BustedThumb

I have a large roll of red rosin construction floor paper hanging on the underside of my work table. I pull up a section to do my dying, staining and gluing, then cut and toss it when it's all crappy. And it also works great for temporary patterns or ones you're still working out the kinks on. For more rigid patterns, I'll use anything that's less than 1/4" ; masonite, plywood, pressboard, matboard, foamcore, plexi, anything that's flat and stiff enough to not bend too much.

I got a big spool of black thread from an ebay grab bag, no idea how old it actually is. Problem is it breaks very easily. I've determined it's impossible to saddle stitch with, even doubled up and twisted, I got about 12 stitches or so and it snapped. how long does unwaxed thread last? Is the whole thing just rotten or what?

I actually just ordered a steel stamp from http://www.phillipsengraving.com/Leather_Stamps.html for just $38.

Thanks for the replies and link. JLS - I didn't even realize there was a difference or standard sizes. I'm sure there's 900 ways to make a simple wallet, but I'm barely finding any patterns or info in the books I've picked up. Max - I did make my exterior 3/16" bigger, but I'll try 1/2" and a cutout next time. Another problem I gleaned off other threads and looking at your pic is my lining is too thin, especially compared to the back. I need to either double it over or work with materials closer in thickness.

Just starting out, and my attempts at figuring out bi-fold and tri-fold wallets aren't going smooth. I'm making the interiors myself, the best one I made so far, a bi-fold, has 4-5 oz cover & 1-1.5oz pig lining with 4 card slots, and it still bunches up in the middle quite badly when I fold it. I'm assuming there's something I'm not following right. If anyone has a pattern handy, or can point me to a topic or book that has small items like this, I'd appreciate it.

I used packaging tape to keep it from warping while tooling, and while pulling it off, the adhesive half came off and pulled the rough fuzzyness up - so I was left with a sticky and really fuzzy surface. Just hand sanding in a circular motion with really coarse paper took care of it, and left a nice slightly fuzzy but buffed surface. If I'm not lining it, I plan on it now as a step. Also, when dying and finishing any non-sewn edges, I spend a little time at the end to sand out the dye spillover on the flesh side.

I've been buying up a couple collections on Ebay to increase my stamping collection. You'll get duplicates and possibly some low quality tools, but in my opinion, when starting from nothing, quality tools aren't as high a priority as having a diverse "stamping vocabulary." As a rule, I don't bid more than $2 a stamp, so for a lot of 30 stamps, I won't bid more than $60. Any duplicates I just wait till I have a decent lot of them and put 'em back up for sale. I've only successfully won like three times so far, but it's much cheaper than buying brand spankin new. I still buy a few brand new stamps every time I order other supplies, I can't help myself. I've only been doing leathercrafting a few months now, but I already have several dozen stamps, and need to make another leather cup to hold 'em all. As far as brands stamped on the side, I've only come across a few - Craftools, US Stamps, Baron, and a made in Taiwan no brand. The only ones I don't like much are the Taiwan ones, they're bigger design stamps, the chrome finish is crappy and ridges aren't as crisp so the impressions they make arent' the greatest. But I bought those brand new, so go figure.

The Stolman Art of Hand Sewing Leather book goes over this in more detail, but the short of it is, folding it in half, sew a piece of filler leather in between, trim excess filler and edges, then moisten and slide it back and forth in a rounder. Basically, it's a plate or block of wood with holes that split in half and clamp around the workpiece. I can't seem to find a pic online, but it's not a piece of high tech or anything.

So I picked up some suede on a whim, to use for parts of bags and whatnot, the price was excellent. It's dyed through already and very soft, but I'm not sure about leaving it as is. I'm most confused about finishing leather in general, pretty much only have worked with tooled veg tan - Angelus dye and then an acrylic finish - that's really all I've done. The different oils and such just make me scratch my head. Also, if anyone can point me in the direction of a good book or forum post that explains step by step the different ways to finish leather, that'd be a big help too.

Yeah, Adam's a real down to earth guy, and he's from Northern Wisconsin of all places - not exactly cowboy country. - here's a vid of him made by Volume One - a local weekly magazine I sometimes did illustration work for.

try... https://www.hearlihy...=20&c=0&t=0&l=0 Not exactly wholesale prices, but google pointed me to a few other places too.

I guess that's kindof my point. Even if you have the best inkjet printer available, those ink cartridges are obscenely expensive, you're losing time printing and cutting, and the end product still isn't as good as it could be. In my opinion, if you plan on handing out 50 of them before the information on it would change, it's totally worth the $20-40 to get the minimum amount printed and then you'll have double or even more to just throw around willy nilly. When you have 1000, it's easy to make sure everyone walks away with one. You have business cards for 2 types of people: those who have bought from you already but sometime might buy from you again, and those who haven't bought from you... yet.

Don't sweat it Ray, I'm rereading 4 times now and I still don't see the burr under the saddle. Forums are a lot different than a conversation. Cards are very cheap, and you can get as little as a couple hundred at a time, and it looks much more professional, no matter how simple the design. I've had a bad experience with vistaprint the last time I ordered. Hidden costs so a good deal turned into a gouge, all the stupid popups and offers to get stuff I didn't want, then it took 2 weeks for delivery. I'll probably go back to uprinting.com next time, or even a local print shop. I design my own, color printing both sides. In my experience (non-leather businesses), you have to take yourself seriously before anyone else will. That means a clean presentation - layout, cards, website, even the clothes that you wear. If your work is top notch, you're doing it a disservice if you half ass how you deal with customers. If all you do is great work but crap presentation, you might stay busy. But most people out there don't know quality if it bit them in the ass - you have to do a bit of dancing to get their cash.

It's a new technology, so it's not really sure how useful it'll be in the long run and how to use it. Questions to ask yourself, who are you following, who's following you, and what are you posting. What's your online presence? Got a basic website, a kick ass online shop, or do you barely know what facebook is? Are you churning out production work where nothing ever changes, or are you doing 1 of a kind pieces every day? Tweeting links to your really nice custom pieces once or twice a week could have some customers drooling, and tweeting when you have a show or a big sale can get your production work off your shelves. Like anything, it's not what it intrinsically does, but what you make it do for you. I have a wide group of friends, clients, and random people following me, and I usually stick to tattoo shop stuff. I'll most often link to work I've done, drawings, pictures and random tattoo related things. I keep it half professional, half joking around, but never really personal - I"ll talk about the crazy older lady in the fur coat who barged in on a balmy hot day, sat down and insisted I tattoo her finger right then and there, but I don't need clients to know how I feel about Monday mornings, how wasted I was last night, or personal politics - I use facebook for that. Don't abuse it, keep it to 3-4 posts a week, but as long as you keep posting, keep things interesting, and cross link to your other online presences, you'll have people following you.

Really great site Mike, I wasted a good half hour already, found a few shoe making and soccer ball films like this one - http://www.britishpa...cord.php?id=552 - complete with clickers and hand stitching.

That's awesome, I was thinking that my small apartment can't fit any one of these things and hanging onto the work while sewing doesn't work so well, so I was figuring of just padding a wood clamp.

I think it's mostly just a quick way to get from a photo to a line drawing, and not the end all of pattern making. It's a neat trick and I've done it every now and then, but usually I just use a light table and trace it.

As a woodcarver of many years, mauls have a bigger strike area, you can turn it any which way and it'll still hit true, and while it's heavier, it's still easier on the wrist than a mallet or hammer. I generally always used a pretty heavy 2.5 -3 lb maul, letting the weight of it drive through the finer cuts, and having more than enough oomph to take out the big stuff. With leatherworking you probably need just as much hit control and the occasional need to open up and wail on something, and a maul can give you that. The mallets that come in those kits are probably only 8 oz or so, rawhide mallets maybe topping a pound. Even though it sounds like a lot to be lifting and dropping a 2-3 lb maul all day, but you'll need to swing a lot harder, twisting your wrist and arm more, to get the same force with a lighter mallet.

Ultra-noob here. I've yet to even buy the equipment, I'm here to learn and listen and see if I can make a go at this. I'm a tattoo artist, and a very crafty kind of guy. I'm mostly interested in carving and tooling, and hope to use my visual vocabulary to etch designs in a different kind of skin. My recent interest spurred on by seeing work in person from an LA artist, who runs Wasteoftalent.com I don't intend to copy her work exactly, but could anyone point me in the direction how she gets some of those finishes? Namely the black with carved out natural leather lines, I'm thinking it's a paint and not a stain or dye that she covers the piece with before tooling it, but then she also uses stamping and stuff too, so I'm a bit confused. So far, I'm planning too start out with just a few stamps, a freehand groover, and a few DIY wallet kits and such from Tandy, maybe their basic LW starter kit too.