Bob Blea

Monica, I think any piece large enough for you to have space for your other hand to hold the leather in place while your primary hand skives will work great with a round knife. For my pen keepers it was just really hard to get a finger to hold it securely with the larger blade. But for regular thicknesses of leather on anything as big as your describing I think you would find a round knife to work great. Personally I would buy a round knife first because it is more of a multi-tasker. And I do really like both my LW knives. They are made from the same steel as the swivel knives and they hold their edge just as well as them too. My knives require very little maintenance.

OK, my two cents worth... I have a Leather Wranglers round knife. It's a little different design from the standard round knife and it has a pull cut ability which makes it very easy to cut precise corners. It is a fantastic knife and it does just about everything I need it to do, including skiving in most cases. However, when I'm making my notebooks I make a pen keeper out of a 2.5 inch by .5 inch strip of pigskin and I skive the edges before rolling them over and gluing them down. Because of the size it was really hard to skive with a round knife. After seeing this demonstrated by Paul Zalesak at Leather Wranglers, I was sold on their Tranto skiver. It also works well as a trim knife, but it works great for me for skiving small parts or areas. My round knife is a necessity for my work, the skiver is more of a luxury but it definitely solved a problem. Bob

Resolene would probably be a better choice. Mix it 50/50 with water and apply several light coats. It will give you more water resistance than super shene but it won't make it water proof. It is usually the product people choose that make motorcycle gear that has to get wet from time to time.

Krusatyr, welcome to the forum! Often times it is because the leather doesn't respond well to burnishing. Chrome tanned leathers will not burnish well where vegetable tanned leather (carving leather) burnishes easily. Sometimes it just a lack of knowledge...

Check out this thread: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=62845 Mike has information on the current Chan Geer class coming up April 22nd and on the other classes he has. You can PM him too.

Hello cinatas, I have a little experience like this. Every once in a while I need to strip off the resist I use when antiquing (because of a mistake in not getting even coverage with the resist) and I use denatured alcohol. My resist in Wyosheen which is a lacquer and is different from what you are using in that it mostly sits on top of the leather. I think your Tan Kote penetrates more. I have to use several applications of the alcohol and quite a bit of patience to get my resist layer off, and I have to be careful not to damage the grain surface of the leather but rubbing too hard. In your case I think it will take a couple of tries too, so you might try stripping it again. Also, you might be able to use plain water as a test for how well you have stripped the surface. After stripping let the seat dry, then try brushing it with a damp sponge and watching how well the seat absorbs the water. If it doesn't seem to be discoloring / penetrating that will tell you the dye will have trouble penetrating too. This might be hard to tell since the seat is mostly black now, but it might give you an idea if your stripping is having any effect. If the dye did penetrate somewhat into all areas, just reapplying might even things out but it would still be hard to get an even tone. Could maybe get it pretty close. It's certainly worth a try rather than tossing it. Not sure if this will help, but it's all I can add to the subject.

How is that belt stitched? It almost looks like it's buckstitched but with thread instead of lace.

I don't blame you, that is a great find! Thanks for posting the pictures.

I don't know myself but you might try posting this in the braiding forum. Someone there can probably point you in the right direction.

I've got a similar set from Harbor Freight here in the US. They work great for punching holes and can't beat the price!

Cheryl, one other thought: If you do find a new finish, make sure to test it on your paints first. It's possible that whatever solvent your new finish has could affect the paints your using and start removing them. Just a warning to be careful and test it out first. Bob

I use Wyoshene which is the same as Clear Lac. It's a laquer based product. Tandy sells Satin Sheen and Super Sheen, both of which are acrylic products (I think) but they take multiple coats and I always had trouble making them work well.

Very cool!

Yeah, I've have to say that isn't the strap I would bring to the Gospel gig. But nice work, glad he likes it.

Hello Glen, So I have a couple of comments after looking over your listing. First, your listing is for a very specific customer. It's a premade western floral leather belt for someone of a specific waist size. So even if I am someone looking for a western floral belt, if I'm not that exact size I have to look elsewhere. A better way to list a belt would be made to order where they specify their waist size and maybe even specify their choice in hardware. Another problem I see is that you only have two items listed and no sales history. That will make some potential buyers hesitant to purchase. Also, it seems to keep you hidden somewhat in Etsy's search listings. I was once given the advice that you don't seem to get much attention on Etsy till you have around 20 listings, and for some reason it seems to be true. You will also need to do some marketing, making sure you have appropriate tags on your listing and promoting it on places like Facebook. It takes work to get your listing to stand out among all the other belts being sold on Etsy. Another thing that might be limiting you is the fact that you will only ship to the US. About half of my Etsy sales have been outside the US. On price, you might be too high for the kind of market Etsy seems to be changing into. There is a lot of dissatisfaction with their recent rules changes regarding what constitutes hand made, and there is a lot of cheap stuff out there that you are competing with. While there are people on Etsy looking for high quality, there are lots of people looking for a good deal on something that is cheap because it's hand made. You can price for the high quality crowd just realize it takes a while for those specific customers to come along. Again, marketing will help to get your product in front of those customers that will pay for a $150 belt versus those just looking for the unusual $50 (or less) belt. You do want to look at what other belts being sold on Etsy are selling for but keep in mind some people are listing belts that really aren't hand made, or that they made by an embosser, and they can and will list for less than your truly hand made product. You can't compete with them on lowest price. Those are just my opinions. Good luck! As with any business, getting to your first customers is always a challenge. Bob

Thank you Tom. I'm just at the point of needing a template like this for a project.

I agree with everyone here. Explain to him his options and make it clear what the charges are (and absolutely you should be charging for all of this extra work) and let him decide if he is willing to pay for the additional work. Even if you provide a guarantee or warranty with your products, there is nothing wrong with the bag as delivered that would warrant replacement or repair.

Hello novaroper, I'm going to assume that you want to antique the piece you have now that it's tooled. You are going to need a product called a resist, either an acrylic (like Resolene or Super Shene) or a lacquer (like Clear Lac or Wyosheen) to cover the areas you don't want to have antique on. Let that coat dry overnight, then test it with a damp sponge. If the leather discolors you need a second coat, and for the acrylics you often need multiple coats. Once that is applied, you can use your antique. The resist will keep the leather in the areas it covers looking more natural though I've found I will still get some slight darkening with the Eco Flo antiques. I don't have experience yet with Fiebings antique paste. Hope this helps, Bob

That is really cool! I like it!

Don't feel bad. Roses are actually one of the harder flowers to carve and for the tools you have, you are doing pretty good. Keep at it!

I found pictures that will show the difference. The first one is a notebook with Tandy Eco Flow Saddle Tan (I believe) with no resist. It's actually a little darker than it appears in this picture. The second is the same antique where it has been resisted with Wyoshene. The second one is considerably lighter overall but got lots of darkening in the tooled areas.

Hello and welcome to the forum! I've had results similar to that using Tandy Eco-Flo gel antiques. With either Saddle Tan or Tan I get colors very similar to that if I don't use a resist while antiquing. If I do use a resist (I use Wyosheen from Sheridan Leather Outfitters, but Clear Lac is the same thing) the leather ends up a lighter color but I'll still get the dark antique settling into the tooling. I think the Saddle Tan without a resist will end up looking close to what you show in your picture there. Hope this helps, Bob

Hello Kari, There are certain parts of a hide that aren't very good for belt making. The belly part is very stretchy and it doesn't make for good belts, and there are areas around where the legs connected to the body and really aren't good for anything. Stretchy leather will slowly grow in length as the user wears it so the belt won't be very effective after a while. I don't think you need to worry about a particular brand of leather unless that leather feels stretchy or if it seems to be hard or brittle because it wasn't tanned very well. If it seems like it might crack if you fold it over for the buckle, then it's probably a bad sign. Applying Neatsfoot oil might help in that case. I can't help much with the question on dyeing because I don't do it much and have no experience with beeswax. When I dye I do apply Neatsfoot oil afterwords to help set the dye. My final coat is usually an acrylic though. Hope this helps, Bob

I use Weldwood and I haven't tried gluing that particular kind of leather, but I have found I need to rough up my leathers with more than just sand paper. I use a small wood rasp and really tear up the grain surface fibers on my pigskin linings. That seems to make it glue with Weldwood very well.

RStevenson, you could grind the profile down on your scratch awl to make it into a diamond shape. You would just need a grinding stone to work the round profile into a diamond shape with flat, equal sides. Then you could use fine grit wet/dry sandpaper to polish the blade for use in leather.