Tack Tip: Leather Conchos

I wanted to show you guys how I made these scalloped leather conchos/rosettes for my saddle:

I tried to make these before with my last saddle, but they didn’t turn out quite like I’d hoped.

This time I tried a different approach, and am much happier with the results!

I started by sticking my concho onto a piece of skived tooling leather. I used a couple drops of tacky glue to hold it in place. I didn’t want it to be permanent in case I needed to start over:

I cut out several triangles, giving it a star burst type of shape:

Then gradually cut each one down, creating a gear shape:

When those were at the length I wanted them, I cut off more tiny triangles, giving the appearance of rounded or scalloped edges:

Once I was happy with how it looked, I stuck a straight pin through the center, pushed it in an eraser and gave it a coat of gum tragacanth. Later I added a coat of sealer, then the tinest amount of Edge Kote along the edges.

This was much, much easier than my attempt at trying to cut the shape out freehand, or from a drawing. I hope someone out there may find this helpful!