Easy Leather Watch-Strap

This Instructable will take you through how to make a simple leather watch strap. The old leather strap was looking dilapidated so I decided to make a new one with some spare leather I had lying around.

- 1 watch with old leather strap
- 1 scrap piece of leather that the old strap can sit on top (I used 1.2mm thick leather)
- waxed leather thread (approx 40cm)
- a sharp utility knife or cutter
- 1 leather needle
- 1 ruler
- an awl
- a pair of sharp scissors
- super glue
- sand paper
- a pencil

The first step would be to take the old watch strap apart and take it off the watch face. This should be fairly easy either you should pick the stitching to keep it intact or you could cut it. With mine I could not remove the lugs that attached to the watch case, this caused a few issues later but could easily be remedied. Now you have the old watch straps you can use this as a template for the new watch strap. Take the measurements from the old watch strap and transfer them onto the piece of leather.

Now we have a piece of leather that should have both the strap with the hinge (short strap) and the strap with the holes (long strap) drawn on it. You can use your sharp knife and ruler to keep a straight line and cut the watch straps out. Don't forget to cut out the free loop that will stop the long strap from coming out once the watch is on your wrist.

The long strap is defined by the holes that are punched into it this allows for the strap to be adjusted when put on the wrist. To start shaping it first you are going to sand the ends down this will make it thin enough so that when the leather is looped back on itself it wont have a ridge and sit flush. To know how far up to do this you can measure from your old strap and transfer that on to your new strap, try not to go beyond this point.

To know you have done it right, fold it on to itself and if it seems reasonably flush. With that done you will want to shape the end of the strap this is done by laying the old strap over the top drawing around it with a pencil and then cutting it out with the knife, you can then use a sharp pair of scissors to clean it up if need be.

I then creased the leather at the top to in line with where it was creased on the old watch strap. That should be the general shape of the long strap defined.

Now that the long strap has been shaped we can put holes in it. These holes will be used making the watch strap adjustable so it can fit around most wrists. start by measuring where the holes start on the old watch strap from the bottom, this is where the holes on your watch strap will start, for this one that was about 2cm. then you can set the gap between each hole or you can go off the old watch strap i set mine to 0.5cm spacing till it got to 5cm up the watch strap. Draw this on the new watch strap and it should look like the photo shown. These marks can now be punched using the awl, you will want to push through quite far to make the hole fairly large. Once this is done you can use the hinge and push that through to make sure the hole is large enough for it. With this done you should have the main holes in the long strap done.

The short strap is defined by having the hinge at one end that will be used to lock the strap in place around the wrist. This also has the free loop on it that holds the long strap in place. This is shaped largely the same as the long strap. On this one you will be sanding both ends and you wont need to cut the one end, they both fold over. Again take the old watch strap and transfer dimensions over so you know where to sand up to. Once that is done fold the leather and crease it in roughly the same place as on the old strap. This will give you the rough shape of the short watch strap.

The short strap has one main hole and this is used for the hinge to do through it should be large enough to allow the hinge to swing back and forth when put together.. The easiest way to ensure this is to use the old watch strap as a template again.

Laying the old strap over the top you can then draw through the hinge hole this will give you the size and position of the hole on the new strap. You can then take your awl and push through the marking at the top and bottom of it quite far, to make the hole big enough. This will give you two holes at either end of the mark. Take the knife and join the hole together make sure to use two cuts each being on the edge of the hole, you actually want to cut a small slither of leather out of the strap. You need to make sure that the cut out of the leather and the crease line up so the crease is in the middle of the hole.

To make this you want to get a scrap piece of leather and cut it to roughly 0.3cm wide and leave it quite long. You should then get both your long and short strap and overlap them, put the loop under them and wrap it around. You can then leave about 1cm overlap and cut it this will give enough room to stitch it, ensure you leave a little pencil mark on the under piece so you know where to loop it to for later use. Now you want to sand both ends so that they will link up without much of a lip. Loop it around again to the pencil mark you left earlier, you will now make two marks on the edge of the leather about 0.2mm this will allow you to make the holes in the leather at the right place so they wont be off set from each other. Now you can punch holes through at the marks you left and in the middle of the leather.

For this step you are going to need to use the waxed thread and the leather needle.

You will tie a knot in the one end and thread the other through the needle. Now take your strip of leather and make a loop aligning the end of the leather with the mark you left earlier the holes should line up. Push the needle up from the inside of the loop on the one side till the knot you made in the thread butts up to the hole. Take the needle and push it back down through the outside of the loop on the other hole, pull it till it is tight. You will then need to make a knot in the thread and push this knot as close as you can to the hole so it leaves as little slack as possible, you can now cut the thread. It is most likely you will have your leather lifting up a bit on the outside of the loop, you can take your super glue and stick it down make sure to only use a very small amount. With that you can push it over the small watch strap and it should look like the photo.

For me I started at the hinge. Put the hinge in position into the hole and fold the leather over to make sure it fits, then put a small blob of super glue on the strap and stick the strap together, this is to hold it together and make it easier to sew. Make sure it doesn't stick to the hinge because you don't want to stick that in place. Now you can pierce holes in it at your chosen location in order to sew the leather strap together and make a strong connection. I put my holes at 0.2cm from the hinge then 0.5cm above that and 0.5cm above that again and each hole was 0.2mm from the sides. This gave me a total of 6 holes. To sew this you will tie a knot in the end of your thread again and thread it through the top left hole if you are looking at it from the under side with the buckle at the bottom.

Push through from the under side and pull the knot so it butts up against the hole. Take the needle and thread it through the hole on the opposite side of it looking at it from the front it should make a straight line.

Take your thread and push it through the hole on the opposite side of it and one hole below it you can now repeat till you get to the final hole. You can finish this odd by taking the thread and looping it under the diagonal thread that is above it then under itself and through the loop you created this should tie a knot in the thread around another part of the thread to keep it nice and tight. You could also just tie a knot in it like what you did with the free loop.

As i couldn't get the lugs off the watch face I had to improvise a bit. Take the leather strap and put it in place on the watch face the crease should line up with the lug. Then stick it down with a small bit of super glue to hold it in place. You will then want to pierce two holes in the strap at 0.4mm away from the lug and 0.2mm in from the sides. You will then sew it the same way that it was sewn on the free loop and finish it that way too. You should now have the small strap attached to the watch face and it should look like the photo.

Take the long strap and put it in position on the lug. Fold the cease down and super glue it in place. You then want to pierce holes in it, I made these 0.3mm from the lug and 0.5mm below that and 0.2,mm from the edges giving a total of 4 holes. This will be sewn like the small watch strap around the hinge in step 9, there are more pictures here detailing the process so it should be easier to follow. With this done the watch should now have two straps on it and nearly finished.

Once everything is tied and tight you can go around and snip the thread off close to the knots to clean it up. Now the strap is complete try it on and see how it feels.

Reflections:
I think for me the main problem was the thickness of the leather, being only 1.2mm thick its quite thin. If it was thicker it could hold its shape better although it would be harder to work with.
The sewing can really make this fun and unique, i was thinking about it from a functionality point of view to fix the joint together. But there is no reason why you cant stitch pattern you want and make it totally unique with the stitching and the leather color.

You could even try using different thread colors on the same strap. I used gold to contrast with the brown of the leather but you could use the color you like.
The tools I used are not leather working tools except the awl, i'm sure with a wider array of leather working tools punching the holes and cutting the end of the long watch strap would have been easier.

Thank you for taking the time to read this instructable I hope you enjoyed it and had fun making your own watch strap!