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First belt....made a few mistakes but learned by them.

Looking for advice, tips and tricks of the trade. All comments welcome.

Looking for advice, tips and tricks of the trade. All comments welcome.

Use the Micro Green Rouge sold by the Woodcrafters. Cost around 23.00 dollars. Use on a Business Card for stropping. Get a Swivel Knive Sharpening Jig and oil stone, those Grey colored ones with a coarse and fine sides. Get a Dremal Tool drill with a small buffing wheel and use the Micro Green Rouge at slow speed to polish the swivel knive blade. Just a little bit. Be careful. First find out which way the wheel turns, then slowly place your blade on the wheel going with the direction of the wheel, or your Dremal will kick back. Go Slow. And wear Safety Glasses. Also the Dremal is good for drilling small stitching holes for handsewing. Good for cutting long rivets and long posts on durable snaps, to use on lighter weights of leather, I use Vice Grips to hold the hot durable snap post, those one's that cost a dollar at Lowes. Also good for sanding the edges on thick knife sheaths, where there is a welt involved. The Sears Company has their own type of Dremal tool. This Micro Green Rouge, really helped me in my swivel knife cuts, plus I noticed I don't really need to sharpen my swivel knife blade as much the Business Card sharpens the swivel knife blade as I strop the blade.

Use Freezer Paper. Draw out your designs or names on the Freezer Paper and Trace onto the leather. A lot of drawing for 5-6 dollars at Walmart, a big roll. Use a no. 3 or 4 pencil, so it won't smudge as bad as a no. 2 pencil. Saves on that Tracing Film, for those special projects.

Also I notice a cordless drill, a cheaper priced drill is good for drilling holes in leather, those small new ones that are coming out, you see them at Walmart, those Black n Decker. There is a lot of drill sizes out there in the world, it sure beats fighting a punch that is stuck in your leather. I use it on thick leathers when using rivets, just drill and reverse. EASY.

I use a wide masking tape and duct tape to prevent stretching leather when tooling. I used to use rubber cement with a card board, but my boss did not like the sticky residue left behind after the tooling. So duct tape and masking tape sure helped me out. Peel off slow.

Use that Acrylic Craft paint sold at Hobby Lobby for painting the flesh side of the leather. Use Water to thin out, and use a sponge, it spreads good, All kind of colors to choose from. Finish with Super Shene. Good stuff.