WyomingSlick

Yes, the shading, and yes also....you have some choppy beveling there. Looks like you need to learn to "walk" your beveler,....that is the process of beveling continuously by just tapping on your beveler while moving it along only about one third of the bevelers width as you go, It doesn't hurt to go back over it and smooth out any uneven beveling you may have done the first time. even, the pros do that from time to time. Smooth beveling can also be gone over with a modeling tool to even it up, but with checkered beveling, you have to use the beveler to smooth it out. Mulefoot - Most every time a mulefoot is used in floral carving, the impressions taper out in a series. That is, each succeeding mark is lighter than the one before it as you move away from the stop. Stop - Usually the stop is stamped in at an angle so that the pointed end blends in smoothly with the swivel cut. I strongly urge you, and all leathercrafters, to have a copy of Al Stohlman's TECH TIPS book and study it thoroughly. For the beginner and intermediate tooler, it is probably the best value for your money that you can spend.

I favor fluorescent lighting, a large one to my left (because I am right-handed) slightly behind me, and a smaller one mounted over my slab, The diffused lighting combination pretty much eliminates shadows. I also have a desk lamp w/incandescent bulb I use once in a while for more intense lighting. When doing dye work on figure carving, and some floral ,.......the F-lights go off, and I use just the desk lamp for a directional one light source.

Actually, it was almost free, since a saddler buddy of mine donated the rawhide ( after a good chuckle ), so all I was out, was about a foot of rawhide lacing. And the rock, like nearly everything else we know, is made of stardust. I have used a rawhide mallet for 45 years to do leather tooling with no problem. I even have a couple of the plastic mallets, And yes I have a maul. So what was this big following that mauls have developed over the last decade? Do they really improve your tooling? Are they worth the money that they cost? What are the advantages, and disadvantages, to using a maul? One development of my research into this subject, which consisted mainly of watching YouTube videos, was that maul users seemed to consistantly hold the maul in a way that was no differant than you might hold a rock, or a brick, to hit a nail. So.......why not a rock? Living, as I do, in a river valley in Wyoming, I resolved to go down to the river and see what nature could provide. As it turned out, I didn't have to. I noticed a rock in the alleyway at work which looked like it would fit the bill. Since I didn't want to be hitting my tools with a bare rock....nor did I want rock dust on my tooling bench, I made a covering out of rawhide which I wetted, stretched around the rock, and laced together. After the rawhide dried, I tried it out......using it in the manner as shown in the videos. The learning curve was very short as the 99 cent maul had one big advantage over a maul. It had a much larger "sweet spot" than a maul.....which, until you get very used to using them, can result in a miss-strike since the sweet spot on a round tool, be it a bat, billiard cue tip, or maul is relatively small. The 99 cent maul even worked well using it in the ergonomically correct manner as shown by Don King above. Notice that he is not using his maul like a nail driving hammer, but much like the way reccomended for mallets........his elbow on the table and the action supplied by his wrist and forearm. I suspect he started out using a mallet, or striking stick.......and moved to mauls when he began tooing saddles (heavier leather) with his distinctive deep tooling style. LOL And I suspect that is why some folks think mauls are better......just the fact that they got a heavier maul than the mallet they had been using !

Hah ! Another person talking about tooing being hard on the arm. I noticed in the very first paragraph on the page for a popuar maul ( http://leatherburnishers.com/BearMauls.html ).......... that it says: "Combined with the way BearMauls are balanced most people notice that they can tool longer with less pain and fatigue on wrists, elbows and shoulders." Elbows and shoulders ?? If you were taught the proper way to use your mallet, striking stick, or maul.......that is, the way that the vast majority of professional leather carvers who spend many hours at the tooling bench, use.... and recommend.........your shouder and elbow have liitle to do with the striking action. The most conductive way to use your striking tool for extended periods of tooling ( think about the extreme amount of beveling in Sheridan style work ), is to to rest your elbow on the tooling surface and use mostly a wrist action, as shown in this photograph of Don King above. Yes, there are times when you need to raise your elbow and use a fuller arm swing;as when using stamps with large tool faces such as large basketweaves or geometrics, or even your "maker stamp". So for all of you out there who are still using your mallet, or maul, like a hammer........don't you think it is about time to give your arm and shoulder a break by "doing it right " !

Good onya. that's a bottler !

LOL But rags like National Enquirer can use their picture for free to sell millions of copies every week.

Don't you think that is going to depend a lot on what fabric and it's properties are, that you are using?

Thanks Chris, With your hints in mind, I can see that is is actually a bit more structured, and not as random as I believed.

Excellent Work! That effect you achieved with the pebble backgrounding stamp in the third picture is very striking. I may just find a use for that sometime, so I grabbed the pic for my " good ideas " file. You know that they say "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

If you are a helpful kind of person, you might check with some of the youth groups (4-H, Scouts, YMCA, Church groups ) in your area and see if they would be interested since they often do small items like bracelets, bookmarks, coin purses, etc. That little 2 foot piece of lacing that you don't want to mess with, might be just perfect for one of the kid's items. REMINDER - If there is any chance that your scraps are contaminated with lead, please pass on this idea because while lead is bad for everybody.....it is very, very, very bad for developing children

Nope ! Perfectly good questions. 1. Leather itself really doesn't have much of a smell unless it's rotting. What you are associating with leather, as an odor, is due to the oils, waxes, finishes, etc that are used to preserve the leather. The smell of leather, like any odor, is due to the receptors in your nose picking up on the volatiles that are released from the leather. The smell is usually going to be more obvious in vegtable tanned leathers, and particularly in those that are heavily oiled like latigos, and perhaps some bridle leathers.. That, of course, will depend on the age of the leather, it's amount of exposure to circulating air, sunlight, heat, etc. Or perhaps, just how recently it was reoiled. Chromium salt tanned leathers have very little smell compared to veg-tan and oiled leathers. That is because the chemicals simly do not release much in the way of volatiles for your nose to pick up on. 2. Sure you can restore the smell. There are many leather conditioners/restorers that are scented to smell like new leather. A Google search should turn up a multitude of hits. I believe I have even seen aerosol sprays advertised to make your car smell like new again. I guess that would be a leather like smell. LOL perhaps they even have one to smell like new plastic.

LOL I think you are addressing a question that it isn't going to be easy to find an answer for. Saddlemakers who have developed techniques for doing what you are describing have no doubt learned methods/techniques for doing this the hard way. That is through using their heads, and .....trying this.......trying that.....and seeing what works. They are not going to be real eager to share "secrets" cpncerning one of the things that distinguish their work from the many amateur saddlemakers out there. That is their livlihood you are talking about. For some of them, part of their livlihood is running saddlemaking schools, and you may be able to find one that will learn you up on those techniques. As Bob Blea discussed above, Chan Greer's articles are a good place to start as he demonstrates methods of converging stamp lines by varying the spacing and using sets of matching stamps in differant sizes. That magazine, LC&SJ, should be required reading for any aspiring saddlemaker since the information in it is worth many times the subscription price. You may not be able to find anyone who is willing to show their "secrets" to you,.....but you can do the next best thing. You can look at the finished product. You already know how to stamp leather, and the tools involved. All you are missing is the technique. When you find a saddle that has the tooling that you are seeking to emulate.....park yourself and really study the tooling and figure out what the saddle tooler did, and how he did it. I spent over 6 hours just studying the work in the museum at King's Saddlery in Sheridan, and only left because they were closing up.

That's an excellent looking job of recovering a fumble. Attaboy for you!

Well...it is a start ! Congratulations ! A few pointers....... An inexpensive utility knife, perhaps one of those with snap-off blades will give you a cleaner cut than those old cheapo scissors. Use your ruler as a straight edge to make the long straight cuts. For the curved cuts, look around and see what you can find to use as a guide for them. Perhaps some jar lids ? Coins? Washers? No, it isn't a coin purse. Coin purses are something that need to be opened on a regular basis, so a leather tie is not the way to go there. Perhaps it is a protective case for a treasured heirloom, or keepsake.....that will only be opened once in a while.. A button or a snap would be better for a coin purse. It looks like you used the smallest tube on the rotary punch to make the stitching holes and that is fine for now. You might look and see if you have a fork with evenly spaced tines to mark the holes so they are spaced consistantly. Use your ruler first to mark a straight stitching line, and then the fork to space the holes. When starting your stitching, it is not necessary, or even a good idea to make the first loop around the outside, despite what you may have seen in some YouTube videos. All I could ever figure for some people doing that......was to empasize that their item is handsewn since a machine will not do that. When you do each stitch, do it the exact same way so that your stiching will be more even. That is, bring the first needle through from the same side everytime and pass the second needle over, or under the first thread the same way every time. On an item like this where you have some access to the inside and the leather is flexible......instead of having that ugly knot showing, you could do your normal backstitch and then instead of tying a knot on the outside, have each needle go through only one layer of leather and emerge inside of the item. Tie the first half of a square knot and pull it up tight inside your item, and then finish the knot with the other tie, pull it up snug and tight, and reach in there with your scissors and snip the ends off. Wallah.....no more ugly knot showing !

LOL Ah.....the world is getting more complicated all the time. Used to be......we went into the store, and there was one kind of Coke, one kind of Pepsi, one kind of Mountain Dew, one kind of Dr.Pepper, 7Up, orange, grape, and root beer. Today, there may be just that many varieties of Mountain Dew alone. Dunno why. I remember my first bottle of Mt. Dew....... the green one with the hillbillies on it. They got the taste right the first time, and haven't improved on it since. The story is the same everywhere. The array of consumer products that are available is bewildering. Hell, women need to subscribe to some magazine just to keep abreast of all the new make-up and beauty products that are out there. Hmmm.....6 differant models of snap-off blade knives,........40 differant screwdrivers, 50 kinds of sockets, 25 kinds of drill bits.......etc The thing is that HD probably has a high rate of turnover in its employees,, and it may well have been that fellow's first week on the job. Hell, he may have been just working there to pay the bills until he gets a position as a rocket scientist for which he has three advanced degrees in. Yes, it is nice when someone really knows their stuff........but all I expect anymore from retail clerks is a helpful attitude and courtesy.......anything more is a bonus.

Yes............................like I was saying........Lead is poisonous to the body. According to Wikipedia: Lead poisoning symptoms (Include, among others) : 1.Headaches, irritability, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, difficulty learning or concentrating, and aggressive behaviour

Nothing to fix ! That wallet looks clean and classy ! The belts on your site could use a better edge on them though.

LOL! You gotta be kidding! I am sure that the last thing an accident victim wants to see working on them is the "Paramedic from Hell" complete with skulls on his scissor case!!

From a saddle huh?? Unless it was part of the main body of the saddle which is usually vegtable-tanned leather suitable for tooling........then the odds are good that the strap is made out of latigo leather which is leather that has oil and wax impregnated into the leather to water proof them to an extent. Does that sound familiar? Even if your leather was originally veg-tan......it is almost a certainty that it has been oiled many times and is also going to be very water resistant. My suggestion is to just go get some virgin tooling leather and forget about recycling saddle leather. It would work for just a plain belt, perhaps with a stitching, or lacing pattern. perhaps with some conchos.........but tooling it is not in the possibilities.

It's not suitable for tooling or moulding, but it is suitable for a great many other items. bags, cases, knife sheathes, purses, belts, etc

It's looking better and better all the time. One other concern you may have on this machine is the bearings for the rollers. On a machine of this vintage, the bearings are most likely either babbit (lead alloy) or some type of bronze bushings ( Oilite maybe) as evidenced by the oil holes on the top of the frame. Hopefully, they kept them oiled regularly and they are still in good shape. In a worst case scenario, the shafts on the rollers may need to be turned on a metal lathe to true roundness and smoothness, and of course, new sleeves installed. Now you don't need the precision of a high speed, super-close tolerance bearing, but you do want the rollers snug enough that the machine will split the leather uniformly. So that is an appraisal you will have to make for yourself.

I believe your sister would heartily approve, and I think it is wonderful that you have built something to remind you of her every time you look at it. Perhaps you could inform me of just why they call the wood, "leatherwood" ? That is, if you know. Please don't go to a lot of trouble finding out.....just if you happen to know....as is is just a trivial question.

Could be Maui Wowee , or perhaps Matanuska Valley.............

Well, if they are that small, just get some copper wire of however small guage you want, clamp it in a vise, or clamp that had a small groove filed it it (just a wee bit smaller than your wire). Or make a pair of blocks that have a groove filed in them which you can put in a vise or clamp. Take one of your leathercraft seeders and form a head on the bit of wire you have left sticking up, Copper is much softer than your leather stamp so it won't hurt the tool a bit. If you want a flatter head than that, just give it a final tap to flatten it with your hammer. Cut the length to size and you are ready to rivet. You can use the seeder as a rivet setting tool also.

Naw !!................You don't want to mess with it. It's too much for you. How much do you want for it ? LOL ! Seriously......of course you want to keep it, and use it. Practically anything you can do with one of the smaller splitters........you can do better and easier with this beauty!.