Business/services for putting studs on a leather jacket?

I'm a big fan of how a J24 style jacket looks with studs, like the Lost Worlds model or the not-so-popular-here Real McCoy's Smoky Jim model, and plenty of other examples.

Many refrains of the Smoky Jim jacket (which is like $4k) was about how insanely overpriced it was and why not just put the studs on yourself.

Which got me wondering, where would one go to get studs put on their jacket? Is this a common service a local tailor or leather craft shop might offer? Anyone have any insight on this? Thanks!

ask Dena at greatleather.com.

Studs, rivets, snaps, etc are about the easiest thing you can do at home with primitive tools. To pay for this is absolutely insane. You can order everything you need from a myriad of online retailers, Tandy, etc or find their Amazon store and buy there. All you are doing is punching a hole in leather and using a hammer and anvil to set the snap, rivet, stud, star, concho or whatever.

My latest project involved this rust suede Sherpa trucker.

I added snaps to the hand warmer pockets to keep them snug to the body. What was far more complicated was chopping 1” out of the sleeve diameter, which I did with my Singer HD500. I used to pay Dena good money, over $300 for something like this. It’s quite liberating to be able to do it myself with the cost not exceeding $10 in thread a needles. (And of course the investment in the singer, which has paid for itself 10x over).


The bottom line is, do a little YouTube research, trial and error a bit and liberate yourself from being dependent on what you perceive as an insurmountable skill. It’s not. Far from it in fact.

Can’t edit my post, can’t tell if the end result even attached. This site is a gem. Here’s the finished product. I forgot to mention I also let out the sleeves.

I don’t want to take anything away from Dena. She is an absolute master and for any full restoration, she would be the only choice. But I will say some things, even the tricky and hard ones, can be done without shelling out loads of cash. And studs/ snaps are not hard. Lowest degree of difficulty without question.