times around the outlying area ot the lettering resulting in a textured border design. This gives the appearance that the lettering is raised. For some of leather goods we only offer one type of personalizing while other products such as our personalized guitar straps, we offer all three types of imprinting.
We only use the best hides that we can source so our work will result in a superior quality leather product. Our vegetable tanned cow hides are graded, split to correct even thickness and finished to our specs from the tannery. We then totally make all our handmade products at our premises. This includes cutting the leather, imprinting, dyeing, oiling, polishes, sewing and setting hardware. Our chrome tanned leathers are selected so there will not be marks and cuts in the hide as we cannot make a qaulity leather good with blemishes in the leather.
Our products are made of solid leather for strength and beauty. We do not use artificial leathers nor bonded leather nor stuff fillers like cardboard into the product. We have many customers walk into our shop and tell us they bought a belt at a department store or mall and it only lasted a few months. They often can't understand why their purchase from a large chain store did not last since it is stamped genuine bonded leather which sounds wonderful. However we have to explain that bonded leather is the equivalent to particle board in woodwork. Bonded leather is tiny ground up pieces of leather all bonded together with glue to form a sheet of manmade material. Unlike real solid leather, this manmade material bonded leather tears extremely easily. You would not make quality wooden furiture from particle board or chip board and you would not make a quality leather product from a manmade imitation leather or bonded leather. Unfortunately, most chains are buying products from third world countries made of bonded leather or imitation leathers which tear easily and do not last. You can be assured that we only use genuine solid leather in everything we make.
For hardware on our leather belts we favor using solid brass or chrome plated solid brass. We often have people call us or walk into our shop and show us a broken buckle from the belt or purse they purchased at a large chain store. Often these imported products use white metal buckles that are extremely inexpensive but not very strong. At Leathersmith Designs, we like to use solid brass buckles or chrome plated solid brass buckles on most of our belts because of their strength and beauty. We never had problems with these types of buckles breaking. After all they have to be strong as solid brass material is often used in harnesses which requires strength.
Our quality leather goods are made to order. When you order online or over the phone, you will have many options for us to personalize your handmade leather product. Although your handcrafted leather item can be left plain, we specialize in personalized leather goods. Because every leather item is individually crafted, our leather goods make excellent personalized unique gift ideas for that hard to find special item for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries and groomsmen.
We have a large variety of choices in guitar straps, dog collars, wallets, knife cases, dog leashes, belts, key cases, cellular cases, bracelets and change purses of which all can be custom imprinted. Some of our imprinting is debossed using metal stamps which are hammered into dampened leather. This type of lettering can have the outline hand painted, left natural or dyed in the same color as the leather. Other items can be etched with a small leather craft tool and then hand painted with a fine artist's tool. We also script monograms into the leather. This is the most time consuming method since a tiny hand-tool is hammered hundreds of times around the outlying area ot the lettering resulting in a textured border design. This gives the appearance that the lettering is raised. For some of leather goods we only offer one type of personalizing while other products such as our personalized guitar straps, we offer all three types of imprinting.
We only use the best hides that we can source so our work will result in a superior quality leather product. Our vegetable tanned cow hides are graded, split to correct even thickness and finished to our specs from the tannery. We then totally make all our handmade products at our premises. This includes cutting the leather, imprinting, dyeing, oiling, polishes, sewing and setting hardware. Our chrome tanned leathers are selected so there will not be marks and cuts in the hide as we cannot make a qaulity leather good with blemishes in the leather.
Our products are made of solid leather for strength and beauty. We do not use artificial leathers nor bonded leather nor stuff fillers like cardboard into the product. We have many customers walk into our shop and tell us they bought a belt at a department store or mall and it only lasted a few months. They often can't understand why their purchase from a large chain store did not last since it is stamped genuine bonded leather which sounds wonderful. However we have to explain that bonded leather is the equivalent to particle board in woodwork. Bonded leather is tiny ground up pieces of leather all bonded together with glue to form a sheet of manmade material. Unlike real solid leather, this manmade material bonded leather tears extremely easily. You would not make quality wooden furiture from particle board or chip board and you would not make a quality leather product from a manmade imitation leather or bonded leather. Unfortunately, most chains are buying products from third world countries made of bonded leather or imitation leathers which tear easily and do not last. You can be assured that we only use genuine solid leather in everything we make.
For hardware on our leather belts we favor using solid brass or chrome plated solid brass. We often have people call us or walk into our shop and show us a broken buckle from the belt or purse they purchased at a large chain store. Often these imported products use white metal buckles that are extremely inexpensive but not very strong. At Leathersmith Designs, we like to use solid brass buckles or chrome plated solid brass buckles on most of our belts because of their strength and beauty. We never had problems with these types of buckles breaking. After all they have to be strong as solid brass material is often used in harnesses which requires strength.