TexasLady

6/30/11 I hope to see those, MasterLeatherCraftsman. . - TexasLady

6/30/11 Thanks, WinterBear, for the idea of getting a small business to fire my ocarinas. I'll keep my eyes open. Also, I laughed out loud by the time I got to the part where you said, "... or if he suspects it might be food,...". I'm glad you've given the dog a happy 'rest of his life',... which will last for a good while, if the cat's lifespan is any indication. Might I ask the origin of your name? - TexasLady

6/29/11 Thanks, fellas. Any of those options is better than the total blank I was drawing. - TexasLady

6/29/11 Such good information, WinterBear! Thanks. I'm proud to have started a Thread that's attracted your 'bone cleaning' information. And the same appreciation goes to the others who have contributed here. I had to laugh, though, WB, at your "but I'd never be able to pry the cat or the dog off of it if I tried to make something with that hide" comment. It would 'go to their heads' if the cat and dog knew that they had so much influence over your choice of new projects. I've used Borax for about ten years for laundry, almost exclusively, because it isn't toxic like detergent. On making whistles, I've made two, well tuned, ocarinas from clay. However, they are still 'greenware',... haven't been baked yet. I hope they will still sound good after I fire them. I'm an art major in college, so maybe I can impose on the clay teacher to fire them for me, even though I'm not in a clay class. I'm also hoping to be able to incorporate my new-found leather skills into my sculpture class, etc. Some leather straps, laced through handles of pots, for example, will give my work a lot of originality. You'll all be seeing more of me when I need help. - TexasLady

6/29/11 I'm sorry. I'm a little bit 'lost'. What does OP stand for , please? Thanks. - Texaslady

6/29/11 Thanks, TexasJack, for your helpful reply. I did do some word searches, hunting for a tutorial or some photos showing the process, before writing this, but couldn't find anything. On the other hand, there's so much good information here that it's quite time consuming to search through it all. And let's face it, my home computer is just 'slow'. I skived the edges on sheaths #3 and #4, and they are looking more like what I'd envisioned. - TexasLady

6/28/11 Thanks for the response, Crystal. Even the tutorial alone is worth reading,... just the frustration, you know, of not being able to see what he's talking about. Any chance that Storm would re-share the pattern and photos? - TexasLady

6/26/11 I'm making 14 small knife sheaths to give to my classmates. They will have double-loop lacing around the edges. Since they are made out of scraps, each one is unique, but similar. The leather I'm using is very thick, over a quarter inch. For the welt, I split the piece of leather in half. The edge of the sheath, with the two pieces of leather and the welt, was quite thick. I've finished two of the sheaths. But now, I've come to the realization that I need to see a tutorial on 'knife sheath making'. Where do I skive down the thickness of the leather? Or, for small knives, should I skive the whole piece of thick leather? Thanks. - TexasLady

6/26/11 Hi Crystal, Like everybody else, I enjoyed reading the key fob tutorial. But like most people on this Thread, I don't see a link to any pattern or photos. Since the only leather key fobs I've seen are those 'one-sided' ones at Tandy, I can only see the key fob of the tutorial in my imagination. Perhaps the links got lost when this tutorial got pinned? Please help. I'm writing you because I can see the long string of requests for the pattern or photos, and yet, no answer. - TexasLady

6/26/11 Hi Paul, I'm a beginner at leatherwork. Thanks for your primers. You're telling me everything I needed to know but was afraid to ask. I see that you are still posting here on this forum. Please give us more of your wisdom and insight at leatherwork. You are a tremendous asset to all the rest of us. - TexasLady

6/25/11 I had to look up a photo of a creaser, Kevin. Thanks for that idea. Are creasers for making an ornamental line on the leather? - TexasLady

6/25/11 electrathon (aka Aaron), that was a good story. You told it well, and I liked it. Something similar happened to me long years ago, when I was a teen-ager. (Off topic now, as this is about 'art', but not leatherworking.) They had just come out with Mod Podge, the clear texture that can be painted over a picture to make it look like a 'painting'. I was with an older friend. The man at the art store showed me a miniature painting of roses and said that 'he had done it'. I showered him with praises, not knowing it was Mod Podge on top of a photograph. When he proudly showed me the jar of Mod Podge, telling me that I could buy it, and then that I could 'make one just like it',... I felt hurt, because I'd thought that I was 'supporting' him in his exceptional artwork. Seeing the misunderstanding, my older friend explained to the gentleman that I'm an artist, and that I'm able to actually paint a miniature bouquet of roses, such as the ones in his photo, from scratch. He said, "Oh." What he thought would be a great sales pitch didn't work out so well. - TexasLady

6/25/11 Each one of your sheaths, and knives, is truly a work of art, ioann. Congratulations. - TexasLady

6/25/11 What a great article! I'd made a very thick, hand-stitched sheath for my nice Gingher, 8" scissors, a couple of years ago, as one of my first projects. I've so much enjoyed keeping my scissors in that sheath. Yet, the back side of my stitching is crooked,... not wildly crooked,... just not 'straight'. I've been making small knife sheaths today, from scraps. I intend to give one to each of my fellow students in a college class I'm taking,... and one for the teacher,... 14 in all. (Yes, I know,... What was I thinking?) I bought little paring knives at the Dollar Store. They come 4 for a dollar on a card -- all the way from China, of course. I stamped each student's initials on the fronts of the knife sheaths. Plus girls get a rose with leaves, and boys get a daisy with leaves. I've punched out the holes, because, before reading your article, I didn't know how to get the backside to look good, and the punched holes at least take care of 'that' problem. I just loved your meticulous description of how to get the stitching to look good on both sides. I have copied and pasted what you wrote to a Word doc. and saved it to my computer's documents. I look forward to trying out every tip you've given when I make my future knife sheaths. Thanks so much. - TexasLady

6/24/11 Thanks for the response, rdb. I've just now Googled 'coconut oil', and found out that it's 'good' for five years. Also, the jar I've got says, "No refridgeration needed." So, I won't be using my whole jar of coconut oil on leather just yet. I'd like to try melting some bees wax together with the coconut oil and see what kind of finish that gives. What I've done is 'paint' some tooling using permanent markers. I want to put some kind of oil on it to keep the color where I put it. Eeewh. People have used motor oil on leather? Gross,... unless they were using the leather, maybe, as a washer on a piece of machinery? - TexasLady

6/24/11 Hi WinterBear, How glad I am that I bought two big bottles of peroxide at my local drug store when it was on sale last year. They are 'food grade', and I'd intended to use them, diluted, to brush my teeth with. I'll use them next time in preparing my beef bones for toolmaking. Your description of the antelope skulls brings back to me my General Biology I class that I took in 2009. Baby pigs, but ours were in formaldehyde for dissection. The displays around the room had some giant frogs, mounted between plexiglass panes. No antelope skulls, though. I like the 'water that's below boiling' idea. Actually, I was boiling the bone using only a 'hot plate', so I had trouble getting that really big pot of water to boil. That may have been the salvation of those beef bones. <smiley face> What 'non-sudsing deterrgent' were you using? What about using Borax? I didn't know that the bone dust would be bad for my lungs and eyes. I haven't cut the bones that I've got now, but I might be wanting to cut some in the future. Okay, I'm getting off the subject of 'bone tools' now, but when you mentioned turkey leg bones, that reminded me of something. At my local supermarket, they sell 'Smoked Turkey Legs'. They still need to be cooked, but they have been smoked. They have the skin on them, all smokey-looking. I remember reading that if (I think it was) buckskin has been smoked, it won't shrink. So, I stood there and looked at those packaged 'smoked' turkey legs for a long time, wanting to buy them, just so that I could experiment with the already-smoked skin. But, not having time to do the research on how to tan them or how to use the smoked skin, I didn't buy them. If you, or anybody, knows about this, I'm still curious. You used the turkey leg bones for making 'cores and stems'. What's that? Thanks for that peroxide idea. - TexasLady

6/24/11 You were right! Parts of the edges of the bone, I have sadly dried out by the boiling. But there are still large areas that have plenty of grease in them. I slicked the edges of some small items a little while ago, and the bone is working fine,... quite luxurious actually, to be able to hang onto that huge beef bone with my whole hand, rather than having to clamp down on some small tool with my fingers. Anyone who's had a brush with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome will appreciate the wisdom of using a tool that's comfortable and ergonomic, rather than one that's small and causes the hand to cramp. Regarding your Boxer dogs and the kitchen bones,... I hope that they weren't trying to access the bone marrow with their tongues. My previous little wire haired terrier told me that there's nothing more frustrating than not being able to 'get at' the bone marrow. I found that first tool, the pork bone. I'd stored it with the project I'd been working on,... which was a palm pusher. So, when I picked up the parts for the palm pusher, there was the pork bone with them. It looks tiny by comparison with the beef bone. Your neighbor who bleached the skulls on her roof was in the USA? - Vintage

6/23/11 I've got a full jar of organic coconut oil which <alas!> has been sitting on a kitchen shelf, unused, for too long. I've also got a box full of small leather scraps. Nothing terrible will happen if I ruin a scrap experimenting on it with the coconut oil. But I thought I might ask here, of people who already know the answer, "Is it okay to put coconut oil on leather?" Are there any 'warnings' on using it with leather? What 'qualities' would coconut oil have in regards to putting it on leather? I also know how to make soap, and I'm guessing I could use the coconut oil for that,... but I've already got enough soap to last me for the rest of my life. Thanks. - Vintage

6/18/11 Thanks, MasterLeatherCraftsman. Yes, I have a nice pair of feet. I used to put my twinkletoes into pink ballet toeshoes. Those have some fancy wood and leather construction in the arch and toe. You have to bend them when they are new, to get them to arch, as they start out flat. But too much bending breaks the arch, and then the shoes are no good any more. This was decades ago for me, but I'm sure that getting acquainted with the construction of my toeshoes, as a child, was part of what sparked my fascination with the idea that making shoes should be part of each person's human experience. I haven't been around for a while, but I am again trying to locate my stash of tools. - TexasLady

6/18/11 My thanks to everyone on this Thread for your generous replies. DJ1935, I can't believe that I've already done something wrong with my beautiful beef bone! Okay, to be perfectly honest, I saw the lucious marrow and boiled the bone so that I could eat the marrow. I've also made two pots of quite delicious soup of the bone stock, using herbs (rosemary, cloves, thyme), hominy, and chicken hearts. I'll add some fresh vegetables the next time I heat it up. Still, if I'd realized that I was weakening the beef bone, I'd have buried it in my backyard. Since I mow my own grass, I can attest to the fact that my backyard ants are carnivours. In fact, if all of the rest of this forum would like to use my backyard for expressly this purpose, I have more than enough ants to 'go around'. When I read about your friend who's put a horse skeleton on his roof, I looked immediately over on your profile to see where you 'are'. My local town's ordinances tend to frown on putting horse skeletons on our roofs here. <chuckles> I wonder exactly what the citation on my door would 'say'. Yes, we do have occassional wolves and cougars around here, and I doubt that a string, or even a rope, would be enough to secure a good bone from them. Maybe a chain? So, what about the real bone tools that Tandy sells? How do they disinfect the bone if not by boiling? Am I sounding like a tenderfoot by asking this? If anyone would like to post photos of bone tools you've made, please 'be my guest'. In fact, help me out by posting something. - Texas Lady

6/17/11 Oh, there it is. Excuse me for not seeing that 8000 grit diamond stone. I was expecting something dark. Since the stone is light gray colored, and not in a container, I mistook it for a metal blade in the photo. Paul, I know that this is off-topic, but I just thought that it would be a curiosity to you. I'd studied Croatian briefly a few years ago, so your name sounded familiar. But, then I realized that it was even more familiar than the Croatian I'd learned. You probably know that, in Spanish, the 'z' sounds the same as the 's'. Well, I speak Spanish, and I lived for many years in South America. There is an Indian tribe in Ecuador called the Salasaca. So, that's where I'd 'heard' it before. I found good photos online, but the links won't open here after I post them. You'll just have to Google 'salasaca' if you want to see the photos online. I hope this amuses you. If this post of mine bothers you in any way, please just mention it to me and I'll delete it. - TexasLady

6/17/11 Very nice site you've got there. The 1200 grit diamond hone is probably the one that I'll want to order, and I found that one on your site. But I didn't see the 800 grit diamond hone. Where have you hidden it? Yes, please make more videos for us. See all the appreciative comments below your video? - Texas Lady

6/17/11 I made a tool from a hollowed pork bone, the misplaced it before I could use it. I'm sure it's around here somewhere,... where I carefully put it. Not being able to find that tool, I set out to make one that's 'even better' this time. A very kind group of people in the butcher shop of a local supermarket saved me a gorgeous, white, perfect 9" long bovine bone in their refridgerated room. Even though I was a day late in going for it, they still had it there waiting for me, all wrapped up in shrink wrap, sitting on a styrofoam plate. I was so very audacious as to ask the butcher for one more favor. I explained that I would be having to clean out the marrow, and that, I'd like for him to please cut the bone, diagonally, from end to end. In seconds he had made the most beautiful straight cut you can imagine, using that huge band cutter that they have. So, that gave me the potential for making two humongeous fantastic BONE tools for leatherworking. The butcher's co-worker asked what I'd 'do' with it, and to explain quickly, I pulled out my little double loop laced scissor-holder from my purse. They were favorably impressed. And it almost chokes me up to tell you that the butcher, and the store, did not charge me for the beautiful beef bone. (I'll try to repay them in the future, either in patronage to their meat counter or with a sample of my work, or both.) So, now that the bones are cooked, with all meat removed, please give me your suggestions for what tools I can/should make. I'd only started out to make a burnisher, but somehow it seems that this windfall might have more potential. - Texas Lady

6/17/11 Such a good video. Where should I get my 1200 grit diamond hone and my 8000 grit diamond hone? - Texas Lady

6/17/11 Only yesterday, I was at a large, local, shopping mall, trying to find out the same thing, Skald. I visited a Sports store where they had large hunting knives,... not what I was looking for, and they suggested that I visit a 'knife store' inside that same mall. The thought shared with me there was that 'folding knives' don't need sheaths. This made me a little bit sad, since I had the same idea that you've got. The knife store, down the way, had an amazing variety, but it was there that they told me (like McKnives said) "Knives don't come in Standard Sizes. You just have to custom-make the sheath to fit the knife." I've put together a cover similar to the one that PhatDaddy sent you, and I love it. However, I'm using it to hold a pair of 5" scissors for now. I did double-loop lacing around the edges, and I cut the lace myself. Though not perfect, I just love carrying it around with me. I use it to show people what I'm 'doing'. Those instructions from Tandy were great. Thanks for sharing that, Stewart. BIGGUNDOCTOR, I've been carrying a Swiss Army Knife for decades, and that's what I'll be making my next sheath for. - Texas Lady