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Bob Blea

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Everything posted by Bob Blea

  1. Bob Blea
    I've never tried using Leather Balm as a resist for antiqing before. I'm surprised how well it did work. I don't think there is much you could do to lighten the overall yellowing the piece has (though I personally like the color) but you might be able to help the background areas. I would try stripping the leather balm from the background areas with denatured alcohol. The darkening in the background areas MIGHT come off with the balm / wax coating but I doubt it. IF you can clean the balm off (and it will take a lot of work) you could then dye or color the background more to your liking, and then reapply the balm. Reapplying the balm might mess up the antique on your tooled work, so be careful. I've done that on occasion when my resist didn't resist well and I got dark spots from antiquing. It's a lot of work and it doesn't always improve things.
  2. Bob Blea
    Now that is a wallet that you don't see every day! I love it!
  3. Bob Blea
    It is definitely tricky stuff. I'm not sure what you are using but I use Tandy Eco-Flo antique and it can be very difficult to get a completely even coat on non-resisted leather. You could try applying a second coat but I've found it can take off some of what you have put down and the more you work it the harder it gets to be even. I have at times used a damp paper towel to wipe across the antique after applying it, but it doesn't look as 'antiqued' when I do that and it's not generally the look I'm trying for (if that makes any sense) so I don't do it often.
  4. Bob Blea
    You could probably give the leather a few good thick coats of Resolene front and back to make it pretty darn near waterproof. Of course it would be really shiny and maybe prone to cracking depending on how thick the coat ends up.
  5. Bob Blea
    I had trouble with Super Shene too so I use Wyosheen now, which is a lacquer product that is pretty much identical to Neat Lac or Clear Lac. I let it dry a minimum of overnight ( 8 hours) but usually it's for a full 24 hours. When I test it with the sponge it normally resists water, so it doesn't need to dry very long after the test if it passes. If I have to recoat with Wyosheen it gets another overnight drying time.
  6. Bob Blea
    No matter what you use for a resist it can be tricky and lead to disappointments like what happened to you. I've had many surprises like that and it's always been because there was some small spot where I didn't get good coverage. My insurance policy is that I take a slightly damp sponge and wipe it over the project after the resist is dry. If the leather under the resisted area darkens at all I know my antique will get through too, so I apply another coat. Once this happens there isn't much you can do to correct it. I have decided to go 'in another direction' on a couple of projects and stripped the resist off using denatured alcohol, then reapplied the antique to that area to get a darker effect and basically make the tooling all the same color. Otherwise, probably your only other options is redoing the project like you said (unfortunately.)
  7. Bob Blea
    Hello and welcome, I will try to answer your questions as best I can. I wouldn't recommend trying to skive leather with a Dremel tool, especially if it's very thin leather. Too easy for it to catch on the bit and get torn up. I would recommend using a knife and for thin leather even that takes some patience, skill and a very sharp knife. Best to practice on some scrap first. For water based glues, there is an advertiser here, Lisa Sorrell, who sells a line of water based glue but I've never used them. She is a very well known boot maker so if she uses them they must be good. For a fabric Nylon would be a good choice. It would handle wear well. And I agree with you, the Horween wallet looks kind of thick compared to the wallet in your first video. It's just a different style and some people prefer this kind of wallet. Hope this helps, Bob
  8. Bob Blea
    Wow, really nice detail.
  9. Bob Blea
    I wasn't able to work on last months project because life interfered and I didn't get much leatherworking time. Things are getting back to normal though and I see something I could use this project for. I have wanted to make a storage case for a tool and this case would work well, I just need to make it a little smaller. Probably about half the size would work, but I'll follow the same basic design.
  10. Bob Blea
    TwinOaks - That is a great idea about the paraffin for practice. I need to give that a try sometime. I can always use practice on my decorative cuts. I also started out with the Leathercraft Manual. Can't recommend it highly enough. Bob
  11. Bob Blea
    First off, I recommend making sure your swivel knife is really sharp. Not sure what kind of knife you have but if it is a Tandy knife it doesn't come properly sharpened. You will also need a way to strop the knife to keep it sharp once you have sharpened it. Having a sharp swivel knife makes it much easier to make smooth flowing cuts. Second, make sure your leather is well cased. See the pinned threads in this forum on casing. Looking at your picture it doesn't look like your moisture content was right in the leather. That also makes a big difference. Now, to the actual cuts. Probably the best way to get good at using the swivel knife is to practice making nice flowing lines. You can do something as simple as making a large flowing 'S', trying to make the cuts a smooth as possible. Next, try to make a cut parallel to your first line. Try to keep the distance consistent between the two lines from beginning to end. Then repeat. Practicing these sorts of cuts helps develop the fine muscle control you will need to make graceful cuts. Also, practice the decorative cuts you see so commonly on flower petals in floral carving. Again, you are making fine cuts that need to flow smoothly towards the flower center and more or less parallel each other. With these sorts of cuts you typically start cutting deeply and fade the cut out as it approaches the flower center. Decorative cuts take a lot of practice to do well, and I still usually practice a bit on scrap to warm up before I do my actual cuts. Hope this helps. Others here will probably have other suggestions too. Bob
  12. Bob Blea
    Thanks for sharing Jim!
  13. Bob Blea
    Actually I have it here at my day job and when I get a few moments I can shove the card into it a few times. I just keep track during the day. It's more of a relaxation technique! My arm would fall off if I tried to do those all at once. I punch round holes in the end of my slots too. I've been told that will help reduce stress on the slits and keep them from tearing with wear.
  14. Bob Blea
    Thanks Joe! If I'm going to sell these I wanted to make sure they were not going to fall apart after a few months. Richard, I intend to keep pushing it to see how it does, but I'm with you. I think 10,000 will be a lifetime for most people.
  15. Bob Blea
    Just an update for everyone. I have tested my pocket through just over 6000 credit card insertions and so far it looks good. I can see a little wear in the pocket lining but no signs the lining is detaching from the leather. I will post more once I have more wear on it.
  16. Bob Blea
    I've made a couple of roper wallets using the ribbon for pockets. I learned to make these in a Chan Geer class and it was opinion that the glue bond was strong enough on its own to hold the pockets in place. After reading the other comments in this thread I decide to put it to the test. I built a small test pocket using just glue to hold the ribbon in place. I took a piece of scrap and made a pocket with two credit card slots, then made the ribbon for the pocket and glued it in using Weldwood contact cement. I then folded the leather over and clamped it in place and let it dry overnight. I'm now in the process of repeatedly sliding a credit card into the lower slot to see how long it takes for it to break. When done properly Weldwood has a very strong bond to leather and I don't think the ribbon will pull away from the leather. I think the ribbon will wear out first but I don't know for certain. For my wear testing I assumed that a heavy user would might use their card three times a day, so I figured three insertions a day every day for a year would work out to about a 1000 cycles per year. That's probably easily twice what an actual user would do so it's probably a good stress test number. I would like it to at least last for ten years so I need it to make at least 10000 cycles to be acceptable, though I would prefer it goes twice that. Right now I've put it through almost 3000 insertions and so far no problems. I'll keep it up and let everyone know the results.
  17. Bob Blea

    Leather Covered Vase

    Bob Blea replied to TJP's topic in Art

    That looks really elegant and it's a great idea! You pulled it off very well.
  18. Bob Blea
    Congratulations Chris, you are off on a wonderful adventure and you will probably need your leatherwork downtime more than ever.
  19. Bob Blea
    I'm going to second Bruce Johnson's comments about Wayne Juschke's stamps. I have several of his geometrics and I think they are the best out there with maybe the exception of Robert Beard. I love the ones I have and try to buy a couple every year.
  20. Bob Blea
    Cool! I may actually start working on it this morning! Thank you for doing this.
  21. Bob Blea
    One thing I notice is that around some of the leaves and flower petals it doesn't look like you've beveled around your swivel knife cuts. I particularly see this on the top petals of both flowers. I'm not sure if it's just the picture or your not getting good depth when you are beveling. It also looks like the leather was maybe too dry when you were working with it. Try to get deeper swivel knife cuts and make sure you are casing the leather well before you carve. Check out Hidepounder's pinned tutorial here on casing as good casing will make your leather much easier to work with and give you better relief. Keep it up you're off to a good start!
  22. Bob Blea
    Count me in. I need to work on making different items with different techniques. It would be a good challenge each month.
  23. Bob Blea
    Just like the others I want to say thanks for taking the time to make these patterns.
  24. Bob Blea
    Merry Christmas to you too Ray, and to everyone here on LW. Thank you all for your help and guidance over the past years.
  25. Bob Blea
    Dwight, I defer to your experience. I've only made two purse straps both unlined, and they do seem to be holding up but they were smooth leather. Neither was sealed on the flesh side, though I was once advised by a saddle maker to use leather balm on the flesh side to protect it and smooth it down. Would you make the same recommendation for a belt? The only ones I've made are unlined as well and I've got one coming up and I wondered if I should try to treat the flesh side. My personal belt (10+ years old) is holding up OK.
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