Bob Blea

This stamp is made by Wayne Jueschke in Elco, NV. He makes some of the best geometrics in the business, IMO.

Sorry Mike, I didn't think to take any with the darts and flights in it.

Thanks! I'm always working on new skills and techniques.

I've used common Liquitex acrylics (available in almost any craft or art supply store) with good results. My wife once made a wallet for herself with a carved and painted butterfly on the front. It's been through the washing machine twice and the paint is still holding up very well, not showing much wear and is completely useable. Bob

I haven't posted anything I made for a while. This goes back to my Christmas orders and it's the first time I've tried making a case for darts. There are some things I'll do differently on the next one and I see lots of room for improvement, but overall I'm happy with it and the customer's boyfriend loved it. The outer part was 3/4 oz. vegtan. The interior was made with a 2 oz. vegtan and a pigskin liner. The top part of the interior in this picture (which is actually the left side) holds the flights (the fins on the back of the dart) and has a pocket at the bottom which can hold the dart points, both of which can be removed from the darts. The right hand side has elastic loops to hold the barrels of three darts with a open pocket at the bottom to enclose the points if they are still attached to the barrels. Like I said, plenty of room for improvement especially with the stitching (which was all done by hand) but not bad for a first for me. Bob

Looking good!

I'm referring to the dark outline your beveller leaves around the leaf carving, the trough the beveller causes as you bevel the lines you cut with the swivel knife. A matting tool flattens down the dark outline and makes it look level with the rest of the leather around it, so your leaves will appear to rise above the leather surface. It will also smooth your beveling. In a few places I can see individual tool marks in the beveling around the leaves. Does that help?

Hello and welcome to the forum! It looks like you are off to a good start. The picture is blurry but I can see a couple of things. First it looks like the leather was maybe too wet. Second, I would recommend using your pear shader on the petals of the flowers and the leaves. They don't look like they have any shader impressions and that leaves them looking kind of flat. Hope this helps, Bob

It looks nice. The only recommendation I have would be to use a smooth matter or figure beveller to matte down the halo around the leaf carving. It would make the leaves pop up from the surface of the leather. The old craftool figure bevellers will work for this, though modern ones tend to leave tool marks (unless Tandy has improved those tools too.) Barry King has started making tools like this now and Clay Miller would be a good source, and of course there is Robert Beard if you are looking for the perfect tool for this. Hope this helps, Bob

Thanks antipaladin and capsterdog, I'm looking forward to making another one of these.

I use double loop on almost all my items, so I feel qualified to say you did good! Your lacing looks really smooth.

Thanks Chief! Coming from you that means a great deal to me.

Thanks bikermutt, I've got to agree with you on that. I was happy with how that turned out, and it's probably one of the reasons I was surprised on how much I liked it. May have to get some real croc or alligator sometime.

Now for something completely different, for me anyway.... I got some crocodile embossed leather remnants and there were some pretty big pieces, so I decided to try making a ladies clutch wallet out of one of them. It turned out better than I thought it would have, so I'm looking to make another. I did post it on my Etsy shop but I think my wife might claim it. The interior is made of a thin chrome tan pull up leather with a pigskin liner. The edge lacing is calf leather lace. The embossed croc is a chrome tan and it was very thin and floppy, so I had to back it with a thin piece of veg tan to give it the stiffness I wanted the outside of the wallet to have. https://www.etsy.com/listing/492253955

Really nice looking Chief! I'm working on a similar one except I am using some embossed cowhide scrap that I picked up. Your looks much better.

It looks to me that your leather is very wet when you are tooling. In the How Do I Do it section there is a good write up on casing leather. Read through that and let your leather get drier and you will see a big difference in the impressions your stamps make.

Hi Zayne, I hadn't played with it for a while but it's still sitting on my desk here. I just rammed the card into each slot a few dozen times again and everything still seems to be holding up well. No sign that the pockets are coming apart. Bob

There are some very good points made above and the Stohlman books can be very helpful. I would recommend spending more time practicing with your swivel knife. Your swivel knife cuts are the foundation of any leather carving, and in your case you aren't making smooth flowing cuts. In Mr. Vandyke's example you can see that his knife cuts along the vines are long and flowing with the length of the vines. They gently and gracefully curve around the flowers. Your vines are very short and end very abruptly, which is partially due to the small area you are carving them in. Also, your curving cuts like your flower petals are choppy and not very smooth, which affects your tooling. Much of this is just a matter of practice and getting comfortable cutting smoothly, but it also may be your swivel knife itself. The blade needs to be sharp and well stropped to cut well, so if you have never done this spend some time sharpening and stropping that knife. If you are like most people starting out you have a Tandy knife and it's blade needs work to tune it up as it doesn't come from the store in the shape it needs to be to do good work. Hope this helps! Keep working at it and you're bound to improve. Bob

Springfield leather also sells beading supplies.

Really nice Chief! Your lacing looks great as always. How do you bond the cloth lining to the leather?

That was really helpful. It taught me something about the kinds of leathers I don't normally use. Thanks for posting!

I wish there was a book out there that showed all the different styles and talked about the different elements of each. I've never found one nor have I found much written about what defines a particular style. I've tried to collect bits and pieces about what defines the various styles but much beyond Sheridan and Northwest, I can't tell you much. Most of what I know seems pretty subjective, and there really doesn't seem to be hard and fast rules. As others have said, within each style there were individual traits of the person carving, so it comes down to how much of you goes into your carving style.

You're right, there isn't a whole lot out there that I know of that just talks about how they draw the flowers or leaves. I picked up a lot of it just by studying the work of other artists and trying to draw flowers they use. There is one book out there that does cover some basics on drawing flowers, and I learned a lot from it. Leather Wranglers (yes, the swivel knife company) sells it. Part of the book covers a floral design class that the author, Billy Wootres gave when he was alive. the link is below. http://www.shop.leatherwranglers.com/product.sc?productId=24&categoryId=13 Also, I highly recommend the Sheridan Style carving book. That is one of my favorites for learning floral carving. Bob

My first thought when I saw the stamp in your post was the movie Frozen. It looked like a snowflake to me at first. I'm guessing there isn't a market out there for Frozen themed holsters...

Another possibility is a filigree blade for your swivel knife. I have a narrow blade for my Leatherwrangler's swivel knife that they make. It gives me very good control of the blade and I feel a lot more comfortable using this than a scalpel or Xacto knife.