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Jedi Costume - Belt
I found a local Tandy Leather
dealer here in Phoenix. (For those in Phoenix who are interested, they are located
at
1126 N Scottsdale Road. 1 mile north of the 202 in the shopping center with
Pure Fitness) Apparently they just bought out a local store previously called
Copper Saguaro, and were having a grand opening sale. (Great timing eh?) I picked up
a 50" long 2 1/2" leather strip, and a 50" long 3/4" strip. Together they were under $20.
I immediately realized that you can't just buy the leather, but you also need a BUNCH of
other stuff to do this project correctly. Here is all the stuff I bought to do the belt
(clockwise): Leather dye-dark brown, leather retainer strips, dye swabs, snaps, rivets,
posts, a post anvil, and a leather punch.
The leather posts are brass, and were only $.79 each during the grand opening sale. These
are the exact posts used on the real Jedi belts. WHOO HOO! In order to
install these posts correctly, you need to purchase a specific anvil. These parts are
all available from Tandy Leather. I will eventually post a parts list, but until then,
if you have questions just email me.
If you're wondering.. yes, I have NO idea what I'm doing! I just swabbed on some stain and
I'm letting it dry. It looks a little uneven now, but we'll see after it dries. The leather
really sucked up the stain with no problems.
I purchased a large, black, plastic buckle/clasp from Joan Etc for $4.99. The largest clasp
that they had could only handle a 2" wide belt. Obviously, the Jedi belt is 2 1/2" so I had
to make a few changes to my original plan. I cut the long 58" belt down to it's final size.
The remaining belt material, I cut into two 4"x2" strips. These two pieces served as the
connectors to the clasp. I attached them each with three long rivets. This buckle is very
solid! I tried it on and it works great.
I purchased a small 1" buckle/clasp from the local Joan Etc store. I used gold acrylic paint
to paint it to resemble Anakins belt buckle. It's not an exact replica, but not too bad either.
I took the small 3/4" belt and cut it exactly in half. I bent 3" of belt over and put in the
small clasp. I then installed a medium rivet at 1 1/2". The lower picture you can see how
the belt retainer will cover the rivet on the final belt.
This is a small piece of "scrap" leather I purchased for $9.99. It was slightly larger originally
but I trimmed it down to 10"x6". This will be the large "cover" for the back buckle. It will
wrap around the large buckle and snap in place.
12/4/2002: Originally, I found this 2" belt at the local Marshalls store in the womens section.
As Murphy's Law would have it, after I removed the price tag, I discovered that there
is a Tandy Leather store right down the road. DOH! In any case, this picture is
of what I will call my "temporary" belt until I have a chance to stain and put together
the "real" 2 1/2" belt which I just bought from Tandy. :)
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