After 3 or 4 years, Libo's old collar was falling apart. So I took it apart and made him a new one.
The buckle and D-ring I made by hand back in 2010. They both started out as solid copper rod; 1/4" for the buckle frame and all of the D-ring, and 3/16" and 1/8" for the center bar and prong. The D-ring is just bent, cut, and brazed together with (IIRC) 56% silver, but the buckle was a bit more complicated. There I bent the frame first (on my old DiAcro #2 bender, which was *so* great). I turned the center portion of the center bar down on my lathe and brazed it to the frame. Then I bent the prong, mostly by hand, forming it in-situ over the center bar. The whole thing took some finishing time with a disc sander, a hand file, and aluminum-oxide abrasive cloth.
The nametag I cut from stainless steel stock and engraved on an Engravograph/New Hermes manual pantograph engraver. Then I bent it over the biggest mandrel I had in the DiAcro.
The leather is by far the easy part. The belts come precut from Tandy; I dyed them with Fiebings dye and then bevel the edges by hand. All of the holes are punched with a hole punch and mallet. The rivets are solid copper with washers from McMaster-Carr; you just put the parts together, secure the washer in place (usually driving it softly with a mallet and a tubular punch) and then give the end of the rivet a swift smack with a hammer. When you do that, the whole thing bulges out a little and squeezes on the inner diameter of the leather belt and the washer. Then you take a ball peen hammer to the rivet, smushing it down so that it's flush and soft to the touch.
Rebuilding the collar didn't take much time; figure 45 minutes or so. Building the buckles from scratch was kind of a pain, though; although it was fun and satisfying, I'd like to find a way to do that via Shapeways in the future.
Anyway. A good Sunday morning project, and one that will get a lot of use.