If you're making your own hoods from a cardboard pattern....
Click out the blank and punch the stitch holes while your leather is dry.
Sew up one edge, too.
Sew the other edge with the hood in place while damp (not wet). Add a little vinegar added to the water used.
I think the baseball stitch looks best but most buttedge to buttedge stitches work fine. (What do the French call a baseball stitch? Not a quiz--I just gotta wonder.)
Some chrome tanned hides don't dampen at all well but will take more abuse with less maintenance.
If you're acustomed to gum hoods consider slipping on a couple layers of inner tube sections before sewing on the leather hoods. Leather doesn't absorb road shock as well as rubber.
After the hoods have dried and shrunk treat them with Proofride or one of the other waxes. Repeat everytime they get to feeling or looking dry Don't use Lexol---it'll enlarge & loosen your hoods & wrap.
Calvert Guthrie Kansas City
In a message dated 9/14/2003 11:09:42 AM Central Standard Time, teaat4p@yahoo.com writes: With the stitched type leather, what was the installation process in the area of brake lever-bar mating?
Richard Cielec
Chicago, Illinois