Miller Type bags, redux

[luke]

[quote author="Mark "
This site seems to have run into the summer doldrums. Everyone must be doing instead of reading.

Mark [/quote]

Im fully engaged in Quadratic's at the moment. And then Thesis project till mid October....

[teakmtn]

Thanks again Chuck. Your Miller bag is very nice. I think I'm gonna go in that direction. A bag with a gusset and an inside pocket. I will probably not do a liner. I believe the hide I have is thick enough to keep it's shape well enough.
I do have a question regarding your strap. It looks like you used some type of latigo or harness leather. I have seen several "Miller" bags now and the strap varies from harness leather, buffalo tugs, flat braided brain tan and just a simple brain tan strap. While I think the brain tanned mule deer hide I have is thick enough for the bag, brain tanned straps seem to stretch and get skinny until they are like shoe laces. And unlike the Medina bag, I don't want to line the strap with cloth. Any suggestions? I'm one of those guys that will handle a nice hide forever before getting up the guts to make that first cut.
Oh, Luke, your such a square. Quadratics?

[luke]

Im trying to make it thru functions and inverse functions, and then I'm done with math, FOR GOOD! Id rather spend a lifetime behind a fiche machine with a dim bulb than do another equation.

[Chuck Burrows]

Doug - on mine I used a fairly stiff hide, pre-stretched the whole hide, then cut the strap oversize out of the center of the hide from neck to tail, re-stretched it and then trimmed to size. I also made it in three pieces which helps prevent stretch. You can also do some running stitch skip line beadwork (two 8/0 pound beads, skip a stitch and then two more beads, etc.) along both edges as I did on my horn strap (see below) - the thread helps to prevent stitching or you can just use a running stitch with a heavy thread or thin thong for the same effect.