Bob Blea

Thanks all! I've learned something today. Bob

It sounds like your using the rein rounder like a burnisher, like you are burnishing an edge. That makes sense, but I have a question: If you edge the strap on all four corners, don't you end up taking most of the grain surface off the leather? Seems like that would leave the cord kind of weak?

Hello and welcome to the forum! I think this is what you are after. See the #6 post especially. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=35683&hl=quilted#entry220861 Hope that helps! Bob

I'm not sure there is much you can do once it has dried. My wife had something similar happen to a purse when we were at a leather show, and she talked to the people at Bee Natural (who had a booth there) and they had her use one of their leather care products and it worked, but I remember that it was critical that she treat it while it was still wet. I don't remember what product it was (might have been Leather Amore) so you might try contacting them and asking for advice. However, once it's stained and dried there may not be much you can do....

I apologize it took a while to get back to you. The flat spots are probably most noticeable on the flower closest to the camera in the picture. On the petals of that flower the cuts were not smooth rounded curves like you would expect, but instead they have kind of straight edges. I noticed this somewhat on the leaves as well. Bob

I use my Barry King lifters as either a lifter or a undershot beveler. When lifting the petal edge, I usually tilt the tool back on its heel after striking it to lift the petal edge up a bit and get more of a 3D effect. But that's just the way I found that I liked. It may not be the 'right' way. Bob

Hi Bev, I'm not much of a figure carver, and even when I painted in oils I never did well reproducing the human form. They always looked wierd to me and out of proportion. I can see from the picture why the nose would be hard to reproduce. If you try to tool the shadow on the bottom side of the nose it would be easy to make it look like a pig snout! I'm just guessing, but would it be possible to duplicate the shading by lightly dyeing that area, just like they did on the tatoo? From what I understand of tatoo work, doing that kind of shading can be really tough and it takes a skilled artist to pull it off well. Sorry that's not much help, Bob

Not bad for a first attempt at carving and beveling. The bevelling looks a little choppy in places but that will get smoother with practice. The biggest thing I see is that your swivel knife cuts don't look very smooth. Your curves have lots of flat spots in them making your flowers and leaves look a little off. Again, practice will be the big help for you. Try making gentle curving cuts with your swivel knife on some scrap leather, and concentrate on making the curves as smooth as possible. Also, make sure that the knive is actually sharp and well stropped. That will make it much easier to cut smooth lines. Keep it up, your off to a good start! Bob

The Eco-Flo all in one is acting like an antique, so it's getting the dark pigment down in your tooling impressions and making them all equally dark. That's what is interferring with the shading your tooling created (which looks really good by the way.) I've had that happen sometimes too with figure carving which I don't do very much of, partially for that reason. You could just oil it, which would give a more uniform result and still leave your tooling shading intact, or you could actually paint it with either dyes or acrylic paints, which ends up giving you a completely different effect. Maybe some of the others here that are more experienced with figure carving pieces like this have suggestions on how they antique or color their pieces for the best results...

Where are you located? There are several smaller leather distributors around the US, like Sheridan Leather Outfitters in Sheridan, WY, or Panhandle Leather in Amarillo, TX, that are good to deal with and may be close to you. I like dealing with Sheridan Leather Outfitters when I can. Bob

Hello, For this particular project I'm not sure there is much you can do. What did you use to paint it with? If you like the shading on a figure carving and don't want to change it with a paint or antique, you could try just oiling the leather. The oil would darken everything a bit but it would leave the burnishing much the same as it was after tooling. You could try it on some scrap and see if that gives you the effect you are after. Hope this helps, Bob

In the leather tools section there are a couple of posts on knife sharpening but those are all (I think) about round knives or common knives. On the Leather Wranglers site they have instructions for sharpening one of their SK-3 swivel knives, but the info there would apply to any type of swivel knife. See the link below. http://www.leatherwranglers.com/tips.html

One suggestion I would make is that your leather may be too wet when you are tooling it. That will sometimes cause the tool marks you are seeing. When you case your leather let it dry again until its almost back to its normal color before you try to tool it. Bob

It's normal for Neatsfoot oil to darken leather. Some people here use Olive Oil to condition their leather because it apparently doesn't darken the leather or doesn't darken in very much, but I've never tried it. However, I've never noticed my leather getting darker just because I've cased it for a long time. Some leather just gets darker than other pieces, and also sunlight can naturally darken leather, so exposure to bright lights can make leather noticably darker too. But every piece of leather takes to dyeing and antiquing a little differently, so you never quite get the same effect from time to time. I like how your leaf turned out. Bob

I can't say from experience, but I would not trust it to completely eliminate the problem. You need to buff off the excess dye first, then apply the finish coat of Clear Lac or whatever you like. Finish coats will wear off eventually, so any dye particles you didn't buff off would eventually be exposed. However, a more immediate problem could be that any dye particles you don't buff off can get caught up in your finish when you apply it and get smeared around. If you aren't dyeing a single solid color you could get bleeding to other areas. Bob

I use the Eco-Flo antique gels pretty much exclusively. That's what I used on the picture I posted earlier. You will need to use a resist (clear lac, Wyosheen, etc) to get the effect in my picture though, otherwise the antique will darken all of the leather, not just your depressions. Bob

I'm still admiring mine too! But one of my goals for 2014 is to use one as an inlay in a notebook. I'll post it here when I get it made. Bob

How cold is it where you are working? I don't know about Super sheene but some products don't dry/set well when the temperatures are cool, say 65 or below.

Hello, How long are you letting the Hi-lite sit on the super sheene before you wipe it off? I'm having similar problems with Wyosheen not resisting that well, but I think it was because I am not wiping it off quick enough and it is penetrating the resist. I'm not sure about that though, and still need to do some testing on some scraps to be sure. Bob

Hard to imagine people sitting on a great work of art like that. It looks awesome! Bob

Glad to help Khalid, Merry Christmas to you too!

Got two notebooks left to go, both of which only need some stamping on the back to finish them. I think that will get done tonight. Only one of those has to be shipped so it's the high priority, but I can get both of them done in time. I want to make a small sheath for a very pointy sissors my wife uses as a stocking stuffer, but it remains to be seen if I can sneak it in. Bob

Welcome to the forum! Good luck with saddle school. That's one of those things I would do if time and money were no object. Bob

Wow! Amazing work as always. Thanks for inspiring the rest of us. Bob

Yeah, my wife has done that a couple of times with her ID wallet. It's about that same size. Nice work.