caedenspa

Thanks for the responses. I tried again last night, and if I got the leather relatively well cased and banged the heck out of it, I could cut it. How would I go about sharpening this thing? I've never sharpened a punch before, just replaced tubes. I would love to have one of those punches (or all of them!) from Brettun's Village, but at $60 a pop that adds up FAST! I did add their site to my bookmarks though. Someday....

On Saturday I picked up a 1/2" oblong punch from Tandy intending to use it to cut buckle slots in small straps, pass-through slots, etc. I got the thing home, finally got all the plastic crap off of it, and tried it on an old scrap of 2 oz leather. Nothing. Would barely pierce the surface. I thought maybe there was still some of that plastic crap inside it or something, but no. I simply cannot get the thing to cut. I'm planning to return it this weekend, but do I even bother exchanging for another, or should I just get my money back and order a different brand from somewhere else? Or am I just missing something in my technique, which is about as follows: hold mallet in hand; hold punch in other hand; place cutting edge of punch on leather; smack with mallet. Hmmm.... seems I'm doing it in the right order, I didn't smack it before placing on the leather or anything....

I'm new to this whole leatherworking thing, but having a blast so far. I started out just stitching some holsters for personal use, and they turned out better than I would've ever expected. So I figured I'd try my hand at tooling them. I've been taking a "class" at my local Tandy store, and I'm pretty happy with my carving - mostly figure carving, not so much into the Sheridan type stuff (yet!). So I want to dye the pieces. This I'm not enjoying so much. Maybe it has to do with not being able to hit things with a mallet.... I'm just experimenting with the water-based dye that came in Tandy's little intro kit. Plain brown dye, some eco-sheen or whatever they call it, and the hi-liter. I can't seem to get the dye to actually do much of anything. It was suggested that I could vary my shades by using different amounts of water with the straight dye, so I mixed up a 2:1 batch, a 1:1 batch, and just straight. Here's the problem: when I "paint" those on to my design, I can't tell the difference in the shades. Then when I apply the highlighter at the end, everything seems to disappear except the areas where I put the straight (uncut) dye. What am I doing wrong? Are there other dyes I should be working with? Any sort of preparation I should be doing to the leather? I'm just working with some belly scraps I had at the house. I'd prefer if any recommended products be something I can get at Tandy - the store is about 10 minutes from my house. Thanks in advance - any help is appreciated.