Thanks! One thing that's since occurred to me is if you want "rustic" looking brass buckles a source of them is all the horse brasses I keep seeing in charity shops. The leather they are on normally has a big chunky horse harness buckle attached. The ones I've seen recently have all been dirt cheap.
Incidentally I'm after one really old horse brass to use as the weight on a wall mounted sulphur match holder. The earliest ones were not cast but hammered out from the reverse. I managed to get a piece of elm big enough when I found a lenght of wooden guttering under the giant chicken shed we recently knocked down. There was just enough not rotten to make a big enough plank, you wouldn't believe how much material I had to remove to get a sound piece! I filled the shed with shavings.
atb
tom
Incidentally I'm after one really old horse brass to use as the weight on a wall mounted sulphur match holder. The earliest ones were not cast but hammered out from the reverse. I managed to get a piece of elm big enough when I found a lenght of wooden guttering under the giant chicken shed we recently knocked down. There was just enough not rotten to make a big enough plank, you wouldn't believe how much material I had to remove to get a sound piece! I filled the shed with shavings.
atb
tom
