Toddo

Beautiful pouches. Etsy would make a good home for those. (is Etsy in the UK?). You could use those for lots of things like trail kits. Fire starter kits. Small first aid kits etc.

Here's my final sheath sewed onto the outside of the right side panel for the trail bag project. Front and back of sheath sponge wiped with no antique. And I remember now why I antiqued the side side panels to begin with even though there is no tooling on them. It's because I'll have a tooled design on the front of the bag so the entire front panel will be antiqued and so I had to antique the side panels also so the color would match over the entire bag. The sheath is just a touch darker. Not bad though. Here's the right and left side panels together. I got a LOT more to do finish the bag. I hope the dye job on the front panel comes out even. The front panel is huge. It's like 9 inches wide by around 3 feet long. It's gonna wrap around the side panel sewing tabs, come back around the top and hang down more than half way down the front of the bag. I hope the overlapping wipes with the sponge don't show dark sections on the overlaps. The Fiebings pro dye is oil dye so I "shouldn't" have a problem as long as the wipes are even and I don't let dye pool on top anywhere.

Lots of good info to think about. Thanks for the input.

Yeah the darkness probably has more to do with the saturation of the leather. As far as the antiquing, basically I was just mimicking the Weaver Leathercraft guy at this YouTube video: However, I do realize he has tooling in his piece that he wanted to highlight. I gotta say though I thought the antiquing on my bag side panels made it look better even though there was no tooling. This is my newly molded sheath front-piece that has not been antiqued on top of the bag side panel. This new piece was sponge wiped. It is also the replacement piece I got off Ebay that was very white looking before I dyed it. Without the antique on it, the color is really not that far off from the side panel color. It's totally acceptable: Here's the sheath back-piece along side the front piece. The back piece was sponge wiped and has been antiqued. It is darker than the front-piece. I have enough left from the Ebay piece to make one more back-piece so what I'm gonna do is, make a new back piece, sponge wipe it, and not antique it so it matches the front-piece and I think that will be fine: Thanks for the tip on the resist. I will be tooling a huge design on the front panel of the bag. I planned on dyeing over top of the tooling then antiquing over top of that with no resist like the Weaver guy in the YouTube video. I think I will use resist on my next bag. What resist do you suggest that doesn't streak or do anything weird?

Just for an update. So I got the piece of leather from Ebay to make the new sheath and the Ebay piece looked white compared to my original single shoulder leather. I went ahead and made the sheath outta the new white looking leather thinking that now this one is gonna turn out lighter than the side panel pieces because of how white the leather looked. So I surfaced sponged the dye on front and back (because the back side of the flap will be seen when opened) with the fiebings pro dye. And guess what. It came out not lighter than the other sheath I totally submersed in dye, but just as dark some how. Go figure. I only dyed the front side of the side panel pieces and left the backs undyed. I guess dyeing the back side of leather makes the front side look darker somehow? I don't really get it. After applying antique on the new piece it even actually looks a bit darker than the first sheath that I was so worried about being to dark. I coulda just gone ahead with the first sheath. Phsst. Lessons learned.

I may try that one some time when I get more completed projects under my belt and want to try for something more refined looking.

That did cross my mind. The knife sheath is a small piece of the bag as a whole and will be sewn into the interior of the bag so a slight color variation on that piece will not be to critical in this instance.

I totally agree.

Nice looking sheath. I like the dye effect around the edges! I went ahead and ordered a new piece of leather to make a new sheath so I experimented with the old sheath. I soaked it in 50/50 bleach and water for around 5 minutes or so. It definitely pulled dye out of the leather as the solution was full of dye after 5 minutes. It turned out a splotchy mess like yours did with denatured alcohol. It looks like it was regurgitated by a fish then washed up on the beach It's extremely dry now and practically brittle. It feels like if you tried to bend it, it would like actually break. The bleach totally dried the leather out to the max. It needs to be reconditioned. I think I'll go ahead and make a sheath out of it for one of my old lock blade knives.

Ahh thanks for the advice yall. I was just looking at 8.5"x11" single cut pieces of veg tan leather on Ebay for like $10 w/free shipping. I could remake the two pieces without much expense and re-do them if I decide I don't wanna use the pieces. As a matter of coincidence, I too prepunched holes in the first 4 other pieces I mentioned before I dyed them and noticed darker areas on the edges where the dye soaked deeper into the leather through the holes like you said. But it actually looks pretty cool and could easily be an "on purpose" effect ha. And the pieces were not even dip dyed. Just sponge dyed and dye still soaked in through the punch holes quite a bit. Here's the piece with the dark edges. This is gonna be a side panel of a black powder trail bag. The dark edges make it look rustic and cool even though it was done by accident. I won't be doing that again. All dying done before holes are punched. (This is actually a 3 piece construction. Front and back leather with a 1/16" acrylic board sewn in between to keep the sides of the bag rigid. The interior/back side is lined with black felt. A lot of firsts on this project. Never saddled stiched or done any of this before)

I got a project going and I decided to use Fiebings Pro Dye/oil dye according to the Weaver Leathercraft dude on YouTube. When I saw that you could make multiple passes with the oil dye without the leather darkening with each pass I says to myself that's the stuff for me. So I used 50/50 light brown and mahogany on the first four pieces of my project and then antiqued with Fiebings antique gel and the pieces turned out beautiful. Another part of my project includes a wet molded knife sheath that is two parts sewn together. The parts are small so I decided to dip-die them. The Weaver Leathercraft dude said oil dye stays a consistent color no matter what right? So there should be no problem with the dip dye even though I used a sponge just on the top surface of the other four pieces. Mistake. The two knife sheath pieces are significantly darker than the pieces that I sponge wiped with the dye. Is there any way to lighten dye after it's been applied? The only thing I've tried so far is that I soaked the front piece with hot water hoping it would wash some of the dye out. It is now drying out. I'll see in a day or two if that helped. What about soaking the pieces in a 50/50 solution of bleach and water? I bought a single shoulder for the project and it's coming down to the wire on having just enough leather to complete the project. I really don't have enough leather to remake the knife sheath parts. I really hope there is way to salvage the parts. My wet molded front piece came out so awesome it looks like it was molded in a factory. I hate to loose that piece!

Awesome looking key fob. The Chief Head button is a great touch.

Yeah. Here's a video from Weaver Leathercraft explaining that.

Well after a 24 hour wait I tested my Weldwood test piece for adhesion and flexibility. Adhesion factor is A++. You can't rip the felt off without also pulling some of the leather off. 100% happy with that. I can't see that felt ever coming of that thing unless someone intentionally tries to pull it off with a pair of pliers. As for flexibility, I'm like about 90% happy with it. It' no where near as rigid as it seemed that Weldwood 1-800 info line guy inferred. I was imagining the thing drying stiff as a piece of glass after talking to him. It's actually fairly flexible. It won't ever be as floppy and flexible as a well worn piece of naked leather. Like I said, I'm about 90% happy with. I think it's gonna make it look (and feel) awesome. It'll definitely be unique. I guess if the Weldwood doesn't hold up for an entire 100 years someone can do a repair sew along the border of the flap.

It's gonna be a hybrid between this... and this.... Here are the patterns I made for it... And I'm gonna tool this design on the front flap... And use this for the front flap closure button that will have a rawhide string coming from the bottom of the bag that will wrap around it to secure the front flap... and.... it's gonna have black felt lining the inside. The side panels are gonna be a sandwich of 3 pieces. The interior board is 1/16" thick acrylic board and the side panel back will having sewing tabs that bend forward to sew to the body of the bag. Which will set the side panels in just about a 1/4" so the top flap completely covers the sides.

Well I got a little bottle of the Weldwood from Home Depot and I got my test piece glued up tonight. Right now the piece has got a little stiffness to it but it looks like I could bend it easily. It's not totally floppy like it was before I glued the felt to it. It's 6-7oz leather and I did apply two coats to both pieces letting the first coat dry like 25 minutes before I applied the second coat. The reason I wanna do the overkill on the test piece is that I want to intentionally try to make this glue make the piece stiff by applying the double coat and letting it dry for days and even up to a week. If I can make this glue make the test piece stiff by any means then this glue is not what I'm looking for. I'm hoping this bag will be around for 100 years so I really do want give the glue a thorough test. 100 years is a long time for that glue to get hardened up and stiff.

You're saying Weldwood Contact Cement dries flexible? I've heard some conflicting things. If I use this stuff and it dries to a rigid state the work I've done will be trashed. Are you absolutely sure about this? I guess there's only one thing I can do really. Buy the smallest amount of Weldwood Cement I can and test it first. I really wanted to use Weldwood as the things I've heard is that once it dries you can't rip the pieces apart that were glued together. And a quart of Barge is like $30 compared to a quart of Weldwood at $15 so I would rather use Weldwood if possible. I guess I can get a small tube of Barge also and test both of them to see which one works best. I will definitely post back with the results. I plan on appling two coats to both sides of my test pieces of both brands and them letting them dry for an entire week to be thorough.

Thanks for the tip

I have not thought of the tire patch cement. I guess I could experiment with that and see how it holds. I would need about six tubes of that stuff if it works. I'll be needing to cover an area about 9" wide by about 30" in length. There's gotta be something super strong but stays flexible out there. I can't be the first one ever to need something like this for leather work bonding.

I'm in the process of making a black powder kit bag and I plan on lining the inside of the bag with black felt. I'm looking for the strongest but most flexible contact cement. I heard mention here on another thread that Weldwood Contact Cement works great so I went and bought some at Home Depot. It says "Flexible Bond" on the outside of the can but that stuff is used to stick laminates down for countertops and so forth and I know from experience that kind of glue dries very hard like dried resin and is not flexible AT ALL. I called the 1-800 number on the can for info and they confirmed that Weldwood dries RIGID. That would have been a total disaster if I had used that stuff. I wonder why anyone was mentioning it here except that maybe they were using it to glue leather together for a rigid application. Since I will be lining the bag with felt the front flap is one area that will constantly be flexed. I do not intend to sew the border of the front flap to the felt lining underneath. The rest of the lining in the interior of the bag will be sewed through, but the front flap will not be sewed through and it's a huge area in relation to the rest of the piece. I seriously doubt Elmers Rubber Cement will hold like I need it to. I have seen the Tandy leather glue. Should I use that or is there something superior to that? It's gotta hold tough as nails for permanent and stay totally flexible.

Thank You

Thanks BM

Anyone know where to get one of those angled English "pricking" punches? All I can seem to find are the diamond head ones.

Thanks for the updated links! It's been a few years since I've been on this site and I'm fixing to make my son a black powder possibles bag for his birthday. There's no "Tandy Leather Kit" for this project so I'll be doing this one from scratch. I've never stiched leather before. At ALL. I'll be posting back with questions and/or progress.