LRBespokeGoods

Thanks for all the help folks, as it turns out I needed to get the leather what I would call "really wet" so it was almost "squishy" and then let it really dry out for almost 3 hours before getting a reasonable result. Seems rather strange given the last couple of tooled pieces wanted waaay less moisture. At least I'm learning, even if I have to go back to pulling my hair out from time to time!

@Beehive thanks for the recommendation, it looks great but seems to be the opposite of what I was expecting.

Thanks, I'll give it a go tomorrow. And I've just seen this is probably in the wrong place... Is it possible to move it?

I've been having a bit of an issue with my tooling but I've tried several things to sort it with no success. When I tool or stamp I'm not getting the satisfying burnish on each tool stroke consistently. Initially I thought it was my casing so I've tried several different moisture levels from a little damp to nearly dry, then I considered the amount of pressure on the tool and struck with a range of pressures on the varying moisture levels... Nothing was working so I bought different tooling leather and repeated the process.... Am I going totally quackers and missing something? I also won't be offended if the answer is simply I'm doing something fundamentally wrong. I'll drop a photo of the piece that started my conundrum in the comments when I work out how to reduce file size on my phone...