WyomingSlick

LOL Those are a ways from being dental bits, unless you are talking about an elephant dentist ! Dental bits for people are about a 1/16", or smaller.

I would suspect that the name was more visible before due to oil, dirt, soil, or possibly paint, in the grooves of the letters. By cleaning the glove you effectively removed the very elements that made the lettering more legible. I inherited a Mel Ott glove some time back which I sold on ebay for a very nice price. Researching collectible ball gloves, I found that like many collectible antiques, collectors prefer that the item not have the patina messed with. The only thing I can suggest it that you attempt very carefully to darken the letters by using a fine point stylus to emboss the letters to make them darker.

Leather is quite a differant material from the firmer bodied materials like plastic, metal, wood, etc. that rotary tools work best in. To cut leather cleanly with such a tool, you would need a super sharp bit with very acute cutting edges. The only bits that I can think might work okay are the structured tooth carbide burrs that look kind of like a prickly burr. Whatever you use, you are still going to have some trouble with the oils and resins in the leather gumming up the bit.

I think Al Stohlman had the same opinion as he suggested just putting a handle on a large beveler, to use as a push beveler, in his book on tools.

Did you clean the leather before attempting to dye it? While you are tooling, the leather can pick up oils and other stuff from your hands. It's just like painting a car....wouldn't you clean the dirt and car wax off before painting it? Most supply companies sell a product just for this pupose. I, myself, use a bleach made of diluted oxalic acid.

I am curious. Why would you need a new B701 beveler? You may need a bettter 701 since some of the newer Craftools leave a bit to be desired. I would sugest that you get one on eBay that is one of the older Craftools that was made before 1970. I am sure that you could get one for less than the $9.99 that Tandy LF is selling them for. In fact I would suggest that you pick up a set of stamps from eBay. They usually go for less than 5 bucks a tool, for the more common bevelers, veiners, cams, shaders, etc......even for vintage pre-letter tools. If you look at the attachment you can see the differance I found between a vintage Craftool beveler and a more recent one. A beveler should have rounded edges so that you can "walk" it and bevel smoother. Even a pro would have trouble using the blockier beveler.......at least for a few seconds before he tossed it into the regrind can. LOL

So........we are looking at a wallet with a metalic liner and perhaps a card pocket also lined completely with a metal lined flap, to seal the open end of the pocket, to completely shield the cards?

Well you have it then.......just cut out a rectangle of leather 4 5/8" by 7 1/2"

Pattern? Tooling pattern? Tracing pattern? Patten for cutting out back? Patterns for inside construction? The size of the back is 4 5/8" X 7 1/2" If you have the Craftaid, there should be a pattern included for the insides. These are also known as french purses and also pretty much the same as bi-fold wallets.

Mostly it is that you are using lighter leather. Try them out on a thicker leather. They usually work much better on a belt than on a wallet back. You might also do a little experimenting. Find a nice smooth river rock that has a bit of a curve to it. How much curve? LOL, that is where the experimenting comes in. Try using one of them for your stamping backup.

I have been pondering this for a while. I am guessing this is kind of like having a faraday cage in your pocket. The question is how thick does the metal need to be. Will mylar work? How about using an inside liner of one of the metallic finished leathers? Would that be thick enough to do the job? Anybody know the answers?

I am not impressed at all. A jig like you have here does not take into account that letters need to be spaced from each other at varying distances to look "right" ! For instance, two round letters such as an an " O " and a " Q " need to actually be closer together than blockier letts such as a " M " and a " H ". To look right the trick is to balance the open space between letters so that they are nearly equal in area In the attached picture, you can see the differance between normal balanced letter spacing on the top and the unbalanced spacing you get with a jig using equally spaced holes. Such a jig may be timesaving if you are going to stamp the same word/name on a lot of pieces, but rather than spacing them equally. the holes for the letters should be spaced to give a balanced result. For instance you would want a smaller space between letters by an " I " or an " O ". LOL You know there is a reason why Tandy doesn't have a jig for these and that is because the best method is to judge your spacing by eye just like you do when you write something.

No, you missed the point. One is not applying dye/paint in the procedure......you are removing the excess from the high points. The block removal technique will not work with dye....it will only work with opaque paints that do not acually penetrate the surface, Once you apply a penetrating dye, you are usually stuck with that, although you may have some success at bleaching it out some with various solvents.

Here's a useful innovation for a sewn key fob. Cut an oval slot near the key ring end on one side, and only glue and sew the outside edge of the fob, thereby creating a useful little pocket. That little pocket is a dandy place to keep and always have with you one of those SD memory chips used in cameras, computers, etc to store data. It could also be used to carry a few quarters, or perhaps some folded currency.

Top Item 1. Dye the whole item solid color. Let dry 2. Spray whole item with finish/sealer. Let dry 3. Daub opaque finish into stamp impression. 4. Before it dries. wipe that off with cloth (old t-shirt) wrapped snugly around a solid block (wood) which leaves the opaque finish in the recesses. You may need to touch up with pencil eraser. 5. Apply final finish Lower item 1. Dye whole item lighter color. 2. Apply resist to area you want to keep the lighter color. Or you can mask it. 3. Dye the darker area. For something like this, an airbrush works the best by far, because: with it you can apply light coats, and thus eliminate the dye bleeding into the lighter colored area . 4. Finish center area stamp as in top item

Hmmmm........"Flowers for the Dead" seems like an appropriate theme for a gunbelt to me. And that is a crackerjack job of it !

A most suitable response. I've seen a lot of leathercarving, and I still am awed by the pure artistic talent that Bobocat has. Anybody who isn't familiar with his work needs to check out every post he has ever made here. The tiger billfold he did a while back. may be the most beautiful billfold I've ever seen. (See attachment)

LOL You've done it now. When people see these, you are going to get more requests, and the first thing you know, you will be in the purse business. Very well done, indeed!

My best guess is that they originally were tools for stamping thin sheet metal, usually softer metals like tin, copper, silver, etc. In times gone by, artisans used such tools to make all kinds of fine items. Such stamping tools generally have a small tool face like these due to greater force being required to stamp metal. Of course they can be used on leather since leather is a lot easier to stamp than metal. And I am sure that such tools could also be used for gilding book covers by mounting them in wood handles. In any case, this is one hell of a find.

I suppose it is going to depend on what you call a saddle stitch. You know saddle stitching is nothing but a running stitch that has been doubled. If fact, some do a saddle stitch by doing a running stitch one way and then simply coming back the other way to finish. Seems to me that such a simple concept would have been used way back by our ancestors to double the strength of a running stitch.

I suggest you get some of Al Stohlmans books on figure carving and/or dyeing where he covers the dry brush technique. Study them and try that approach out.

Yup. I have a couple like that.....at least they have the same label on them. Does this one have a shaft made of a metal core with a black plastic surrounding it? There was a set of some twenty, or more, sold on Ebay years ago. Don't quote me on this but it seems like the name associated with them was "Gemini" As for the other post, I would guess that one is a guilder's stamp, or a stamp for wax seals.

I am sure that the origins of the stitch are nearly as far back in history as the idea to first use leather to make footwear and clothing. The name "saddle stitch" itself probably dates back nearly to when people first made saddles, and of course that is also thousands of years in the past.

Hmmmm, I suppose you could go to a slaughter house and pick up a cow tail. Rough cut a piece to size, remove the hair, and veg-tan it. Wahlah - you have your cylinder !

Well, that is nice. But if you have a pic that you want to post for us to look at it...we have a problem. It is a multiple step process to post a picture and it is a good idea to preview your post before final posting. If you don't see the pic in the preview, then we won't see it in your uploaded post.