Harag Report post Posted May 20, 2013 Hi all As I'm new to leatherworking I'm after a little advice. A customer has asked me to have a flag on their item I'm making. I'm dying the item in Tan, and then when it's dry I'll use acrylic paints to paint the flag. I'm using Natural Veg tan leather as some tooling is also required. My question is - How do I "draw" the flag on the leather - do you use pencil to draw the outlines, then paint it? The flag I'm painting will be the Union Jack flag (UK) Red, White & Blue so I'm worried that the pencil marks will show through. Any help / advice on this would be appreciated. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cyberthrasher Report post Posted May 20, 2013 I would tool the flag then paint it. If you don't want to tool, get a 5H pencil and lightly draw it on Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Harag Report post Posted May 20, 2013 Thanks for that, I was thinking about tooling the flag, but not sure, I can bevel the rectangle outline, but not sure about the inside. Any tips on this, I was just thinking of a plain bevel on each of the lines for the inside. I wasn't sure about the pencil and thought it might mark so thought I would ask before doing a test piece. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cyberthrasher Report post Posted May 20, 2013 Just try it all out on your test piece and experiment. Gotta get a handle on what works and what doesn't. If you do something that doesn't look good, now you'll know that that doesn't work. So, get some samples, take some pictures, compare them, decide what you like and don't like. Then we can help you decide how you might adjust your tooling based on the samples. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mrdabeetle Report post Posted May 20, 2013 I use a ball point liquid pencil to draw directly onto the leather to mark my cuts/tooling. It can be erased or washed away with water. When I was a kid and not allowed to use sharp objects, I used the dull side of a butter knife to scribe lines into the leather as a substitute for a swivel knife. As long as the leather is properly cased, it makes a great impression and it is easier to hide mistakes since the leather surface isn't being cut. For info on casing leather, see the thread in the "How do I do that" section. As Cyberthrasher said, just get some scrap and play with it until you find a method that works for you. Many of us were not formally taught, so our methods can be drastically different from one another. Good luck to you. I'm sure it will come out great and be something you will be proud to show off. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
