Tales from.. ..The StrapLab!

[TVvoodoo]

Thank you to all sharing my StrapLab adventures here, and especially those who believe!

Today I get to change out my outdoor GFCI outlet at -26, so we can continue to have block heater action LOL! Oh what fun! Lasagna dinner tonight, roast turkey with all the trimmings tomorrow. Most importantly, time with family. My two young adult kids are home, both unattached, and over the past few days we've been sharing and suffering a flu virus together, but all seem happily on the mend today.

Keep it safe, keep it merry, keep it close.

 

[Chocol8]

Funny, I have a GFCI outlet to replace in the freezing cold this week as well! I also have children home, but they didn’t bring a virus…just a cat.

 

[ᛗᛜᛜᚺDᛜᎶ Ꮤᛨᚳᚴ]

Thank you to all sharing my StrapLab adventures here, and especially those who believe!

Today I get to change out my outdoor GFCI outlet at -26, so we can continue to have block heater action LOL! Oh what fun! Lasagna dinner tonight, roast turkey with all the trimmings tomorrow. Most importantly, time with family. My two young adult kids are home, both unattached, and over the past few days we've been sharing and suffering a flu virus together, but all seem happily on the mend today.

Keep it safe, keep it merry, keep it close.

Merry Christmas to you and yours Well Hungster (say it like James, James Bond) ;~)) My Holiday Card is posted here if you would like to take a gander! Get well and enjoy, best to you and yours in '26!!

 

[TVvoodoo]

Funny, I have a GFCI outlet to replace in the freezing cold this week as well! I also have children home, but they didn’t bring a virus…just a cat.

The trick I have found is to have a screen ready so you can find all the screws you drop in the snow. Also handy for retrieving any frozen fingers that break off.

PRO TIP: when duct-taping your thawed fingers back on, be sure to secure them in the correct places, minding left/right as well. Won't be making THOSE mistakes again!

 

[ibmorjamn]

Good work as always, stay close to the heat.
I have no idea how anyone manages the cold . I should be acclimated by now.

 

[Chocol8]

I have no idea how anyone manages the cold . I should be acclimated by now.

I loved the cold and snow when younger, when I crossed 40 I could tolerate it, by my late 40's I was ready to move south but my wife is still clinging to the area because our kids are both within less than a 2 hour drive. So, now I am trying to get the kids to move somewhere I would want to live

 

[TVvoodoo]

Hello TGF Warriors, and warriors-in-waiting! I've made myself scarce for a bit, stuff has happened. Lost my poppa early in the New Year, my first time being through that emotional / administrative ringer, now sorting through all that stuff assisting my mom.

Been looking for a new job to try to continue to provide here as recent trade rules have severed me from way too many of my regular tribe members to be able to continue at this full time. Such a massive waste of the many years I've spent building things up. But I'm still picking away at projects 'cause I do have a LOT of time on my hands... and as they say... "the devil finds work" so I best keep busy!

Likely be posting here less, but it's by now become so much of a habit, I can't outright quit!

Fresh in the Reverb store for 2026 are a couple of new SwaggerMan straps... both somewhat similar this is #7, #8 looks much the same - a worn, distressed mahogany leather look. It is kind of rare for me to have two similar in the store at the same time. This here is one of my personal favourites, I've now kept back three of these for my own selfish gear hoarding purposes, one just like this, one in black and a saddle tan. These are 3" wide link leather, no padding, but a nice little flex so still very comfy. Sends off 1974 vibes like crazy with a convenient and safe back buckle adjustment.

It's the kind of strap that looks really at home on a vintage form factor. Don't put a modern newish looking strap on your old relic'd historic instrument. We both know that's just plain wrong!

Speaking of throwback styles, I build another "Whippin' Post," this one with a 4.25" wide ring rather than the 5.5 incher, (more true to the original). I find the larger ring clunks into a fellas fretting arm a bit too much, so I favour the smaller bronze ring for practical use. This one also 3" wide, oil tanned leather, padded and features a handy back buckle adjustment too, way better than the original style. Nicely aged ring on this too, and it's even padded and stitched.

Canadiana fans will dig this "Mad Trapper" style strap... made primarily of historic virgin wool blanket and leather... These are a reissue of what's become quite popular with W-H Tribemembers of my home country. Running a bit short of the material though, it's getting rather expensive to source.

Also new in the store, a brand new version of my popular long-running 1969 series... this one called "Ruby" named for the Kenny Rogers and the First Edition Hit of that year. "You've painted up your lips and curled your pretty golden hair..."

I developed my "1969" design back around 2016 as a way to showcase a vintage hootenanny strap effect, but also incorporate my own Well-Hung comfort padding, with rolled edges. To do this, I sew the old school ribbon onto 3" wide leather base, then pad and line it underneath, with a ladderback adjustment system. I feel this is a more a grown-up version of the typical 2" wide shoulder-pounder starter pack type strap, and it really puts 'em to shame when it comes to being under one for more than four or five songs. Super comfy, and with the leather it just boosts it up a big step visually.

And finally, this beaded beauty named "Spotlite." Glass beads in a leopard pattern, plenty of black leather, and a ladderback adjustment. This one goes near 60" long, is 3-1/4" wide, padded and just might be the sexiest guitar strap I've made in quite a while. It's craving a rig like a badass black beauty or something similar I think. Amber, black and dark topaz beads. Got a bit of heft to it, so if you are counting ounces in your rig, this is not the strap you are looking for

Hope all is well for my tribe members, I wish I could open my store up different to continue serving my USA brothers, but new rules have basically doubled your cost. Not MY PRICES mind you, just the extra dough I'm required to collect from buyers then submit to your betters before I can even ship. In effect I'd be working even harder to make less, with more cost, admin work on my shoulders. I don't feel that's right for either party involved. Perhaps our officials can figure out some sort of workable solution inside the next six months.

 

[ᛗᛜᛜᚺDᛜᎶ Ꮤᛨᚳᚴ]

Hello TGF Warriors, and warriors-in-waiting! I've made myself scarce for a bit, stuff has happened. Lost my poppa early in the New Year, my first time being through that emotional / administrative ringer, now sorting through all that stuff assisting my mom.

Been looking for a new job to try to continue to provide here as recent trade rules have severed me from way too many of my regular tribe members to be able to continue at this full time. Such a massive waste of the many years I've spent building things up. But I'm still picking away at projects 'cause I do have a LOT of time on my hands... and as they say... "the devil finds work" so I best keep busy!

Likely be posting here less, but it's by now become so much of a habit, I can't outright quit!

Fresh in the Reverb store for 2026 are a couple of new SwaggerMan straps... both somewhat similar this is #7, #8 looks much the same - a worn, distressed mahogany leather look. It is kind of rare for me to have two similar in the store at the same time. This here is one of my personal favourites, I've now kept back three of these for my own selfish gear hoarding purposes, one just like this, one in black and a saddle tan. These are 3" wide link leather, no padding, but a nice little flex so still very comfy. Sends off 1974 vibes like crazy with a convenient and safe back buckle adjustment.

It's the kind of strap that looks really at home on a vintage form factor. Don't put a modern newish looking strap on your old relic'd historic instrument. We both know that's just plain wrong!

Speaking of throwback styles, I build another "Whippin' Post," this one with a 4.25" wide ring rather than the 5.5 incher, (more true to the original). I find the larger ring clunks into a fellas fretting arm a bit too much, so I favour the smaller bronze ring for practical use. This one also 3" wide, oil tanned leather, padded and features a handy back buckle adjustment too, way better than the original style. Nicely aged ring on this too, and it's even padded and stitched.

Canadiana fans will dig this "Mad Trapper" style strap... made primarily of historic virgin wool blanket and leather... These are a reissue of what's become quite popular with W-H Tribemembers of my home country. Running a bit short of the material though, it's getting rather expensive to source.

Also new in the store, a brand new version of my popular long-running 1969 series... this one called "Ruby" named for the Kenny Rogers and the First Edition Hit of that year. "You've painted up your lips and curled your pretty golden hair..."

I developed my "1969" design back around 2016 as a way to showcase a vintage hootenanny strap effect, but also incorporate my own Well-Hung comfort padding, with rolled edges. To do this, I sew the old school ribbon onto 3" wide leather base, then pad and line it underneath, with a ladderback adjustment system. I feel this is a more a grown-up version of the typical 2" wide shoulder-pounder starter pack type strap, and it really puts 'em to shame when it comes to being under one for more than four or five songs. Super comfy, and with the leather it just boosts it up a big step visually.

And finally, this beaded beauty named "Spotlite." Glass beads in a leopard pattern, plenty of black leather, and a ladderback adjustment. This one goes near 60" long, is 3-1/4" wide, padded and just might be the sexiest guitar strap I've made in quite a while. It's craving a rig like a badass black beauty or something similar I think. Amber, black and dark topaz beads. Got a bit of heft to it, so if you are counting ounces in your rig, this is not the strap you are looking for

Hope all is well for my tribe members, I wish I could open my store up different to continue serving my USA brothers, but new rules have basically doubled your cost. Not MY PRICES mind you, just the extra dough I'm required to collect from buyers then submit to your betters before I can even ship. In effect I'd be working even harder to make less, with more cost, admin work on my shoulders. I don't feel that's right for either party involved. Perhaps our officials can figure out some sort of workable solution inside the next six months.

Condolences on the pops! Wishing you and the family the best ;~))

And sorry about our gov being total dickheads to creators like yourself. I personally do not believe the most of us are for such draconian and idiotic methods, but some people have a mind of their own and just do whatever the hell they want ;~(( Hope we can set this ship right in the near future, for your sake and our own!

Great straps, I am with you on hoarding that first one!

 

[TVvoodoo]

A few news completed over the past few days. Been feeling like I'm not giving enough attention into what I view as probably my most overall luxurious e design (other than the custom tooled work), which I call my "Class Act" form factor.

First off... from left to right we have one in a highly distressed/faded leather I call "Driftwood" which I've been saving for years in my "leather library." Amazing leather. Let's call that one "Drifter." Then next we have have a hornback style croc, with all that nasty scaly texture... in black with gold hardware.... it ain't real croc... it's faux, so I'll be pricing it lower than if it were actual hide. Let's call that one "Alligator Al." Lastly, my wife and I have been enjoying a series lately that is centered around the "rockin' Y" brand. We're sort of binging on it I guess, a show a night for the past few weeks. I'll have to call that there one "Bunkhouse" as she's got all kinds of cowboy flavour to 'er, and is plenty strong enough to pull a calf, (or choke out a competitor) if you need it too.

The Well-Hung Class Act design is basically a main body that's about 43-44 inches long, with a back buckle affair, which makes it real easy to adjust... even without taking your guitar off the strap, or your shoulder. Others do similar, but I haven;t seen any others do a "Pass-Thru" where the buckle is far better-protected from contact with your guitar, staying up top of the main body, as the tail strap goes through an extra reinforced slot at the very bottom. This Well-Hung design offers a great range of adjustment between about 46"-59" or so .

It's also extra comfy as it allows more padding all along the body and there's no buckle or transition area to a "ladder section" like many other designs, I know that bugs a few people out there.

Again, it's one of my most comfortable designs, (slightly edged by Comfort-Flex), but it does look very "grown-up elegant/smart" if that's something important to you. Takes a little extra doing here in the shop, so I have to charge a bit more, as a premier offering.

 

[Chocol8]

I am hoping that after we blow up the brand new not yet opened bridge between Detroit and Windsor, maybe just maybe trade will settle into a new stable situation someday where we can buy from you again, even if there is a customs fee.

 

[TVvoodoo]

A fellow in BC is has ordered this for his good friend of his, in fact all of us, and will be gifting it. Not just one in fact, whoops! LOL!
We decided on a design, and it was to be a rather uncommon fixed length strap, - haven't done one of those for a while, so I cut leather on the weekend, wet it down good and stashed it in the bucket overnight.

Turns out the giftee has a personal logo, so it was decided we'd feature that upfront. It's rather detailed with a lot of curves, and detailed thin, sharp lines, so I opted to use my recently-discovered "debossing" technique. This is really just stamping the artwork DOWN into the leather, rather than trying to raise it up by beveling the outside edges. My bevelers are just too wide to do justice to such detailed art sometimes, or at least in my hands, and at my admittedly slowly-improving-intermediate skill level.

And done!

Now to get after the burst, which I did rather well, I thought. It's for this very instrument.

However... when painting inside the artwork with black dye to make is stand out, I made a very amateurish error, resulting in a blotchy mess. I was crestfallen. that was a lot of work, and all those very sharp lines and curves was quite stressful, plus painting with black dye, also really stressful. One bad move, and it's wrecked... so I found out!

Yep. I buggered it up. Haven't been doing enough of this work lately I think, plus VERY detailed.

I fumed and fretted for a bit, thought about killing the project. Then I remembered what I've told my son about a dozen times. "Character is shown when things go the wrong way, not in the victories." Ended up deciding I'd just plain start from scratch. Cut new leather that day. Yesterday tooled again. Only this time, I decided to do things in a different order. Stamp the black down after it was dyed - way easier to get that dye job done. Easier to do the bursting too. We decided also it needed a bit more red in it too. So here's what I showed him before I was to start stamping, thinking maybe....

Yep! He decided he didn't want it stamped down, keep just it as is. I'm quite glad to accommodate!
I figured even after stamping it down, I'd have to touch up with more black, and right now I don't want this to be even in the same room with more black dye LOL! Once bitten...

Since it's a very special personalized item, one I can't sell locally, I'll finish up both, and send them. One as a "factory second" with the texture inside the art, one that's not awful and blotchy, like you see there especially above the wolf's ear. Perfectly OK for a beater guitar. Two straps, kind of the same but different. Here I'd already started clearcoating the botched one, but you can why.

Thankfully it's only the second time in fifteen years I deemed a tooling job a wreck and irrecoverable late in the game, to start over. Really the raw vegtan leather here is only worth about $25 tops, it's my six hours of time that's the real loss, something I seem to have a little too much of right now. Custom work is real slow and I hesitate to build too much store stock right now the way things are in my situation, being real.

But glad to be keeping my hands busy. I'll continue clearcoating this for a few days.

 

[ᛗᛜᛜᚺDᛜᎶ Ꮤᛨᚳᚴ]

A fellow in BC is has ordered this for his good friend of his, in fact all of us, and will be gifting it. Not just one in fact, whoops! LOL!
We decided on a design, and it was to be a rather uncommon fixed length strap, - haven't done one of those for a while, so I cut leather on the weekend, wet it down good and stashed it in the bucket overnight.

Turns out the giftee has a personal logo, so it was decided we'd feature that upfront. It's rather detailed with a lot of curves, and detailed thin, sharp lines, so I opted to use my recently-discovered "debossing" technique. This is really just stamping the artwork DOWN into the leather, rather than trying to raise it up by beveling the outside edges. My bevelers are just too wide to do justice to such detailed art sometimes, or at least in my hands, and at my admittedly slowly-improving-intermediate skill level.

And done!

Now to get after the burst, which I did rather well, I thought. It's for this very instrument.

However... when painting inside the artwork with black dye to make is stand out, I made a very amateurish error, resulting in a blotchy mess. I was crestfallen. that was a lot of work, and all those very sharp lines and curves was quite stressful, plus painting with black dye, also really stressful. One bad move, and it's wrecked... so I found out!

Yep. I buggered it up. Haven't been doing enough of this work lately I think, plus VERY detailed.

I fumed and fretted for a bit, thought about killing the project. Then I remembered what I've told my son about a dozen times. "Character is shown when things go the wrong way, not in the victories." Ended up deciding I'd just plain start from scratch. Cut new leather that day. Yesterday tooled again. Only this time, I decided to do things in a different order. Stamp the black down after it was dyed - way easier to get that dye job done. Easier to do the bursting too. We decided also it needed a bit more red in it too. So here's what I showed him before I was to start stamping, thinking maybe....

Yep! He decided he didn't want it stamped down, keep just it as is. I'm quite glad to accommodate!
I figured even after stamping it down, I'd have to touch up with more black, and right now I don't want this to be even in the same room with more black dye LOL! Once bitten...

Since it's a very special personalized item, one I can't sell locally, I'll finish up both, and send them. One as a "factory second" with the texture inside the art, one that's not awful and blotchy, like you see there especially above the wolf's ear. Perfectly OK for a beater guitar. Two straps, kind of the same but different. Here I'd already started clearcoating the botched one, but you can why.

Thankfully it's only the second time in fifteen years I deemed a tooling job a wreck and irrecoverable late in the game, to start over. Really the raw vegtan leather here is only worth about $25 tops, it's my six hours of time that's the real loss, something I seem to have a little too much of right now. Custom work is real slow and I hesitate to build too much store stock right now the way things are in my situation, being real.

But glad to be keeping my hands busy. I'll continue clearcoating this for a few days.

Frickin' KILLER! Great work, you are going to make someone VERY happy ;~))

 

[TVvoodoo]

Up until today it was impossible to buy charisma. So, that's what I named this strap!

I don't often make white or very light straps. I put 'em in the white boots, white belt category. I just don't have enough "charisma" to wear such things. But I know somebody out there does!
This is a slightly off-white, bone leather, with muted saugerties ribbon in earthy colours rather than the bright red and orange. Still has all those old-school vibes. Ideal for say a Shoreline or firemist strat with white pickgaurd, copper metallic would work nice too I think. Or how about Olympic white with tort? A lot of combos would work. Here it is on one of my rattle-canned strats, this is closer to Aztec, but still works pretty OK I think.

Happy Friday!

 

[TVvoodoo]

New versions of my "1969 Series" design coming soon, the more true and traditional example, four now under construction.

A quick side note.... there does seem to be some movements on with the whole tariff/duty situation, I'm watching with great interest as decisions and counter-decisions start working their way through the systems. I'm hoping on the possibility of re-opening to the US market April 1st. To prepare, I figure maybe it's time I got the store ready with some new versions of a few of my "greatest hits" over the next month or so.

These are what one customer once dubbed a "Big Boy" version of a hootenanny *appearing* vintage style strap. What I do is take a beautifully padded 3" wide base with softly rolled edges, (in this case in black garment leather,) then stitch that 2" wide ribbon down the center, effectively giving you the old school "look" but one providing amazing comfort and weight distribution footprint far and above that of your typical Ace style ribbon strap. My Well-Hung ribbon-on-leather design is also visually elegant and the ribbon does offer some additonal strength too. It's quite strong!

I also reasoned that it might be nice to have a plainer black and white strap offering in the store, and I should be able to complete these four tomorrow, in black and white only for now.

I purchased this monochrome vintage style 2" embroidered web ribbon a couple of years ago as a bright idea, figuring it might solve a problem. You see, I've spend hundreds, (yes hundreds) of dollars on ribbon material similar. Many hours shopping for it too, 'cause there's thousands of types of this stuff available, especially in less than 2" wide. However, because of where much of it comes from, those cultures often have wildly different colour sensibilities than those of the Western world.

Usually, from those available at any given time, you can choose between pinks with green or oranges and blues quite often, or purple mixed with red, etc.... just some clashy/crazy colour combos - at least to MY eye. When you do happen to stumble across and purchase what you saw was an ideal selection... Often it'll arrive looking a fair bit different than the photos, which can be quite disappointing. So, because I need to shop with guitar finish-matching in mind, this limits the choices drastically and steers me to think more carefully about the risks of grabbing up thirty yards of something that's poor mover, or I might not even be able to use.

Imagine my joy when I found the above plain-Jane black and white version of this ribbon. In my head, endless possibilities of tinting it with leather dye to basically any colour I wanted danced through my noggin. This roll of ribbon has been sitting my StrapLab ribbon cupboard for over a year and a half, so today I attempted a bit of a test with three different dye dips. Because the material is made from a synthetics, it won't accept dye with quite the colour saturation I was hoping, but it does take. Look forward to some fun colours coming up with this ribbon, and of course, custom work too. However, due to my process, it can only one colour at a time, but I'll probably try some green ones and some maybe in purple too. Of the dye versions above I think I like the olde creme one best, but the dirty amber and blue steel will work nicely as well.

 

[ibmorjamn]

I hope everything settles down eventually.
I want to do a soft leather old school like we talked about.
I do like the tooling work a lot.
Scott Gorahm style 70’s

 

[TVvoodoo]

What's new Tomcats? Here's a closer upper shot of the "Sugar, Sugar" for starters

Also, new in the store a re-issue of a Wild Something I last made in 2021, renamed "Deaf Leopard"

Had to take my moms in for medical appt. today, so my day was short, but I also started this beastly creature... a new No Prisoners creation, which happened by taking some silver metallic croc embossed hide, then hitting it hard with purple-durple dye. Fun! The result?
Candy-grape metallic!

While I had that dye out, I tried it out on a section of that "Sugar, Sugar" ribbon... Oh Yeah!
It's near the exact colour of the infamous Purple Drank! So delicious. So refreshing! So... Dranky!

If they move my office ONE MORE TIME, I swear I will burn the whole damn place down!
...The crazy story behind Milton's Red Swingline Stapler

Regarding Well-Hung Availability in the USA
Getting some queries re: USA shipping, due to recent events... thank you for the interest, Lord knows I want to get back to serving y'alls.
Can't seem to find alternate employment up here! Nobody seems to want to hire an old dude with a bad hip and even badder attitude.

Right now watching 'n waiting for things to stabilize after last week's USSC decision deeming the 35% tariff unlawful. After that, a counter-strike levy dropped in it's place, a new 10% global tariff under a different statute. Suddenly, mere minutes afterwards, a bump to 15%. As I understand it, this is limited by law to a 150 day time frame, but may be extended by congress.

I'd rather see the 10% tariff but 15% seems bearable, but it's really not up to me in the end... it's on you fellas who will make the ultimate purchase decisions once I open up again. There were no duty costs prior, but goods are now also subject to an additional cost of approx. 25% with the removal of de minimus "duty free" status of my stuff.

So.... today tariffs and duty, amount to roughly 50% added on top of my prices. These extra costs ONLY for US customers.
My $150 strap approx. $75 extra, (instead of $130 extra, as it was last week).

For months I've been carefully watching forums for Etsy and other cross-border sellers of similar goods to see how they've been approaching things. What's clear is it seems to have been "madness jungle" for many sellers, buyers too. Buyers getting slammed with surprise extra US duty costs at delivery, refusing to accept the package they ordered. These orders then go into the GARBAGE. To add insult to injury, those buyers then request refunds from the seller stating they did't receive the goods. Multiply this by thousands and thousands of instances over the past few months. I could not bear to know my hard work and craft was sent to a landfill, especially when if buyer also demand I return their money. Many sellers did try to make a go of it at 35%, but inside a month ended up doing exactly what I did at the start. Close off to USA business completely. To be upfront, it doesn't appear too many seem excited about going back in either. But I can't afford not to try.

Too many US consumers don't understand these marvelous tariff windfalls "flowing into the USA from other countries," are in fact Americans consumers footing the bill. It's not me as supplier. I'm forced to collect it from you, then submit. I have to. It sure as Hell ain't coming out of MY pocket! Canada post won't even allow me to ship cross-border 'til I supply a special key code affirming I've paid all tariff fees upfront. Most difficult is, Reverb has done NO work to aid sellers in implementing tariff costs or these sudden new duty costs into their platform, putting it all on individual sellers to calculate, explain, collect and submit. Thanks a whole lot reverb.

I also must download and learn this sketchy Zonos trade platform app that charges me a monthly fee plus a percentage of each item price sold to the US. This app is what allows me to submit tariffs prior to shipping to get the secret codes. Those extra costs will also be on USA buyers, as it's a US specific cost.

Because Reverb does not allow different costs on a product for different regions, what some sellers are doing is adding these extra costs to the USA shipping price. Typically shipping for me to the US was around $24 before the madness. Now, it's likely going to be $55 for tariff and shipping + another 25% item price price for duty as well - Could be up to and over $110 for Shipping/Tariff/Duty/Zonos costs. But I don't know if I can submit duty yet, or how to... I still have to work that bit out.

Above all, I do NOT want to surprise Well-Hung customers with extra fees upon arrival of the goods.
For both of us it's only workable if you KNOW and are fully OK with it beforehand.

My trick will be individually calculating / changing each of my item listings to reflect the extra costs, as well as educating buyers on the whys 'n whatfors, adding this text to each listing. I gotta watch my numbers real careful. I wasn't doing this to get rich in the past, and I sure won't be doing it to get myself poor either!

TL/DR - Just a general overview for you on what this all entails, and I'm waiting to see if things will settle out during March. These recent news has rocked the system yet again, small business shipping by post is chaos RN. I'm hoping for a stable trade atmosphere, perhaps around April 1st to re-open for US business.

 

[ᛗᛜᛜᚺDᛜᎶ Ꮤᛨᚳᚴ]

Damn, what a headache. Such a shame that artists like yourself are being punished due to some childish fantasies about economic domination (or being dominated)! Thanks for taking the time to lay it all out so we can better understand your end of the equation ;~))

Best wishes on a settle down in March and a return to the most prolific consumer market in the world!

 

[ibmorjamn]

What's new Tomcats? Here's a closer upper shot of the "Sugar, Sugar" for starters

Also, new in the store a re-issue of a Wild Something I last made in 2021, renamed "Deaf Leopard"

Had to take my moms in for medical appt. today, so my day was short, but I also started this beastly creature... a new No Prisoners creation, which happened by taking some silver metallic croc embossed hide, then hitting it hard with purple-durple dye. Fun! The result?
Candy-grape metallic!

While I had that dye out, I tried it out on a section of that "Sugar, Sugar" ribbon... Oh Yeah!
It's near the exact colour of the infamous Purple Drank! So delicious. So refreshing! So... Dranky!

If they move my office ONE MORE TIME, I swear I will burn the whole damn place down!
...The crazy story behind Milton's Red Swingline Stapler

Regarding Well-Hung Availability in the USA
Getting some queries re: USA shipping, due to recent events... thank you for the interest, Lord knows I want to get back to serving y'alls.
Can't seem to find alternate employment up here! Nobody seems to want to hire an old dude with a bad hip and even badder attitude.

Right now watching 'n waiting for things to stabilize after last week's USSC decision deeming the 35% tariff unlawful. After that, a counter-strike levy dropped in it's place, a new 10% global tariff under a different statute. Suddenly, mere minutes afterwards, a bump to 15%. As I understand it, this is limited by law to a 150 day time frame, but may be extended by congress.

I'd rather see the 10% tariff but 15% seems bearable, but it's really not up to me in the end... it's on you fellas who will make the ultimate purchase decisions once I open up again. There were no duty costs prior, but goods are now also subject to an additional cost of approx. 25% with the removal of de minimus "duty free" status of my stuff.

So.... today tariffs and duty, amount to roughly 50% added on top of my prices. These extra costs ONLY for US customers.
My $150 strap approx. $75 extra, (instead of $130 extra, as it was last week).

For months I've been carefully watching forums for Etsy and other cross-border sellers of similar goods to see how they've been approaching things. What's clear is it seems to have been "madness jungle" for many sellers, buyers too. Buyers getting slammed with surprise extra US duty costs at delivery, refusing to accept the package they ordered. These orders then go into the GARBAGE. To add insult to injury, those buyers then request refunds from the seller stating they did't receive the goods. Multiply this by thousands and thousands of instances over the past few months. I could not bear to know my hard work and craft was sent to a landfill, especially when if buyer also demand I return their money. Many sellers did try to make a go of it at 35%, but inside a month ended up doing exactly what I did at the start. Close off to USA business completely. To be upfront, it doesn't appear too many seem excited about going back in either. But I can't afford not to try.

Too many US consumers don't understand these marvelous tariff windfalls "flowing into the USA from other countries," are in fact Americans consumers footing the bill. It's not me as supplier. I'm forced to collect it from you, then submit. I have to. It sure as Hell ain't coming out of MY pocket! Canada post won't even allow me to ship cross-border 'til I supply a special key code affirming I've paid all tariff fees upfront. Most difficult is, Reverb has done NO work to aid sellers in implementing tariff costs or these sudden new duty costs into their platform, putting it all on individual sellers to calculate, explain, collect and submit. Thanks a whole lot reverb.

I also must download and learn this sketchy Zonos trade platform app that charges me a monthly fee plus a percentage of each item price sold to the US. This app is what allows me to submit tariffs prior to shipping to get the secret codes. Those extra costs will also be on USA buyers, as it's a US specific cost.

Because Reverb does not allow different costs on a product for different regions, what some sellers are doing is adding these extra costs to the USA shipping price. Typically shipping for me to the US was around $24 before the madness. Now, it's likely going to be $55 for tariff and shipping + another 25% item price price for duty as well - Could be up to and over $110 for Shipping/Tariff/Duty/Zonos costs. But I don't know if I can submit duty yet, or how to... I still have to work that bit out.

Above all, I do NOT want to surprise Well-Hung customers with extra fees upon arrival of the goods.
For both of us it's only workable if you KNOW and are fully OK with it beforehand.

My trick will be individually calculating / changing each of my item listings to reflect the extra costs, as well as educating buyers on the whys 'n whatfors, adding this text to each listing. I gotta watch my numbers real careful. I wasn't doing this to get rich in the past, and I sure won't be doing it to get myself poor either!

TL/DR - Just a general overview for you on what this all entails, and I'm waiting to see if things will settle out during March. These recent news has rocked the system yet again, small business shipping by post is chaos RN. I'm hoping for a stable trade atmosphere, perhaps around April 1st to re-open for US business.

I like buying on Reverb but selling on reverb I don’t care because of their 3rd party app.
Well , you know what you have to do ?
Load up the fam damly and head due south.
All tariffs stop and you can visit home.
It’s not far , what 15 hr.
I can be to Disney Land in 15 hours, only god knows why I would go there.