Bob Blea

I recently took a carving and painting class with Robert Beard. In that class he used Liquitex paints. I know he uses some higher end paints in his own work but the Liquitex did a good enough job in the class. I've used them for years (before I started in leather) and haven't had a problem with them holding up.

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Yes, walking the tool helps with those marks. Just a little practice will clear those right up.

That's a pretty big carving and it will distort and want to curl as it dries. In a class I was in once Robert Beard recommended that if you needed something to dry flat you needed to put something on top of it to hold it flat as it dries. I didn't ask for details and I'm not sure exactly how you would do that. He was talking about putting the project under a book (at least that's what I thought he was saying) but it seems like it would take forever to dry without the ability for air to circulate. One alternative I just thought of would be to cut your leather oversize, make your carving and then tack it down to a board when complete. You would put the tacks in the margin outside of the part you plan on using on the clock. It should dry flat, then you cut off the excess with the marks from your tacks. Just be careful because most metal tacks are iron based and will react with the wet leather leaving dark discoloration around the holes they make. It will spread a bit from the tack so don't put them so close to your project edge that they ruin it.

Tony, I case my leather first. I dip it in water and put it aside to dry some. It usually goes into a bag to sit overnight in the refrigerator. When I'm ready to work on it I bring it back out and let it dry until it's about ready to carve. That's when I attach either my tape or shelf liner to the back. I then use a slicker to compress the grain side and press it down onto the liner. If the leather has the right moisture content for tooling the liner will stick to it.

Looks good. I see places where your beveller left tool marks but with practice that will clear up. Good work on capturing the shading.

Nice job! Can't imagine making a whole set like that for my wife. It would take me all year.

I wouldn't glue it to the board first, I would do that after a do all the tooling and finishing. When I tool or stamp or carve leather I put either packing tape or plastic shelf lining paper on the back of my project to prevent stretch while working the leather. I then let it dry when I'm done, often clamping it into the desired shape or pinning down the edges so it doesn't curl while drying. Once dry I remove the tape or shelf liner. Then I would glue it to the board in the clock. Hope this makes sense, Bob

Looks perfectly functional and looks nice too.

Hi Tony, A 6/7 ounce leather is probably going to have the same problem as the lighter leather. Because leather gets stretchy and formable when cased, your tooling and stamping will cause some distortions to make the leather curl, and the process of drying can also make leather curl into strange shapes. It's just less of a problem with the thicker leathers. If I were making a clock I would glue the leather to a wooden backing inside the box. It would allow me to use the thinner leather and not have to worry about it distorting over time. If you absolutely didn't want to or couldn't glue the leather to a backing, you could clamp the edges of the project flat while it dries. The leather should hold the form or shape you clamp it in while drying. Hope this helps, Bob

That looks pretty nice Thor!

Thank you all! To answer the questions about the back, that is a new Barry King geometric called a 'Diamond Contour' stamp. I got it at the last Sheridan show but I see he does have them on his website now. Bob

Happy New Year to you too Ray, good to see you here.

Hello Eberk, I don't think you could go wrong starting with Barry King tools. Whether you are looking for bevellers for floral work or basketweaves and geometrics he has much higher quality than what you currently have (in my opinion anyway) and the prices aren't that much more than the Tandy Pro-series prices. Bob

I think it looks pretty good. It looks like you've got the moisture content of your leather right because you are getting good burnishing. I agree with corkscrew about sharpening your knife and practicing making smooth cuts. That will help you. Also, learning to walk a beveller takes time and gluing the project down will help hold it still, but even on larger projects it will still take practice to get a smooth bevel. Great effort for a first project though! Welcome to the forum. Bob

Fantastic work!

Here's my opinion from an artistic standpoint: I think it depends on the look you are trying to achieve with your work. How do you intend to finish this piece? Will you be dying the flowers and vines? If there is some color or dye that will help to make the vinework and flowers stand out from the background of the piece, you would probably be OK leaving the background areas alone. The background tool is usually used to help offset the floral carving from the rest of the leather especially when using antiques. There are techniques like inverted carving when you leave the 'background' areas natural or un-tooled. However, usually people dye the tooled areas to make them stand out. We're it me I would matte those areas down with something to get contrast between my floral carving and the rest of the piece. It would give more dimension and depth to your piece and for most potential customers that would translate to more eye appeal. However, if you are going for something more historically accurate (and that is your target market) then a non-backgrounded piece might make more sense. Just my two cents, Bob

Thank you gentlemen. I'm looking forward to making another one with conchos.

This was a Christmas present ordered by the head instructor at my Karate school, so I did have some pressure to get this one right😀 It is a clutch wallet and he wanted a dark color with bright conchos. We came up with using the conchos for flower centers. He was thrilled with how it turned out.

It's not uncommon to make a belt out of only a single layer of leather with no lining. That kind of belt effectively has a suede back because the flesh side is toward the body. The belt I'm currently wearing has been my daily wear belt for over a decade and it's burnished the flesh side a bit but it still holds in place very well. Never felt the need to roughen up the flesh side either, it holds by friction just fine.

Dougster, as someone who has been working directly with customer's in various roles over the past 25 years, I will emphatically state that the way the manager handled this was TERRIBLE! I've found most people would be just like you and are happy to work things out so that things are fair to all parties. To even things out behind your back (which is kind of what they did) is just wrong.

Nice work Chief! That is a lot to get finished. Congratulations on having your Christmas orders out the door. I still have a purse and a clutch wallet that will probably take me all the way up until Christmas to finish.

Moisture content is a tough thing to learn without being able to see and feel a properly cased piece of leather that someone else has done. You're kind of left to trial and error to find out what works right for you and the environment you tool in. It will take a lot longer for the leather to reach the right moisture if you live in a humid place versus a very dry place like where I live. Your best bet is to try some scrap pieces, moisten them and then let them dry until the color has almost returned to what it was before you got the leather wet. They try using that basket stamp on it. If it's right you should see burnishing, or a significant darkening of the leather, when you stamp it. If you don't and the leather is very pliable or mushy, it's still too wet. If the leather doesn't take the impression, seems hard to move or doesn't burnish it's probably too dry. I find I'm still tooling me leather when it's too wet because I get impatient, and I think that is the most common problem. Try with the scraps and stamp it when you think it's right, see what results you get, then wait another 20-30 minutes and try again. You might be surprised at the results you get waiting a little longer.

Thanks Monica. It's a Wayne Jueschke stamp.

:spoton:Thanks Django, that's what I was assuming but I wasn't sure!