Basketweave And Ranch Brand Checkbook Cover?

[jackaroo1223]

Hello! I am new to the world of leatherwork. A friend of mine got me into it, and as a surprise to him, I want to make him a checkbook cover for Christmas, using a basketweave stamp pattern and incorporating his family's brand into it, maybe in a lower corner of the checkbook. I have attached my sketch of the brand.

Does anyone have any examples of how they have incorporated lettering into a basketweave pattern? Keep in mind I am a complete novice here so any pictures/step by step instructions and examples- the more descriptive the better! I do have the leather kit for the checkbook cover (from Tandy)

Thank you in advance for the help!

[electrathon]

The image did not show up, but: being as you are trying to duplicate a brand, I would brand it in. Either make a branding iron replica or use a woodburning kit to burn the leather, then basketweave around it.

Aaron

[bruce johnson]

I do a lot of them. I have done them a few ways depending on what kind of look customers prefer and how I have sort of evolved.

Burning. - tricky to do right.. . There is some really great and artistic pyrography done on leather but is shallow. For a brand it needs to be deep enough to matter if you are doing any kind of stamping or tooling pattern around it. Burn too shallow and it fades into the background. Too deep and you have are through the leather or it flakes out in short order and you are through then. You have to be careful with a regular iron and somebody who thinks they know what they are doing. They will burn through and wreck a piece pretty fast. They are used to burning through hair and into the toplayer of the hide enough to scar when it grows back. This hide isn't growing back.

Inverted carving - I trace on the brand, lightly use a swivel knife to score the grain, bevel inside the lines and then use a fine matting backgrounder like a 104 to mat everything down level. I dye the brand with a black Sharpie marker. It looks burned in without scorching leather.

Traditional carving - raised - I trace the brand, swivel cut lightly and bevel outside the line with a steep beveler. I basket stamp the remaing pattern. After that I go back and use a matting stamp to highlight the brand and fade into the basketstamping. I do this by far the most now.

I do some brands on hair-on hide. For those I use the spoon looking burning tip and go slow just scorching off the hair. If you go really slow you might end up with that nice coppery color sometimes on the leather like a fresh brand should look on a calf. I flake that off and then dye the bare area with a Sharpie. I seal it with Feibing's Leathersheen brushed on in a few layers. The brand stays pretty distinct for a long time that way.

[jackaroo1223]

I do a lot of them. I have done them a few ways depending on what kind of look customers prefer and how I have sort of evolved.

Burning. - tricky to do right.. . There is some really great and artistic pyrography done on leather but is shallow. For a brand it needs to be deep enough to matter if you are doing any kind of stamping or tooling pattern around it. Burn too shallow and it fades into the background. Too deep and you have are through the leather or it flakes out in short order and you are through then. You have to be careful with a regular iron and somebody who thinks they know what they are doing. They will burn through and wreck a piece pretty fast. They are used to burning through hair and into the toplayer of the hide enough to scar when it grows back. This hide isn't growing back.

Inverted carving - I trace on the brand, lightly use a swivel knife to score the grain, bevel inside the lines and then use a fine matting backgrounder like a 104 to mat everything down level. I dye the brand with a black Sharpie marker. It looks burned in without scorching leather.

Traditional carving - raised - I trace the brand, swivel cut lightly and bevel outside the line with a steep beveler. I basket stamp the remaing pattern. After that I go back and use a matting stamp to highlight the brand and fade into the basketstamping. I do this by far the most now.

I do some brands on hair-on hide. For those I use the spoon looking burning tip and go slow just scorching off the hair. If you go really slow you might end up with that nice coppery color sometimes on the leather like a fresh brand should look on a calf. I flake that off and then dye the bare area with a Sharpie. I seal it with Feibing's Leathersheen brushed on in a few layers. The brand stays pretty distinct for a long time that way.

I think Iwill be doing inverted carving... good tip on using the Sharpie!

The Brand is K-S-Reverse K, with the S smaller than the K's and fitting perfectly in the diamond formed by the touching arms of the K's facing each other... I'm having the darndest time drawing a decent block letter template of the brand to use for practice and the final product. Anyone who is a much better pen artist than me willing to sketch one real quick for me to print off and use? I would greatly appreciate it!

[TwinOaks]

Save drawing and just print out a bunch of capital 'K' and lower case 's' letters in a font you like. If you have a simple graphics program, you can pretty easily mirror the K's.

Once you have them printed, cut them out and stick them to another sheet to get your layout just right. When you've done that and have everything like you like it, photo copy it and there's your pattern. Grab an internet image of a basketweave and print it. That way you can position the BW at varying angles to see which way you like best.

It's really easy to scale the pattern this way, too.