WyomingSlick

Well, which do you think is easier to cut out and sand sooth so it doesn't mar the leather? And which one can you see through for easier placement? And which one is the least expensive option? How durable do your templates need to be? Think it through and I am sure you will come up with the right answer....for YOU !

The big trick to do here is to be able to cut uniform ! parallel ! lines........and that isn't easy to do well. Peter Main does it about as well as anyone, as shown in the work of his on these boot tops. I believe he uses drafting dividers to lay the parallel lines out with. Another possibility is to use a beader blade (rather pricey)

A true leather artist who ranks up there with the very best ever. I was always impressed with the way he would take the Sheridan Style and incorporate other styles such as figure carving into it and do it well.

http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=1925&familyName=Copper+Common+Nails just like camano ridge already suggested

I am with the guy in the video. A mallet is better. The thing is that you need to use it correctly. In tooling, it is not used like you would use a hammer for driving nails. For most tooling, you need to use it by holding it lightly in your palm and fingers, about midway on the handle, and tap the tool by twisting your wrist while resting your elbow on the table. For lighter taps you may choke up on the handle, that is move your hand closer to the head. This allows you to have a kind of bouncing motion which makes it easier to walk your beveler along. Mauls are favored by toolers who do a lot of deep tooling on saddles. The maul's one big advantage is that they are usually heavier than mallets and thus are easier to make a deep impression with. If you watch a video of someone using a maul then you might notice that for the way they are using it, they may just as well use a brick or a rock. One big disadvantage, particularly for a novice is that you are hitting a small target with a round toolface, and miss-strikes easily occur. Another big disadvantage is their price. But, on the other hand, I would't pay the price that Tandy is asking for their mallets either. There are literally tons of mallets around, and they are commonly found at garage sales, secondhand stores and such, where they can often be picked up for a few bucks. In fact, come to think of it......I have never bought a mallet from a retail outlet. And for those people who think mauls are so wonderful....yes I have one, and I do use it sometime for heavy stamping of some large stamps. And then sometime I use my steel Garland with the rawhide faces.

What ? The cattle are on strike, and refusing to do their sacrificial duty? The fact is that many places are clamping down on tanneries due to enviromental concerns as they do produce a considerable amount of nasties in addition to the leather.

That is a nut for a terminal post as found on electical equipment. A decently stocked electronics shop should have them, or can get them for you. Perhaps even a Harley shop as they used some of these at one time on their motorcycles.

Sorry, this reply ended up being posted later than I figured earlier. Job ran late. Such is my life sometimes. LOL Okay, first a rundown on dating Craftools. The short version: Craftools put out their first catalog in 1946. According to Bert Grifin, wife of Ken Griffin, Richard (Dick) McGahen made the first Craftools in his home shop. 1946 - 1963 Craftools are usally marked on the shaft with CRAFTOOL CO and a 2 or 3 digit number. Some early ones that are marked with only the CRAFTOOL CO name are around, but very rare. 1963 - 1968 Craftools (tooling) are marked as before with the addition of a letter prefix according to type of stamp. Tandy acquired the company in the early 60's and moved operations from LA to Ft.Worth, TX. 1969 - 2000 ?? Craftool added the "Made in USA" logo to their tools to differentiate them from the foreign made tools put out by MIdas and Kelly. At some point, they also dropped the "CO" so that tools only said: the tool # with prefix letter, Craftool Made in USA More recently, Craftools are made only overseas. Some of these may be marked only Craftool on the second line, but they will still have the letter prefix before the number. That may be why they sell the tools packaged in labeled bags here....it may be the law to declare country of origin on item. So......the tools you are looking at were made between 1969 and around 2000+ , a span of more than thirty years. In that time, the quality of the tools went markedly down hill. I won't go into all the factors surrounding that decline here.....the important thing to know is that tools marked with the USA may be pretty decent tools, or they may be much more inferior tools. The only way to know is to appraise the tools. To help you with that, I am posting a few comparisons between pre 1963 Craftool stamps and post 1969 Craftool Stamps. There are some other pictures posted on my blog regarding Craftools that you can take a look at also First a comparison of two bevelers. The 200 beveler is one of the most common tools out there because it is of a size suited to accomplish a majority of your beveling. As noted in the pic, one is a pre 1963 beveler while the other is much more recently made in the USA. The older one has the slight curve to the tooling face that is desired for smooth beveling, while the other is blocky, that is nearly flat with only a very slight rounding of the corners. That blocky beveler will produce choppy beveling, more noticably bad in the hands of a novice. You might notice the finish on the two tools .....the older one being much more pleasing in appearance. Next a comparison of 2 camouflages, as before, one pre 1963 vs one post 1969. Besides the notes on the picture, also notice that the lines are cut deeper, and sharper, on the older cam which makes for crisper definition in your tooling. . And, a comparison of two acorn stamps. These type of stamps, those primarily formed by dies, will include many of the flower stamps, leaves, stars, the cutesy animal ones, etc. As the dies are used to stamp out tool after tool, they inevitably will wear out, and start producing more and more inferior stamping tools. It may also be the case, that one die is made better than others just to begin with. Then there is the matter of the finish work done afterwards. Notice the beveling across the top edge done by grinding, with the older one done more evenly and procducing a cleaner edge. Generally speaking, the older a Craftool is, the better tool it is. There are a few exceptions to that rule. one being that some of the flower petal tools produced later, are better than some of the pre1963 unlettered ones. I hope that I have been of some help here. What would really be of help to you is if you could have an experianced leather tooler look at the tools with you, or at the very least show you with their tools what you need to be looking for. I am talking about someone who you really respect for their tooling ability. If that is not possible, try to get a feeling for what the older Craftools look like by looking at pictures on Ebay. Some of the sellers post really good close up shots of the tool faces. Ignore the term "vintage" in the auction titles. It seems to be a catch all phrase for anything older than last year. Look for tools that are unlettered, or at least don't have "Made in USA " on them. If you need to get a feel for the price they are bringing, do an advanced search from the box at top of the eBay page and check the completed or sold option. I know you were looking for a ballpark figure here, and really all I can say it that I definately wouldn't offer over $150 for the whole works, unless there is something special in the additional tools you mentioned. If you can find out from the seller when the tools wee originally bought, that may be a consideration. The 1970's would be some better than the 1990's.

If you can wait a bit, I will attempt to give you some pointers on how to evaluate the Craftools this evening. In no case do you want to buy the tools without having some idea of their worthiness for tooling leather.

Or, you could be honest, and instead of downloading what is probably a pirated copy, you could inquire of Peter Main, a member of this forum, IS the author of the book, and I believe, still the copyright holder, about getting a legitimate copy.

LOL Your signature quote is pretty ironic. Yes my comment was called for. If I am following a thread, and there is a new entry, then I have to take the time to open the email notification and check it out. In this case, it was a total waste of my time to read your suggestion that the OP do something he already said wasn't in the picture.

I can sure understand why you wish to salvage the leather. Frankly, you need a good restoration expert for this one who can examine the work firsthand. Before beginning, several things will have to be evaluated. The top finish will need to be identified so a suitable removal technique can be determined. The nature of the gold design will have to be established....Is it real gold leafing, or just gold paint of some kind. If it is actually guilding....how good is the bond to the leather, that is...is the sizing still stable. If it is just a paint, then there probably is no help for it coming off with the top finish. Once the top finish is stripped, if possible...then you will need to evaluate the remaining color, and determine your course of action there. If you are doing all the work yourself, it shouldn't hurt too much to do some testing in a small area where you already have serious damage. But like I said before....a hands on evaluation by a restoration expert is suggested here.

Linen thread would probably be best dyed with a cloth dye. I have never done black, but right now I have a jar of royal blue that I dye thread with. When I prepared the dye, I used hot water, and kept adding the dye powder and stirring until it would not dissolve any more. To dye a batch of thread, I warm up the jar of dye in the microwave, add the thread in loose coils, leaving one end outside of the jar. I then swirl the mixture around in the jar until it is the shade I want, all the time trying to avoid tangling up the thread coils. I swirl a little one direction, and then a little the other. Reading the color is a judgement call since the thread will appear darker when wet, than when it dries. Using a pair of neoprene gloves, I pull the thread out starting with the free end that has remained outside the jar...stripping the excess dye with my fingers. I use a coat hanger bent in the shape of the profile of a spool to wrap the thread on for drying.

A while back, the subject of the chain stitch came up in a post here. I promised the member that I would post a tutorial on how to do the stitch without a machine. While researching the topic to see if there was some information on the net, or in my extensive library of leather books, I drew a complete blank. I did watch some YouTube videos that were on how to do the lock stich, and some of them were downright frightful. I remember at least two of the demonstrators having bleeding fingers before they were done. So, I decided to add a few tips on how to do the lock stitch more safely, as well as easier and faster. I know that some people have an attitude about the hand stitchers, which I find to be silly.... because, after all, they produce the same stich that most leather stitching machines do. I only posted this on my blog because the size limit on photos is more generous there, and I wanted to have high resolution photos for illustration. The link below to my my blog will take you to the tutorial. I hope if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions; you will take the time to post them. Thank you,

I have posted a tutorial on my blog on how you can do the chain stitch with one of the inexpensive hand stitchers. Just click on the link to my blog below.

You know, on second thought, forget about adding lead strips. Bare lead is not a good thing to have in your shop. What you might do, is get some fully jacketed bullets, and drill just slightly underside holes is the mallet head, and then pound the bullets in. Like with the screws, space the bullets to keep mallet balanced.

For crying out loud ! Wake up ! He said .........he doesn't have the funds to buy one,

Have you checked to see if there is a leather guild in your area? You might check with the local leather suppliers about that if there isn't one listed in the phone book. Seems like an area like San Antonio should have something Just did a quick search and there is. .https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasLeathercraftersGuild

Like I said before - read Bob Parks tutorial. It may be the best and most important advice ever given on this forum. Go to this thread and start reading.....http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=19121&hl= casing leather I have no argument with anything Bobby said. I would point out that if you just wet the surface, then the interior may very well still be dry, particularly with thicker leather. Casing allows the moisture to distribute evenly throughout the leather and makes for optimum toolability. I very seldom use a sponge to redampen my leather. I do use a water spray bottle that puts out a fine mist which gives me much better control than any sponge.

LOL There is a big differance between growing old mentally and growing up. Not growing up is a big problem with some adults who continue to hold childish ideas long past the time they should have been replaced with adult ones. Now, as to your problem with your corners. It would help a lot if you posted photographs of what you are doing now that isn't working. We would then be able to see just how square a corner you are aiming for, the technique you are presently using, and perhaps why it isn't working. Meanwhile you might review the ideas in a tutorial on doing corner for bookbinding found at http://www.edenworkshops.com/images/leather%20corners.pdf You may need to skive the leather at the corners to use the bookbinding techniques.

Pretty knife........but what about it's performance as a skiver? As they say....."the proof is in the pudding". Would be nice to see some good pictures of a range of leathers it has been used to skive on.

Congratulations, you got an antique look in just a few weeks. I think what is of more concern in your mind is the fact of the black color in many beveled areas coming off and also lifting whatever color lay under it. It would seem to me like you used some type of black antiquing as your final step in coloring. Did you use the super shene to seal with before applying the antique and allow the dyes, sealer, and antiquing, to dry sufficiently at each stage, and before applying the resolene? Some things to think about: 1. Any tooling compresses the leather fibers, making it less porous, and less able to allow dye penetration and bonding than non tooled areas. This is one of the reasons that many leather carvers slick the whole area before carving. Slicking compresses the surface fibers to a more unifom consistancy,which makes for more consistant dye and finish coverage. Tandy has a short video showing this at http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/en-usd/home/infoandservices/Leathercraft-Videos/Glass-Burnisher-Video/Glass-Burnisher-Video.aspx Note-ignore the bullshit wetting procedure at the start....the leather should be properly cased as in Bob Parks tutorial in "Tips and Tricks" on this site. Tandy has done a big disservice with their continual presentation of the idea that you can simply wet the surface with a sponge in order to carve and tool. 2. When appraising whether your work is dry enough between stages when dyeing, and applying inishes........keep in mind that the dye, and/or finish coat, in the crevices, is usually thicker than that on the open surfaces, and may not be completely dry, and bonded, when the rest of the work seems dry. You may be able to repair this by carefully redying the bad areas, sealing, applying the black antiquing again, and then the finish coat with adequate drying between stages.

"Growing old is compulsory - growing up isnt" ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? What do you mean by that?

Mexico huh? It's hard telling what tanning process they are using down there. Historically, urine and animal dung were used in the tanning process by our ancestors, Perhaps they still are using them down Mexico way. LOL

I would say nix on using monofilament. Every fisherman knows that monofilament degrades in strength within a few years, or sooner. LOL Then I realized something. The beaded rosette is possibly made with monofilament line also.