JustKate

It's the dyes, Mat, one of the major drawbacks of water-based dyes is that they are very unstable until sealed. You also lose color when applying antique or stain. One thing that might help is applying more coats of color to make it darker than you want it to end up. Another thing that might help is if you can spray on the 'shene or other sealer. Another choice is to use spirit-based dyes (Fiebings or Angelus) that are more stable during applications of stain or finish.

It looks like a good choice to seal an antique job. If it's good for saddles (many which have antique paste applied to them), it's probably good for your bike seats. But as with everything, test on some scrap before using it on one of your bike seats.

I know the feeling. You gained some new insights and capabilities, and made you better, even if it doesn't feel like it at the moment. Can't wait to see it when you get the (devil in the) details sorted out. One of my "favorite" failure stories is when I thought I could make a cuff for a hot drink cup (coffee cup wrap) and finish it with wax. Marched off to the nearest Caribou Coffee place, asked them to use mine instead of the corrugated cardboard one they usually give you. When I was heading out to my car with my hot coffee, the wrap suddenly started to feel wet. The wax melted. Uhhoops!

They both need to be sealed to prevent bleeding. You can use wax, lacquer, or acrylic finishes on either of them. Or at least I have, and not had any problems with any of them. Which one you use just depends on how water-resistant you want your piece to be, and how glossy or matted you want the finish to be. The paste is thicker, like heavy mud, and your working time with it is generally less than with the gel, and I also find it a little finicky at cooler temperatures, or when there's too much of a breeze in the room. You can improve that (and improve the stability of the paste) by thinning it with a bit of Tan-Kote. I've gotten some very nice results from the paste/TK mixture. The EF is a looser gel, has a slightly longer working time, and I would say easier to put on and work with than the paste. It can also be mixed with Tan-Kote to extend working time and give a slightly different (usually lighter) appearance. I like the results I get with it, too, but not quite as much as the paste.

I would depress the shadowed areas. (Make them lower.)

You can use just about any sealing coat with All-in-1 - wax, lacquer, or acrylic. If you use acrylic, it's better to spray it on. If your suspenders are going to get wet, I'd suggest lacquer. I've also found that mixing in some Tan-Kote with the All-in-1 (2:1) improves it quite a bit, as in, it's much more stable (less likely to bleed or fade), more durable, and the antiquing is softer and more subtle. Your mileage may vary - so always test before trying a new stain recipe.

The prices I set on my work do not fluctuate from one prospect to another. I'm not a brick and mortar, I sell online, so I don't get to observe customers who browse my "shop". I set the price based on my cost, plus a certain amount of profit I hope to make on it. If it doesn't sell right away, I don't lower the price or put it "on sale", I just look for other places to offer it for sale that I think may be attracting more of the kind of buyer I'm looking for. But if it sells very quickly, that's an indication to raise the price. One interesting thing I'll also mention is, on a couple of occasions, I've gotten flurries of sales after raising my prices. What I gather from that is, it is possible to price something too low.

Bob touched on this a little, but I think it bears some additional consideration: the market. Or more a question of which market. At the very least, you have to cover your time and materials, but somewhere, there is a market that is willing to compensate you much more than that. It's called profit, and there's nothing wrong with it, because it involves finding and selling your work to someone who genuinely values it. What the item is worth to you (in terms of materials and labor) is different from what it is worth to a potential buyer (in terms of their needs and wants). If you need $90 out of an item to cover your materials and labor, but you stumble onto a buyer in whose eyes your heirloom-quality handmade work is worth $240, which will you charge them? Before you find that market, you'll probably find a lot more people who value your work much less than that $90. Don't even give them the time of day, they can't tell you what your work is worth to everyone, and they are clearly not your buyer. Of course, the problem with that question is, how would you know? A buyer isn't going to say, "Gee that $90 is too low, I think I'll give you $240 for it." One way to at least partially answer that question is, you have to learn to understand the value of your work from the perspective of a buyer, focus on what they will put value in. There are the more obvious things, such as durability, artistry, the look, smell, and feel of real leather. Aside from that, what about emotional benefits? How would they feel showing up at a meeting carrying a finely crafted leather briefcase? Or at a party wearing a genuine leather wrist cuff instead of the vinyl ones that everyone else is wearing? Or taking people out to a restaurant and taking their credit card out from a beautifully-made leather wallet? Compare your own work to a similar mass-produced item. What are the differences that are really going to matter to someone who owns it? And by the way, It's not inherently better just because it's hand made and it took you a lot of time to make it. Sometimes being hand made makes it inferior, depending on the skill of the person who made it! So be brutally honest with yourself. Is it really better, and if it isn't, what do you need to do to make it so? A buyer isn't going to give a rip how much time you put into it, they want to know whether it's worth it to them to pay that much for something. Really look at it and ask yourself how it is really better than something mass-produced, from the perspective of someone who would own it. Another part of the puzzle is psychologically going beyond the question of, "Will it sell?" You can sell anything if the price is right. If your $90 belt is getting snatched up by everyone who lays eyes on them, you're probably pricing them too low. The real question is, "Where is the best market where it will not just sell, but sell at a profit?" Where is that buyer to whom my work will be of great value? And to find that buyer, you will talk to quite a few wannabes who will discredit your work and tell you how ridiculous the price is in an attempt to negotiate a lower price they would rather pay for it. The irony of that is, they actually want it, but they just can't afford it. Don't let them make that your problem. Keep looking for that worthy buyer. It's not a question of whether it will sell, it's a question of where it will sell at a profit.

*Like*

Always a pleasure to see your work, Samuel. That is truly epic!

The most instructional material I've come across for making leather armor has been on the web sites of the SCA and some of its chapters. I've also seen some information on sites about historical re-enactment. Sorry I don't have any links for you, it's not really my specialty, but a search on google along those lines will probably get you connected up with them. There may also be someone on this site who has done that kind of work and be willing to share what they know.

You can use either the stitching wheel or one of the fork-like chisels - either a diamond hole punch or pricking iron. They look almost the same but the points have different shapes. One advantage of a diamond hole punch is that it creates marks that slant at 45 degrees to make it easier to judge the angle to punch the hole with your awl. An advantage of a stitching wheel is, it's quite a bit faster to use. Up to you which you prefer. Heheh! No travesty there, you may discover quite a few of us have also experimented with wood stains on leather. If you like it, keep using it. And there may be enough lacquer or something in it that it may not require a sealer. I would suggest trying one or two of the other products just to see how they compare in your eyes.

Glad you did that! I was looking for this site again a week or two ago, and couldn't find it.

Sounds like you've got stamping covered. Do you have a knife to cut out your leather parts? If you want to color the leather, consider some dyes (for coloring specific areas of the leather) or antique/stains (for coloring the entire piece and giving the leather a nice patina) - lots of different ones, but an antique paste or gel will be enough to get you started. Some kind of sealing finish to protect your leather and seal the antique, such as any of the "shene" finishes, or resolene. If you want to stitch pieces of leather together, get a tool to mark stitching holes, like a pricking iron, diamond hole punch, or stitching wheel. A stitching awl, and learn how to get it really sharp. Some thread and needles. Edit: If you're lacing rather than stitching, then you'll want to punch holes with a lacing punch. If you want to polish the edges, a swatch of stiff, heavy fabric like cotton duck and some saddle soap. That should be the bare minimum to complete a project.

Of all the finishes I've used and tested, lacquer is the most impervious to contact with liquid. And it does work well with antique paste or a mixture of antique paste and tan kote.

Hi Chris, nice to have you aboard. Do you have any idea what types of items you're thinking of making to start off? That might help us narrow things down a bit for you.

I like the way you molded the leather around part of the knife handle at the top. Interesting touch, and there's no doubt the sheath was custom made for that particular knife.

Hmmm, maybe.

I went back and forth like that for a long time, too. If you haven't stumbled-upon the post from Johan Potgieter (Leerwerker), where he shared a little tutorial of a (relatively) simple technique for creating clean vector-based line art from a photograph, you might want to have a look at it. This might be a good starting point for someone wanting to learn one good technique that is useful for a lot of things: Line Drawings The process he describes is more of a "manual" process, and can be a bit tedious for more complex elements, but there is also now an automatic trace function that both Inkscape and Illustrator have, that can automatically generate clean vector lines from images. It doesn't work perfectly in every case, but when it does, it's sweet! When it doesn't work, you can always fall back on the method Johan describes in his tutorial.

Well, here's a coffee cup wrap I did a while back that shows one possible solution. I just butted the ends together and laced them.

Ho hum... mind-blowingly stunningly impressive, as usual. I always thought the movie industry would eventually discover you and start sending some work your way. Congratulations on the commission.

There are punches made for that purpose: Oblong punches

Are you thinking of just wrapping the cut-off bottle with a strip of leather? Or making more of a pedestal-looking thing?

If you want perfect sized line drawings of your carving/cutting patterns, a vector-based illustration tool (such as Illustrator, Inkscape, CorelDraw, etc.) is a better choice, rather than a raster-based photo editing/retouching tool (such as Photoshop or GIMP). You can use either and get the results you want, one way or another. But after probably hundreds of hours of trials and research with all of these programs, Illustrator or Inkscape are the tools I reach for when I'm creating new patterns. If you're on a budget, definitely try Inkscape. I can do anything with it that I can do will Illustrator.

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