FEATURE: Cat Strap Fever

For a while I've wanted to create a signature guitar strap  for myself and Feline guitars, and this has finally come to fruition


I'm a fairly stocky, well-built guy, so found that I needed a longer strap than many that were "off the peg", and shared the same quest to find one as those players who like a lower slung guitar for a "rock and roll stance".

The criteria I wanted:

  • Beaututiful top quality leathers
  • A soft suede lining that won't slip around
  • Stylish, distinctive design
  • A longer main body part to the strap so there were no joins or adjusters half way across your back.
  • An adjuster that could be micro adjusted to perfect playing height
  • Easy to fit strap-locks to (provided you had a 3/8" or 10mm leather holepunch)
  • UK made using UK or European sourced leather

So we worked with the fine fellows at LeatherGraft over what seems like a long period to refine and nail down the details.

 Being a bit of an 1980s rocker I always liked straps embellished with studs or conchos. Doing a search I found some cool Celtic themed conchos made in Europe and chose a couple that I really liked. We could easily use some Western themed ones but the celtic ones really appealed to begin with.
I also saw the cutaway detail somewhere and thought it had either a medieval or Arabic feel to it, and with a careful choice of contrasting colours and stitching could look fantastic.

We chose that the main body of the strap would be 40" or 100cm long , so that it would go right round even big guys and not have a break or a change until it passed your hip on the other side. 
And the adjuster we chose would be top mounted so there would be no strips of other leather coming through the strap.

The Length Adjuster

Contrary to the leather straps i had had in the past that used a leather tail that weaves through slots in the main strap body and could only be adjusted in increments of 1" at a time, I decided to use a quality heavy cotton webbing part for the adjustable part of the strap

This would allow for a fine length adjustment that could be tweaked on the go without having to take the strap off the guitar , and thankfully without having to remove and refit the straplocks each time , as you had to do with a strap with a slotted leather tail.

How Long is it?

The total length of the strap with the adjuster goes from 50"(128cm) to 54" (137cm).

We have the option of a longer webbing adjuster  that gives a 52" - 58" range

Materials

So we went and chose some leathers:
Highest quality Italian full grain leather hide on top and for the revealed cutout.
Dutch fine nap suede underneath
All sustainably sourced from the best tanneries in Europe